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A year ago, the phrase “generative AI” barely broke through my inbox lingo.
In July 2022, I had received a few missives from Meta about a multimodal “generative AI” prototype called “Make-A-Scene”, and a handful of emails referencing text templates- “generative AI” image like DALL-E and Imagen. But I’m pretty sure the term “generative AI” hasn’t been spoken since the stage at VentureBeat Transform last July – our annual flagship event focused on applied AI for enterprise business and technology decision makers.
What a difference a year makes. By the time OpenAI’s ChatGPT was released on November 30, generative AI had only just begun to flourish in Google Search. But throughout the winter and spring of 2023, it started to explode — and has been climbing the charts ever since. There was the conga range of generative AI productivity apps. Competing ads from Google and Microsoft around Bard and Bing. A celebration of the coming out of open source AI. Massive funding rounds for companies developing LLMs that build generative AI applications. And, of course, Nvidia’s massive success in providing GPU computing to power the whole generative AI part.
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And in many cases, generative AI tools have improved. Watch the output of the Midjourney image text generator in July 2022 compared to July 2023:
Nowadays, generative AI is part of the current cultural zeitgeist and is at the heart of any discussion about AI and ML, be it investment, applications, infrastructure , security, open source, regulatory or ethical. Outside of Apple, which has carefully avoided the term, “generative AI” has been mentioned dozens of times in every Big Tech earnings report this quarter. Venture capitalists have unceremoniously tossed “metaverse”, “blockchain” and “Web3” to the sidewalk, greedily gobbling up “generative AI” as their latest investment craze.
Even skeptics think generative AI is more than the last season of hype. For example, a recent Domino Data Lab survey of data science leaders found that 90% believe the hype around generative AI is warranted, while more than half believe that it will have a significant impact on their activity within one to two years.
And now a hot summer of generative AI has arrived. Prepare to sweat, as technology shows no signs of slowing down during the July and August heatwaves. Silicon Valley isn’t going on vacation anytime soon — not when the future of AI success hangs in the balance. And for businesses, the journey to harnessing generative AI is just beginning. As our CEO and Editor-in-Chief Matt Marshall noted last week, “They face significant challenges in transforming their processes, systems and cultures to embrace this new paradigm. And they must move quickly to develop a “operating system” for generative AI, before their competitors take advantage.”
That’s where this year’s VentureBeat Transform, “Get Ahead of the Generative AI Revolution,” comes in. I’m heading to San Francisco to prepare for the July 11-12 event, which will be the first major independent event for business leaders who want to learn how to leverage generative AI and data technology to transform their business – and how to manage its risks and challenges
It’s true: this year’s transformation will be all about generative AI – how could it be otherwise? From our Women in AI breakfast that kicks off the conference, to the panels, fireside chats, roundtables and AI innovation awards that follow, we’ll come together in person to address the generative AI topics that everyone world speaks.
When I think back to last summer, it’s almost as if we were on the cusp of a heat wave. The signs were there, in text-to-image generative AI tools like DALL-E 2 that showed flashes of what was to come. But it wasn’t until ChatGPT burst onto the scene that the world realized how generative AI applications could potentially impact so many aspects of our lives – from the workplace and the education in politics and entertainment.
This summer, the heat is on – and everyone, it seems, has a fever for everything happening in generative AI. At VentureBeat’s Transform, we’re here for it all. Join me (and my colleagues, including CEO and Editor-in-Chief Matt Marshall, Editorial Director Michael Nunez, GamesBeat Editor-in-Chief Dean Takahashi, and Editor-in-Chief Carl Franzen) in San Francisco next week and light up .
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