To say that 2023 was the year of artificial intelligence would be the understatement of, well, the year.
From Nvidia (NVDA) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) to Microsoft (MSFT) and OpenAI, Silicon Valley couldn’t get enough of generative AI. Listen in on any corporate earnings call, and you’d hear CEOs like Amazon’s (AMZN) Andy Jassy, Meta’s (META) Mark Zuckerberg, Intel’s (INTC) Pat Gelsinger, and AMD’s (AMD) Lisa Su tout their companies’ AI capabilities.
Heck, even Wendy’s (WEN) got in on the action, adding a generative AI assistant to its drive-through in May as part of a test program. The fast-food chain is expanding it to more locations in 2024.
AI might have been the most important story of 2023, but it actually started to gain steam in November 2022 when OpenAI released ChatGPT. The chatbot quickly became the fastest-growing app in history to that point, reaching 100 million monthly users in just two months.
Nevertheless, here are some of the highlights from the biggest story of 2023: the generative AI explosion.
January:
On the heels of ChatGPT’s success, Microsoft, in January, announced it was investing $10 billion in OpenAI over several years. In February, with rumors swirling that Microsoft was set to launch its own AI chatbot powered by ChatGPT, Google debuted its Bard bot. The unveiling, however, was light on details. Days later, Microsoft took the wraps off of its Bing chatbot and new Edge browser. Both Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the stage, explaining the partnership and how the two companies would bring generative AI to Microsoft’s customers.
March:
Google jumped in, opening up access to Bard to a limited number of users. The move was largely seen as a means for Google to keep pace with one of its biggest competitors in the tech space. Not to be outdone, in March, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, announced AI was the company’s largest investment.
April:
Google announced that it was bringing together its Brain AI team from Google Research and DeepMind to form a new AI-first organization: Google DeepMind. That same month Amazon announced its Bedrock platform, giving enterprise customers access to generative AI foundation models and its own Titan foundation models.
May:
Google kept pouring on the news. It opened up its Bard chatbot to the public. It also launched its Search Generative Experience, a generative AI-powered version of Google Search, during its I/O developer conference. Microsoft then fired back by revealing that it was bringing its AI-powered Windows Copilot to Windows 11. Oh, and Nvidia’s market capitalization briefly topped $1 trillion for the first time, cementing its status as the AI chip leader.
July:
As AI continued to generate headlines, the Biden administration announced that it secured agreements from Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI to abide by voluntary rules related to AI safety and development. Also in July, Microsoft announced it would charge customers $30 per month per user for its Microsoft 365 Copilot, which adds generative AI capabilities to the company’s productivity suite. The next month, in August, Google responded, saying it will also demand $30 per month, per user for its own generative AI productivity offering, Duet AI for Workspace.
September:
Amazon, keen on getting deeper into generative AI, announced it was investing $4 billion in OpenAI competitor Anthropic. Meta also revealed it was rolling out AI stickers across its apps and a new AI assistant for WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. It also rolled out AI personalities — featuring celebrities like Tom Brady and Kendall Jenner. Also in September: With rising fears of AI being used in negative ways — and no sign of movement from Congress — the Biden administration signed an executive order seeking to address potential cybersecurity, discrimination, and growth questions related to AI.
November:
OpenAI hosted its first developer event in November, unveiling a more powerful version of GPT-4 called GPT-4 Turbo and an app store for ChatGPT called the GPT Store. (That's where customers can buy customized versions of the company’s AI software.) Then all hell broke loose at OpenAI. The board fired CEO Sam Altman seemingly out of nowhere. Microsoft stepped in and offered him a job, hundreds of OpenAI employees threatened to resign, and OpenAI finally brought back Altman with some new board members, including a nonvoting "observer" role for Microsoft. Meanwhile, Amazon announced its own Q chatbot to better compete with the likes of Microsoft and Google.
December:
Finally, this month, Google unveiled its GPT-4 competitor Gemini.
And here’s the thing, that’s not even all of the AI news that made headlines this year. Expect even more in 2024.
In other words: Buckle up.
Daniel Howley is the tech editor at Yahoo Finance. He's been covering the tech industry since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter @DanielHowley.
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