Five AI trends to look forward to in 2023 and beyond

From the growth of AI assistants to the rise of generative AI, here are some key trends that are expected to grow over the coming years.

The artificial intelligence (AI) market has been growing at an exponential pace over the last couple of years, thanks in large part to consumer-ready products such as ChatGPT, Google Bard and IBM Watson that are now being used commonly across the globe. 

To this point, global management consulting firm McKinsey believes that anywhere between 50% and 60% of all organizations today are already making use of AI-centric tools, with this number expected to grow sharply in the near future.

Moreover, as per Forbes, AI is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world today, with the total market capitalization of this space set to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.3% until the end of the decade, reaching a cumulative valuation of $1.81 trillion over the said period.

This rise is not unfounded and is, in fact, being helmed by certain technological trends — such as generative AI and natural language processing (NLP) — which have led many experts to project that AI’s contribution to the global economy will rise to $15.7 trillion by 2030, a figure that is more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of global powerhouses India and China combined.

With the technology’s growing importance, market and technological observers have noted several possible trends affecting the AI sector or driven by AI.

Increased use of AI assistants

As the tech paradigm has continued to expand and grow, the use of AI assistants seems primed to help automate and digitize a wide range of service sectors. Paweł Andruszkiewicz, chief operating officer of VAIOT — a developer of AI-powered digital services — told Cointelegraph that legal services, public administration and citizen services are just some domains that can be completely revamped using AI. 

“AI Assistants offer increased availability, lower costs and ease of use for the end user. Let’s take legal services as an example; they are often scary, unavailable or simply too expensive for regular people […] AI assistants, as a sort of ‘natural user interface,’ with [24/7] availability via a mobile device, disenchant this area, making it possible to access and obtain legal support for anyone, anytime,” he said.

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Andruszkiewicz believes AI assistants can streamline formal legal documentation, process digital signatures or payments, provide users with possible outcomes of various cases, prepare tailor-made agreements, and even deliver corporate services related to compliance or due diligence.

Similar benefits, as per Andruszkiewicz, can be extended to the realm of public administration, including formal processes such as setting up a company, applying for a visa, registering properties or even obtaining various licenses, which are often complicated and require lots of paperwork.

Lastly, he believes AI assistants are great at “deciphering” more complicated technologies such as the blockchain and smart contracts. “With the use of AI, a person doesn’t have to be a developer to create stuff on the blockchain. You can simply specify what you want to achieve, and the AI assistant will do the complicated part for you,” he said.

More adoption among Fortune 500 companies

Miguel Machado, CEO and co-founder of Keenfolks — an AI consulting firm — told Cointelegraph that over the next few months, people will be startled by the speed of innovation and how fast AI products are able to scale and reach a wider audience. As an example, he alluded to OpenAI and how its ChatGPT interface did not go live until March 2022, yet today, it has over 100 million users.

“The ease of experimenting through different pilots will foster innovation, enabling Fortune 500 companies to swiftly iterate and refine their AI-driven strategies. Communities, too, will play a pivotal role, harnessing the knowledge of language models to create platforms that facilitate collaborative learning and skill enhancement,” he said.

Moreover, he even sees a growing number of C-suite executives adopting AI to propel their businesses to new heights, especially within spaces such as law, HR and finance.

“The emergence of no-code solutions is set to democratize AI adoption, allowing brands to integrate advanced technologies into their operations without requiring extensive technical expertise,” he added.

The continued rise of generative AI 

Over the last couple of years, most AI-based applications have predominantly relied on the use of predictive models, which, as the name suggests, emphasize making predictions or providing insights based on existing data sets. To put it another way, the results produced by these frameworks are derived or recycled and are free of any new content. 

On the other hand, generative AI uses machine learning and deep learning to produce original information that has been computed independently using newer patterns built atop existing training data. Over the past year, these models have been extensively used to generate texts, images, and audio and video content.

Talking about the potential of this technology, Henry Ajder, generative AI expert and tech advisor to Meta and Ernst & Young, said, “We’re still in the nascent stages of this generative revolution; the future will be one where synthetic media is ubiquitous and democratized in daily life, not as a frivolous novelty, but powering groundbreaking advances in entertainment, education, and accessibility.”

Growth of natural language processing systems

Another domain of AI that is primed to gain traction over the coming months is that of natural language processing (NLP). This technology serves as the backbone for various tech products that thousands interact with on a daily basis, be they search engines or voice-activated assistants.

Through the use of NLP platforms, it is possible to make machines understand, interpret and respond to human language in a lifelike manner. In fact, the technology utilizes language modeling, parsing, sentiment analysis, machine translation and speech recognition to provide realistic responses for users operating in different business sectors.

The potential of this still-nascent market is highlighted by Grand View Research in its recent report, which suggests that it will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 40.4% from 2023 to 2030, reaching a total capitalization of $439.85 billion by the end of the decade.

AI in healthcare

According to Forbes, AI’s use in healthcare will grow immensely, particularly when it comes to how doctors diagnose and treat patients with various ailments. Moreover, the use of machine learning is projected to rise within domains such as drug discovery and medical research.

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The use of AI in drug discovery is expected to reach $4 billion by 2027 (growing at a CAGR of 45.7%). Similarly, more than 50% of all American healthcare providers have either deployed or are planning to use AI tools, such as robotics process automation, as part of their internal medical processes.

Therefore, as we head toward a future driven by technologies such as AI, machine learning, deep learning and NLP, it stands to reason that their use will grow across various industries, helping usher in a digitized, more automated future.