📚 How AI Dominated 2024
2024 will be remembered as the year AI rose above the clickbait craze and became a household name.
From the moment Samsung launched its AI-powered S24 series in January, to Apple’s massive Siri + ChatGPT integration in December, we witnessed an unprecedented mainstreaming of AI tech.
Seemingly every-day-of-the-year we’ve had small and huge releases.
It can be overwhelming, even for me.
But 2024 will remain a year I’ll never forget for the amount of opportunity & growth, in abundance, available for the taking.
⛰️ The Peaks
This year saw transformative advancements in AI, led by OpenAI’s Sora (even though it took them nearly a year to release it), a groundbreaking text-to-video model that revolutionized the concept of video creation while reigniting debates around digital authenticity and creative ownership.
Healthcare experienced a leap forward with DeepMind’s Med-PaLM 2 surpassing human doctors in diagnostics and the Cerebras-Mayo Clinic partnership leveraging AI to analyze millions of patient records, predicting conditions months ahead of traditional methods.
And in consumer tech, Google’s Gemini and Circle to Search changed how we access information in one of many ways…
While Walmart’s Adaptive Retail strategy highlighted AI’s potential to reshape shopping experiences.
📉 The Valleys
It wasn’t all smooth sailing (is it ever?).
The disconnect between business AI adoption and consumer satisfaction became very real.
Studies showed that while 86% of companies implemented AI customer service, only 32% of consumers reported satisfaction.
And this reality check forced many companies to adopt hybrid approaches with confusion.
Not to mention…
The FTC’s Operation AI Comply revealed widespread deceptive practices in AI marketing, leading to $1.2 billion in fines and highlighting the need for stronger oversight.
This regulatory intervention, while necessary, temporarily slowed AI deployment in several sectors.
🦋 The Transformation
The most profound change wasn’t in any single breakthrough but in AI’s quiet integration into everyday life.
With 92% of global enterprises adopting AI and generating $1.2 trillion in economic impact, 2024 marked the year AI moved from experimental to essential.
And I can attest to this firsthand.
Not only have I used this technology niche to build my own businesses, I’ve been turning to AI tools, automations, and building with AI first – and it’s been both fun & profitable.
☀️ AI’s standout moments by the numbers
A LOT happened in 2024… let’s look at some of the biggest moments of the year..
0️⃣1️⃣ January
- Samsung’s Galaxy AI: The S24 series introduced real-time translation in 13 languages during phone calls, plus AI-powered camera features that can remove objects, recompose shots, and generate missing parts of photos. This marked the first mainstream phone designed with AI as its primary selling point.
- 35% Global AI Adoption: Companies faced with labor shortages turned to AI, with manufacturing and customer service seeing the biggest uptake. This led to a 23% increase in operational efficiency for adopting companies.
- CES 2024: The show demonstrated AI integration in over 3,500 consumer products, from smart home devices that predict your needs to AI-powered health monitors that can detect early signs of illness with 95% accuracy.
- NVIDIA’s RTX Update: The new graphics cards featured dedicated AI processors that could handle both gaming and creative workloads simultaneously, with a 40% performance increase over previous generations.
- Cerebras-Mayo Clinic: Their partnership processed over 115 million patient records to create diagnostic models that can predict certain conditions up to 18 months before traditional diagnosis methods.
0️⃣2️⃣ February
- OpenAI’s Sora: The text-to-video model preview could create photorealistic videos up to 60 seconds long from simple text descriptions, with the ability to maintain consistent characters and complex narratives throughout the video.
- Google Gemini: ‘Circle to Search’ allowed users to search by circling anything on their screen, while the AI could understand context and provide relevant information about objects, text, or images in real-time.
- Groq Chat: Their new LPU (Language Processing Unit) chip processed 100 tokens per second, making AI responses instant rather than the typical 5-10 second delay of other chatbots.
- Meta’s Code Llama: The model achieved a 96% success rate in completing complex programming tasks across 12 programming languages, approaching GPT-4’s 98% benchmark.
- Figure AI Funding: The $675M funding round valued the company at $2.6B and promised humanoid robots capable of complex tasks like warehouse operations and elderly care.
0️⃣3️⃣ March
- NVIDIA GTC: The conference showcased the H200 AI chip, delivering 90% faster AI training than previous generations, while introducing AI-powered tools that reduced game development time by 60% and demonstrated real-time neural graphics for virtual worlds.
- Consumer Rights & AI: Global regulators established the first comprehensive AI consumer protection framework, requiring companies to disclose AI usage, provide opt-out options, and maintain human oversight for critical decisions.
- Homeland Security AI: The roadmap introduced AI-powered border screening that reduced processing times by 75% while increasing threat detection accuracy by 40%, alongside automated cyber threat response systems.
- Customer Service AI: While 86% of companies implemented AI customer service, only 32% of consumers reported satisfaction, leading to a hybrid approach where AI handles initial contact but smoothly transitions to humans for complex issues.
0️⃣4️⃣ April
- Meta’s Llama 3: The new open-source model demonstrated human-level performance in 89% of reasoning tasks, could maintain context over 50,000 tokens, and introduced dynamic memory management for long-term conversations.
- Cognizant-Microsoft Partnership: Their collaboration brought AI tools to 200,000 businesses worldwide, reducing implementation costs by 60% and accelerating digital transformation timelines by 18 months.
- Google Cloud Next: Introduced AI agents that could autonomously handle entire business processes, reducing manual workflow tasks by 70% and improving accuracy by 45%.
- AI Sales Impact: Companies implementing AI in sales saw not only 50% more leads but also 40% faster closing times and 35% higher customer retention rates.
