2024 has been a transformative period for artificial intelligence (AI), defined by groundbreaking innovations, increased integration into industries, and establishing pivotal regulatory frameworks. Key developments have propelled AI into a new era of operational maturity and ethical consideration.
OpenAI led innovation with several high-profile releases, beginning with GPT-4o in May, a multimodal model capable of generating and interpreting content across various media. This milestone was followed by the launch of o1 and o1-mini in September, culminating in the announcement of o3 in December. Additionally, the Sora project, introduced in February and enhanced as Sora Turbo in December, demonstrated unprecedented capabilities in generating videos from text descriptions. These advancements underscored OpenAI’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI technology.
AI assistants also saw remarkable progress, emphasizing productivity enhancements rather than job replacement. Google introduced Astra, an intelligent assistant for smart devices, and Mariner, a Chrome extension enabling seamless interaction with Gemini. Anthropic advanced its Claude assistant, enabling it to interface with computers as a human would, further bridging the gap between AI and practical usability.
The year also marked a shift in the operationalization of AI technologies. Companies moved from experimentation to deploying production-grade AI solutions, automating critical processes like claims processing in insurance and anomaly detection in financial services. This trend was fueled by clearer regulatory guidelines, fostering the ethical and secure use of AI. Personalization became a central theme as industries harnessed data to deliver tailored experiences, such as dynamic risk assessments in insurance and customized care pathways in healthcare. This blend of efficiency and personalization emerged as a key competitive advantage.
On the regulatory front, 2024 saw the emergence of comprehensive frameworks designed to balance innovation with safety and ethics. The EU AI Act established itself as a landmark regulation. As the year concluded, the focus shifted towards the development of specialized AI systems with enhanced reasoning capabilities. Let’s look at the pivotal moments that defined AI’s trajectory over the past year and hint at what lies ahead in 2025.
Timeline Highlights
| Date | Title | Category | Description |
| 2024-02-15 | Gemini 1.5 | model | The model provides substantially improved performance, achieving a significant advancement in long-context comprehension across multiple modalities. |
| 2024-05-12 | Devin | application | Devin, the world’s first fully autonomous AI software engineer, setting a new benchmark for excellence on the SWE-bench coding evaluation. |
| 2024-05-13 | GPT-4o Launch | model | OpenAI unveils GPT-4o (‘o’ for ‘omni’), a groundbreaking multimodal AI model that seamlessly integrates text and image processing, representing a major leap forward in AI capabilities. |
| 2024-05-13 | Claude 3 Haiku | model | Anthropic reveals a haiku created by Claude 3, showcasing the model’s precision and artistry in language generation. |
| 2024-05-13 | Meta Llama 3.1 Release | model | Meta introduces Llama 3.1, emphasizing enhanced performance and improved language understanding in this latest update to the Llama series. |
| 2024-06-10 | Apple Intelligence | system | At WWDC 2024, Apple unveiled its latest AI system, Apple Intelligence. |
| 2024-07-18 | GPT-4o mini Release | model | OpenAI released GPT-4o mini, a more affordable option with better performance than GPT-3.5 Turbo, offering a 128K context window and advanced multilingual functionality. |
| 2024-07-20 | Claude 3.5 Sonnet | model | Anthropic showcases the poetic capacity of Claude 3.5 with a sonnet, reflecting the model’s capability in structured creative expression. |
| 2024-08-01 | EU AI Act Enters into Force | policy | Anthropic highlights Claude 3.5’s poetic talent by presenting a sonnet, demonstrating the model’s proficiency in structured and creative expression. |
| 2024-09-09 | GSA AI Framework | policy | General Services Administration completes and releases a framework to prioritize critical emerging technologies, such as generative AI, within a secure cloud environment. |
| 2024-09-12 | o1 and o1-mini Release | model | OpenAI unveils o1 and o1-mini, advanced large language models designed with reinforcement learning to handle complex reasoning tasks. |
| 2024-10-30 | OMB AI Acquisition Policy | policy | The Office of Management and Budget issues M-24-18, a policy aimed at promoting the responsible procurement of AI across Federal agencies. |
| 2024-11-25 | Model Context Protocol | model | Anthropic launched a protocol designed to optimize context usage in large language models, advancing conversational complexity while strengthening safety features. |
| 2024-12-01 | 12 Days of OpenAI | event | OpenAI kicked off the ‘12 Days of Shipmas,’ a daily event unveiling new AI features and tools, including the debut of ChatGPT Pro and the Sora video generation model. |
| 2024-12-09 | Sora Video Generation Model | model | OpenAI unveils Sora, a video generation model capable of producing high-quality videos from text prompts. |
| 2024-12-10 | NeurIPS 2024 | event | The Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems highlights cutting-edge research in machine learning and artificial intelligence, providing a platform for presenting significant advancements in the field. |
| 2024-12-11 | Gemini 2.0 | model | Google’s latest AI model designed for the agentic era reflects a shift toward more autonomous and proactive systems. The term “agentic era” refers to a phase in AI development where models go beyond passive responses to actively perform tasks, make decisions, and manage workflows with minimal human intervention, emphasizing adaptability and self-directed capabilities. |
| 2024-12-18 | Github Copilot Free in VSCode | application | Copilot Free provides users with the option to select either Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet model or OpenAI’s GPT-4o model. |
| 2024-12-20 | o3 and o3-mini Preview | model | OpenAI introduces the o3 and o3-mini models, successors to the o1 series, promising substantial improvements in AI reasoning and interaction capabilities, with a public release anticipated in early 2025. |
Key Insights from Influential Voices in 2024
As of 2024, nearly two-thirds of organizations are using gen AI for tasks like automating customer service, analyzing data, and streamlining operations — double the adoption rate from 2023, according to a global survey by consulting firm McKinsey.
