AI, the story of the year, told in numbers

No doubt about it, the whole world had its eyes on artificial intelligence in 2023.

The groundbreaking tech touched every industry, from agriculture and medicine to retail, food, and finance. We feared its impact on our livelihoods and revered its ability to generate images, text, sound, and data as well as — or better than — any human.

Let’s take a look back through the key numbers:

1m+: The number of people who used ChatGPT within its first five days. Now, a year after the generative AI chatbot’s launch, 100m people use ChatGPT weekly and 2m+ developers are using the company’s API, including most Fortune 500 companies.

$1T: The market cap Nvidia hit back in May (it currently stands at $1.2T). The chipmaker’s meteoric rise was largely fueled by tech companies of all sizes racing to add AI features to their products.

15: The number of tech companies that have agreed to abide by the Biden administration’s AI safeguards. The voluntary commitments, made by many of the major AI companies, aim to advance the technology in a safer, more secure way.

$10B: The amount of money Microsoft pledged to invest in OpenAI over the coming years, on top of the $3B it had previously invested, as the tech giant looks to keep up with AI.

$113.5m: The seed round raised by AI startup Mistral, just one month after launching and before its first product was even developed. It was the biggest seed round ever recorded in Europe.

$6B: The combined investment made by Amazon and Google in AI company Anthropic, OpenAI’s main competitor.

4.4%: The estimated adoption rate for businesses using AI to produce goods or services. While ~50% of S&P 500 earnings calls have referenced AI since May — on par with mentions of interest rates and the Federal Reserve — the hype isn’t trickling down to everyday use cases.

4: The number of days it took Sam Altman to get fired and rehired as CEO of OpenAI.