It's been quite the 12 months for AI in business, with regulatory updates, company announcements, ground-breaking research and more. From Big Tech giants bringing their services to smaller businesses, to remarkable implications for privacy practices - the AI arena is a bustle of innovation and creation. As the year comes to an end, it's clear there are still many new stories yet to be told - but these twelve highlights from the past year offer an exciting overview of what's being done today.

January - The Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends 2023 covers the three most prevalent emerging technologies, AI, IoT and Quantum Computing, with insight from Jenalea Howell, Alexander Harrowell, and Brad Shimmin

February – The UK Government reverses its stance on copyright rules, ending plans to ease laws to improve access to works for ML data gathering. The announcement was a boon to music rightsholders who pushed for the change to be quashed, but the science minister George Freeman said the proposed amendments were 'not correct.'

March - The UK Government announced almost £3.5 billion to support science and technology in the UK, in particular AI. Regulation of AI technology is a central focus for the government as they plan to develop the gold-standard for regulation of the industry which could be replicated internationally. I was also announced they will launch a £1 million prize every year for the next 10 years for the best research into AI. It will be called the Manchester Prize in honour of the world’s first stored-programme computer built at the University of Manchester.

April - Dropbox lays off 500 employees, citing the impact of artificial intelligence and automation on the company's business, whilst Google has announced that it is merging its artificial intelligence research division, Google Brain, with its AI subsidiary, DeepMind. Among 750 companies that currently use AI, 37% say they already laid off workers this year because they were no longer needed, according to a ResumeBuilder survey.

May – Ahead of the London event, speakers, including the likes of Jonny Rankin, Jelte Zwetsloot, Dr. Faisal Kamran and Dr. Michael J. Haydukhich, share which breakthroughs in data, quantum computing and AI applications from the past 12 months they are most excited about.

June – A month for Summits - Rishi Sunak announces his intention to host the first global regulation summit in the Autumn. And then The #AISummit London returns to Tobacco Dock for its eighth edition. Richard Davis, chief data officer at Ofcom and Valerii Babushkin, vice president for data science at Blockchain.com take home Innovator of the Year awards at The AIconics.

July – AI copyright continues to make news, we asked IP attorneys Kristine Craig, Robert McFarlane and Andrew Stroud to break down the complex relationship between AI, copyright law and the requirements of human authorship.

August - Google's announces its flagship AI model – Gemini - set to be a direct competitor to GPT-4 with computing power five-times that of GPT-4. It won’t be ready until December though (at the time of writing it’s been live to developers and enterprise customers for seven days).

October – The VisionAIres, a community dedicated to connecting end-users in the global AI community launches a private LinkedIn group to facilitate idea sharing, introductions and share VIP offers year-round.

September - A new forecast from Omdia reveals that the market for generative AI (GAI) applications will grow from $6.2 billion in 2023 to $58.5 billion in 2028, a CAGR of 56%. https://austin.appliedintelligence.live/news/generative-ai-applications-expected-grow-62-billion-2023-585-billion-2028

November - US President Joe Biden sets the tone for how AI will be governed in America moving forward with an executive order on “safe, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence.”

December – The AI Summit New York welcomes 3,497 technical professionals to the Javits Center. You can the three most popular sessions, direct from your device, via AI Business TV. That includes ‘Adapting Your Company to Fast Moving Technology’ with Carlos J. De Oliveira - BNY Mellon, Jessica Peretta - Mastercard, and Rashida Richardson - Mastercard

Much has been accomplished, but there's still plenty more to do! One thing's for sure: everyone involved in this industry is keenly aware of their role in driving progress forward - which makes us optimistic about what lies ahead.