In 2024, nearly two-thirds of organizations are leveraging generative AI for tasks such as automating customer service, data analysis, and operational streamlining—an adoption rate that has doubled since 2023, according to a global survey conducted by consulting firm McKinsey. “As generative AI adoption accelerates, survey respondents report measurable benefits and increased mitigation of the risk of inaccuracy. A small group of high performers lead the way. Also, responses suggest that companies are now using AI in more parts of the business. Half of respondents say their organizations have adopted AI in two or more business functions, up from less than a third of respondents in 2023 “
As we enter 2025, artificial intelligence remains a centerpiece of global innovation, with leaders in technology, finance, and business highlighting its transformative potential and challenges. AI continues to be likened to historical innovations such as the printing press and the internet. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, described its potential impact in his April 8 annual letter to shareholders:
“We are completely convinced the consequences will be extraordinary and possibly as transformational as some of the major technological inventions of the past several hundred years. Think the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, computing and the Internet, among others.”
Bill Gates echoed this sentiment, writing in his Gates Notes blog in November 2024:
“AI will utterly change how we live our lives, online and off.”
The 2025 Horizon – AI Agents Come of Age
AI Agents – computer programs capable of thinking, learning, and acting autonomously – are emerging as the defining AI trend to watch.
Pascal Bornet, an award-winning expert and keynote speaker, underscores this point. Bornet is also the author of IRREPLACEABLE: The Art of Standing Out in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, where he distills his research into practical strategies. He predicts that 2025 will exceed current expectations:
“Agentic AI will redefine autonomy. These systems won’t just respond — they’ll take initiative, anticipate needs and act independently, solving problems before we even notice them, becoming indispensable collaborators in both work and life.”
Pascal Bornet
Another key theme is that companies harnessing AI will enjoy a major competitive edge. 2025 AI Business Predictions by PwC states:
“AI adoption is progressing at a rapid clip, across PwC and in clients in every sector. 2025 will bring significant advancements in quality, accuracy, capability and automation that will continue to compound on each other, accelerating toward a period of exponential growth.”
Looking Ahead
In the author’s opinion, the road to 2025 is poised to spotlight autonomous agents, higher operational costs, the expansion of AI-powered robotics into daily life, and tougher regulations. Businesses that embrace these shifts early may gain the upper hand, while those that lag in AI adoption or fail to comply with new regulations risk being left behind. As Arthur C. Clarke once observed, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (Clarke, 1973), and this transformation mirrors the societal leap depicted in Asimov’s “I, Robot,” where businesses and society gradually adapted to robotic integration. Just as the Three Laws of Robotics provided a framework for human-robot interaction in Asimov’s world, upcoming AI regulations will establish crucial guidelines for the ethical deployment of autonomous systems. The parallel between science fiction and reality becomes even more striking as we witness the emergence of AI systems that, like the positronic brains in Asimov’s works, must balance efficiency with ethical constraints while operating within increasingly complex regulatory frameworks.
References:
- Asimov, I. (1950). I, Robot. Gnome Press.
- Clarke, A. C. (1973). Profiles of the future: An inquiry into the limits of the possible (Rev. ed.). Harper & Row.
- Smith, R. F. (2024). The Future of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Retrieved from https://robertsmith.com/blog/the-future-of-artificial-intelligence/
- Smith Institute. (2023). 2023 Trends in AI, Machine Learning and beyond. Retrieved from https://www.smithinst.co.uk/insights/2023-trends-in-ai-ml-and-beyond/
This article was written by Dr. Jasmin (Bey) Cowin, Associate Professor and U.S. Department of State English Language Specialist (2024). As a columnist for Stankevicius, she writes on Nicomachean Ethics: Insights at the Intersection of AI and Education. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
