By Marty Swant • December 29, 2023 • 11 min read •
Welcome to our editorial series that provides insight into industry trends across the media, media buying, and marketing sectors as 2023 comes to a close and the new year begins. Explore more from the series →
2023 has seen the generative AI race create plenty of new promises and perils across marketing, media, and tech. From innovation to misinformation, we’ve witnessed an incredible variety of AI news throughout the year.
Despite the impossibility of encapsulating all the AI news from this year in a single story, Digiday has compiled a look back at highlights from each month. This is more of a thematic overview than a comprehensive round-up. Our hope is that it will illustrate how everything from innovation to legislation has been influenced by the AI industry in just twelve months.
As opposed to composing a lengthy overview of 2023, we decided to have a bot – Google Bard in this case – summarize our timeline in the style of a TL/DR. In addition, we had the bot compose a poem about our timeline in the manner of William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avalon. Here is a paragraph summarizing our timeline, as written by the bot:
“The year 2023 was a landmark period in the field of artificial intelligence, characterized by a surge in generative AI advancements and adoption across various sectors, led by significant events such as Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI and the launch of GPT-4. This rapid growth, however, was paralleled by rising ethical, legal, and regulatory challenges, highlighted by copyright infringement lawsuits against AI companies and increased government involvement, including the U.S. Senate’s AI hearings and President Biden’s executive order. These developments collectively signaled a shift in the AI landscape, where technological innovation is increasingly intertwined with calls for responsible development and oversight.”
January:
Microsoft further fueled the generative AI boom when it announced an extended partnership with OpenAI after weeks of reports that it had invested $10 billion into the then-small research startup. (Days before its big announcement, MSFT announced plans to lay off 10,000 employees.)
Other January news
- Shutterstock added new generative AI features into its platform.
- During CES 2023, Nvidia debuted new generative AI technologies for its Omniverse platform to help create virtual worlds faster.
- Getty Images filed a lawsuit against Stability AI, alleging the text-to-image startup illegally copied and processed millions of images without permission. Another lawsuit against Stability AI and Midjourney was filed the same month by a group of artists, who also alleged copyright infringement.
February:
Momentum for generative AI began building beyond just tech giants. As Meta and Snapchat rolled out new tools, agencies — including Horizon, DDB, and Havas — unveiled new generative AI capabilities for clients.