0️⃣5️⃣ May
- GPT-4o: OpenAI’s omni-mode capability processed text, images, and voice simultaneously, understanding context across all three mediums with 97% accuracy, while reducing processing time by 65%.
- Med-PaLM 2: The model achieved 91% accuracy in medical diagnoses across 48 specialties, outperforming human doctors’ average of 85%, particularly excelling in rare disease identification.
- Netflix AI Revenue: Their AI recommendation engine not only generated $1B in revenue but reduced subscriber churn by 32% and increased average viewing time by 45 minutes per user.
0️⃣6️⃣ June
- Apple AI: iOS introduced on-device AI that could process natural language requests without an internet connection, while maintaining privacy through encrypted local processing and achieving 98% accuracy in voice commands.
- Enterprise AI Growth: Fortune 500 companies reported 28% average cost reduction and 35% productivity increase through AI implementation, with 75% adoption rate marking a 40% increase from 2023.
0️⃣7️⃣ July
- SearchGPT: OpenAI’s search engine processed queries 40% faster than traditional search engines, with 85% of users reporting more relevant results and 60% fewer clicks to find desired information.
- Llama 3.1: Meta’s 405B parameter model became the largest open-source AI, achieving performance parity with GPT-4 while requiring 30% less computing power.
- Mistral Large 2: The model matched proprietary AI performance while using 50% less computing resources, making enterprise-grade AI accessible to smaller companies.
- Customer AI Success: Advanced AI systems reduced customer resolution times by 75% while maintaining 98% accuracy in intent recognition and response appropriateness.
0️⃣8️⃣ August
- Ai4 Conference: 4,500 attendees shared case studies showing average ROI of 312% for AI implementations, with 89% of projects reaching production within 6 months.
- AI Market Growth: The 36.6% CAGR represented $223 billion in global AI spending, with small businesses accounting for 45% of new adoptions.
- Wearable AI: The $180B market saw devices that could predict health events 48 hours in advance with 94% accuracy and reduce energy consumption by 40%.
0️⃣9️⃣ September
- Mastercard AI Purchase: The $2.65B Recorded Future acquisition led to 65% faster fraud detection and 89% reduction in false positives for financial transactions.
- FTC AI Comply: The operation resulted in $1.2B in fines for deceptive AI practices and established clear guidelines for AI marketing claims.
- Intuit GenAI: Their system increased tax return accuracy by 37% while reducing preparation time by 55%, handling complex financial scenarios with 96% accuracy.
1️⃣0️⃣ October
- World Summit AI: The summit produced the first global AI ethics framework adopted by 45 countries, establishing standards for AI development and deployment.
- Walmart AI Shopping: Their Adaptive Retail strategy reduced checkout times by 60%, increased inventory accuracy to 99%, and provided personalized recommendations that boosted sales by 28%.
- Logik.io Funding: The $25M Series B accelerated development of AI that reduced sales configuration errors by 85% and shortened quote times by 75%.
1️⃣1️⃣ November
- Google Gemini App: The iPhone app processed requests 3x faster than competitors, with offline capabilities and 40% better battery efficiency.
- Biden’s AI Rules: Executive Order implementation required AI system registration, mandatory safety testing, and created a $2B fund for AI safety research.
- Cloud AI Privacy: New sovereignty solutions enabled companies to use AI while maintaining 100% data control, reducing compliance concerns by 80%.
1️⃣2️⃣ December
- Siri + ChatGPT: The integration transformed Siri into a conversational assistant with 95% task completion rate and support for 95 languages.
- Microsoft AI Dominance: 85% of Fortune 500 companies using Microsoft AI reported 42% average productivity gains and 31% cost reduction.
- Enterprise AI Usage: The 92% adoption rate among global enterprises led to $1.2 trillion in economic impact, with 78% of companies reporting positive ROI within 6 months.
And these were just a FRACTION of the incredible progress this year.
👀 Looking Ahead: 2025 Predictions
As we enter 2025, several trends seem likely I’m bullish on…
📱Multimodal AI Dominance: Following the success of OpenAI’s omni-mode capabilities, 2025 will see AI systems that seamlessly blend text, voice, video, and sensory inputs.
🖥️ AI Infrastructure: The success of companies like Groq suggests 2025 will bring new specialized AI hardware that dramatically reduces costs and energy consumption.
🤖 Personalized AI Agents: The next frontier will be AI that truly understands individual users, acting as personal assistants across all aspects of life. The future is Agentic first.
🌎 Regulatory Maturity: Expect comprehensive global AI governance frameworks, building on 2024’s initial steps.
🏥 Healthcare AI Breakthroughs: With the foundation laid by Med-PaLM 2 and others, 2025 could see the first AI systems approved for autonomous medical diagnosis.
The question is no longer whether AI will transform industries but how quickly and profoundly these changes will occur.
If 2024 was about integration, 2025 will be about optimization and democratization, bringing AI’s benefits to an even wider audience while addressing the challenges and concerns that emerged this year.
As we’ve seen from this year’s developments, the pace of AI advancement isn’t linear – it’s exponential.
There’s A LOT to be excited about.
And I’m not going anywhere for 2025..
I hope you’ve enjoyed the newsletter [whether this is your first or fiftieth], the Podcast, and the content I share because I’m only ramping up to meet the pace in the new year.
And if you’re ready to take action, this is how I can help you:
I run an incredible private community for leaders like you who are interested in AI development and implementing it into their own personal and professional lives.
Right now, it’s open for enrollment.
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In fact, our next office hours is Wednesday, Jan 8th.. don’t miss it!
