Second anniversary of ChatGPT: what will the AI ​​generation (and the world) look like in 2 years?

It’s now been a little over two years since ChatGPT first appeared on November 30, 2022. At the time of its launch, OpenAI considered ChatGPT a demo project designed to learn how people would use the tool and the larger GPT 3.5 under -jacent. language model (LLM).

An LLM is a model based on transformer architecture first introduced by Google in 2017, which uses self-attention mechanisms to process and generate human-like text in tasks such as natural language understanding. It was more than a successful demonstration project! OpenAI was as surprised as anyone by the rapid adoption of ChatGPT, which reached one hundred million users in two months.

Although maybe they shouldn’t have been so surprised. Futurist Kevin Kelly, also co-founder of Wired, informed in 2014, that “the business plans of the next 10,000 startups are easy to predict: take X and add AI. It’s a big deal, and now it’s here.

Kelly said this several years before ChatGPT. Yet that is exactly what happened. His prediction along the same lines is equally remarkable. Wired article that says: “By 2024, Google’s main product will not be search but AI. » It could be debated whether this is true, but it could be true soon. Gemini is Google’s flagship AI chat product, but AI is pervasive in its search and likely all of its other products, including YouTube, TensorFlow, and Google Workspace’s AI features.

The bot heard around the world

The headlong rush of AI startups that Kelly predicted really accelerated after the launch of ChatGPT. You could call this the big bang moment of AI, or the robot heard round the world. And it has jump-started the field of generative AI – the broad category of LLMs for text and diffusion models for image creation. This has reached the peak of hype, or what Gartner calls “peak inflated expectations” in 2023.

The 2023 hype may have subsided, but only a little. By some estimatesthere are up to 70,000 AI companies worldwide, representing a 100% increase since 2017. This is a true Cambrian explosion of companies seeking new uses for AI technology . Kelly’s 2014 predictions about AI startups proved prophetic.

On the contrary, huge venture capital investments continue to flow into startups seeking to exploit AI. The New York Times reported that investors flocked $27.1 billion in U.S. AI startups in the second quarter of 2024 alone, “accounting for nearly half of all U.S. startup funding during that period” . Statist added: “In the first nine months of 2024, AI-related investments accounted for 33% of total investments in venture-backed companies headquartered in the United States. This figure is up from 14% in 2020 and could increase further in the years to come. » The vast potential market is an attraction for both startups and established companies.

A recent Reuters Institute investigation of consumers reported that individual usage of ChatGPT was low in six countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Only 1% used it daily in Japan, rising to 2% in France and the United Kingdom and 7% in the United States. This slow adoption could be attributed to several factors, ranging from lack of awareness to concerns about the security of personal information. Does this mean that the impact of AI is overestimated? This is hardly true, as most respondents expected the AI ​​generation to have a significant impact on all sectors of society in the next five years.

The corporate sector tells an entirely different story. As reported by VentureBeat, an industry analyst firm GAI Previews estimates that 33% of companies will have AI generation applications in production next year. Businesses often have clearer use cases, such as improving customer service, automating workflows, and increasing decision-making, that lead to faster adoption than among individual consumers . For example, the healthcare industry is using AI to capture notes and financial services are using the technology to improve fraud detection. GAI further reported that generation AI is the top budget priority for 2025 for CIOs and CTOs.

What’s next? From the AI ​​generation to the dawn of superintelligence

The uneven deployment of the AI ​​generation raises questions about what lies ahead for adoption in 2025 and beyond. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, suggest that artificial general intelligence (AGI) – or even superintelligence – could emerge in the next two to ten years, potentially reshaping our world. AGI is considered the ability of AI to understand, learn, and perform any intellectual task that a human can, thereby mimicking human cognitive abilities across a wide range of domains.

Sparks of AGI in 2025

As reported by VarietyAltman said we could see the first glimmers of AGI as early as 2025. He was probably talking about AI agents, in which you can give an AI system a complicated task and it will autonomously use different tools to accomplish it.

For example, Anthropic recently introduced a computer usage feature that allows developers to ask chatbot Claude to “use computers the way people do: looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons and typing text. This feature allows developers to delegate tasks to Claude, such as scheduling meetings, responding to emails or analyzing data, with the robot interacting with computer interfaces as if it were a human user.

In a demonstration, Anthropic showed how Claude could autonomously plan a day trip by interacting with computer interfaces – a first look at how AI agents can oversee complex tasks.

In September, Salesforce said it “ushers in the third wave of the AI ​​revolution, helping companies deploy AI agents alongside human workers.” They see agents focusing on repetitive, lower-value tasks, allowing people to focus on more strategic priorities. These agents could allow human workers to focus on innovation, solving complex problems or managing customer relationships.

With features like Anthropic’s computer usage capabilities and the integration of AI agents by Salesforce and others, the emergence of AI agents is becoming one of the hottest innovations expected in the field. According to Gartner33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI by 2028, up from less than 1% in 2024, enabling 15% of daily business decisions to be made autonomously.

While businesses have much to gain from agentic AI, the concept of “ambient intelligence” suggests an even broader transformation, in which interconnected technologies seamlessly improve everyday life.

In 2016, I written in TechCrunch on ambient intelligence, as “digital interconnectivity to produce information and services that improve our lives”. This is made possible by the dynamic combination of mobile computing platforms, cloud and big data, neural networks and deep learning using graphics processing units (GPUs) to produce artificial intelligence (AI). .

At the time, I said it would take time to connect these technologies and cross the boundaries needed to deliver seamless, seamless, and persistent experiences in context. It’s fair to say that eight years later, that vision is close to being realized.

The five levels of AGI

Based on the OpenAI roadmap, the journey to AGI involves progression through increasingly capable systems, with AI agents (level 3 of 5) taking a significant step toward autonomy.

Altmann declared that the initial impact of these agents will be minimal. Although ultimately, AGI “will be more intense than people think.” This suggests that we should soon expect substantial changes that will require rapid societal adjustments to ensure fair and ethical integration.

How will advances in AGI reshape industries, economies, workforces, and our personal experience of AI in the years to come? We can assume that the near-term future, driven by advances in AI, will be both exciting and tumultuous, leading to both breakthroughs and crises.

Balancing advancements and disruptions

Advances could include AI-enabled drug discovery, precision agriculture, and practical humanoid robots. Although advances promise transformative benefits, the path forward is not without risks. Rapid adoption of AI could also lead to significant disruption, including job losses. This shift could be significant, especially if the economy enters recessionwhen companies seek to reduce their payroll while remaining efficient. If this were to happen, social pushback against AI, including mass protests, would be possible.

As the AI ​​revolution moves from generative tools to autonomous agents and beyond, humanity finds itself at the dawn of a new era. Will these advances elevate human potential or present challenges we are not yet ready to face? There will probably be both. Over time, AI will not just become part of our tools: it will seamlessly integrate into the very fabric of life, becoming ambient and reshaping the way we work, connect, and experience the world.

Gary Grossman is senior vice president of the technology practice at Edelmann and Global Head of the Edelman AI Center of Excellence.