AI is declining now
Ropek 4/16 (Lucas Ropek is a staff writer for Government Technology. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and writer in Massachusetts and New York. ) “Actually, Corporate Investment in AI Saw a Significant Drop in 2023” Apr 16, 2024 https://gizmodo.com/actually-corporate-investment-in-ai-saw-a-significant-1851411926 // ZX
Every year, Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence releases a big report about the status of the artificial intelligence industry. This year’s report, published this week, is a whopping 502 pages and includes a wealth of insights on the trendy technology. Tucked into its section on the economics of the AI industry is the surprising revelation that global corporate investment in AI actually dropped last year for the second straight year in a row. This might come as a surprise to some since 2023 was largely considered to be a period of peak AI hype. New chatbots and companies spawned aplenty, as top executives spread hyperbolic rhetoric about the technology’s potential. And yet, the new HAI report notes that in 2023, total investment in AI…
…dropped to $189.2 billion, a decrease of approximately 20% from 2022. Despite a slight reduction in private investment, the most significant downturn occurred in mergers and acquisitions, which fell by 31.2% from the previous year. However, over the past decade, AI-related investments have increased thirteenfold.
The peak of global corporate investment in AI was actually 2021, according to the report. During that year, total investment crested $337 billion. In 2022, it then dropped to $234 billion, before dropping another $40-ish billion last year.