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The Definitive Guide to
Generative AI in 2024!

Since the introduction of the internet, no technical innovation has moved as quickly as AI in the last 12 months. What can we expect to see from AI in 2024?

2023 : ChatGPT explodes, AI images go viral and The Beatles return!

2023 was a landmark year for AI (Artificial Intelligence), and an undeniable breakthrough into the mainstream. Where NFT’s and Web3 failed, AI succeeded due to its ease of accessibility and simple integration into everyday tasks.

A quick glance at the statistics for ChatGPT users is undeniable proof that we’re at the start of something new and exciting. And somewhat scary. Just two months after its launch, ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer app in history, amassing an astonishing 100 million users. This growth underscored the publics’ rapidly growing interest and acceptance of AI technologies.

AI’s impact was felt across a wide range of areas. AI-generated images reached a level of realism that made them indistinguishable from actual photographs, leading to viral sensations and reshaping the landscape of digital art. In the realm of audio, AI voices and AI videos underwent significant advancements, creating experiences that were increasingly lifelike and immersive. Even iconic figures like The Beatles weren’t left untouched by AI’s influence, releasing the last ever single, ‘Now and Then’ with the help of AI.

The question on everyone’s mind now is: What does 2024 hold for AI? Will the progress be merely bigger, or will it also be better? The bigger questions in 2024 will be around AI governance and responsibility. What we know is that, as processing power and data increases, so will AI will continue to improve. Let’s take a shot at what we think this could look like.

”AI is like electricity. Just as electricity transformed every major industry a century ago, AI is now poised to do the same
Andrew NgFounder of Google Brain

2024 : What does the future hold for AI?

A recent US survey indicates that 73% of companies have already adopted AI with generative AI leading the way. It’s undoubtable that by the end of 2024 this number will have increased and we’ll see generative AI, enhanced by organisation specific data, being used in roles across all areas of business. With this in mind we anticipate businesses, especially business leaders, will need to consider how AI can augment and, in some cases, replace processes.

Business leaders will be faced with significant challenges in understanding the capabilities and limitations of AI, and where it can be introduced in a responsible, safe manner. 2024 won’t be the year where AI impacts employment but it will be a time of significant learning and change within businesses that can see the writing on the wall.

Whilst we’re only at the start of the Generative AI era, recent studies suggest it could add the equivalent of $2.6 to $4.4 trillion to the global economy. The same study indicates that 75 percent of the value from Generative AI comes from four distinct areas: Customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering and R&D. It’s without a doubt that 2024 will be the first year we really see AI introduced into these areas, with future years showing compounding growth.

The future of
Google search

Closer to home, we expect 2024 to be the year we see large language models work much more closely alongside search engines.

Of course Microsoft were the early movers here by introducing ChatGPT and Dalle-3 into their suite of tools but, despite their alignment with Open AI, it’s hard to see how Bing could ever replace Google in the search space.

Since its release there have been countless updates to Bard and it is now considered by many to be the future of Google. In late 2023, Google introduced their own LLM (Large Language Model) tool, Gemini, to Bard. This represents Bard’s biggest leap forward since launch and is a strong indication of their future direction.

Of course, Google’s biggest challenge is how to ensure Bard doesn’t impact their biggest source of income – Google Search. In 2024 we anticipate Google will slowly introduce Bard and Gemini into the search results pages. What this will mean for the future of SEO is anyone’s guess but we know that meaningful website content will play a huge part in ranking.

Is 2024 the year of AI Assistants?

The launch of Open AI’s GPT based app store in January 2024 is likely the start of something revolutionary – again. See how assistants work at this link.

GPTs do not require extensive coding experience, which allows developers/ideas people, to tailor them to a wide range of tasks with varying complexity. For instance, a GPT could be trained on a travel guide database, enabling it to provide detailed travel tips and itinerary suggestions for specific destinations. Similarly, a GPT could be used to learn the in’s and out’s of a corporate legal archive, enabling it to assist legal professionals in quickly referencing case laws or compliance guidelines.

As Open AI develop the tools further expect to see GPT apps that integrate seamlessly with other 3rd party apps. What does this mean? We expect to see a one stop shop for managing you day to day. Integrations with calendars, email, CRM’s and (at a later date) banking will likely change the way we work and live. The Chat GPT app would be positioned to become our own personal assistant. Watch this space!

The creative power of
Generative AI & LLM’s

Tools like ChatGPT, Bard/Gemini, and Claude are not just churning out text; they are redefining the way we create and engage with information, creativity and storytelling. Writers block has quickly become a thing of the past and in 2024 the lines between human and machine creativity will blur, leading to a collaborative environment where AI augments human skills. Of course, this has already become standard practise in many workplaces but as we see LLM’s improve in quality and understanding, so we’ll see a significant increase in written content.

In 2024 we’ll see more organisations using API’s to integrate platforms into their day to day activities. We’ll see big leaps forward in chatbots that leverage ChatGPT’s Assistant API and combine with a businesses own custom data to create the perfect virtual assistant. Similarly we could see innovative uses of the Assistant API through organisation intranets as a way of onboarding new staff or acting as a personalised database search engine for retrieving relevant information.

In 2024 it will be particularly interesting to see how each platform differentiates itself. Currently ChatGPT excels in creativity and engaging conversations (check out the voice chat feature in the mobile app!), Bard in accuracy and up-to-date information, and Claude in context understanding and ethical AI practices. Where Meta’s Llama fits in the scheme of things is yet to be determined!

It is worth noting though that ChatGPT are launching a new app store early in 2024. This in itself could lead to a whole new marketplace of custom GPT’s tailored to suit any number of markets.

We recommend following Matt Wolfe on YouTube for the latest, unbiased news in the AI space.

The rise of hyperrealistic
AI images – & the end of stock?

If you’re following AI as closely as us then you’ll know that every few days a new platform or update will be released under the banner, ‘RIP Midjourney’. To date, nothing comes close to Midjourney for creating art and photography. As of December 2023, accessing Midjourney can be a challenge but in 2024 we’ll see the introduction of a new Midjourney website that allows images to be created on the site, rather than the clunky Discord setup. A new version (V6) is currently being rolled out and video creation is also on the horizon, so, unless a major new player appears from nowhere, we expect Midjourney to consolidate it’s position as the global leader in AI generated images.

We can’t discount any of the other players in the space. We’ll throw Adobe Firefly in the mix, just because it’s Adobe and AI will become embedded in all of their core product range. Adobe have spent big in recent years (see Figma!), so it’s a no brainer that they’ll be pursuing AI improvements.

Other key players include:

Dalle-3

Dalle-3 is OpenAI’s image generation tool. It’s accessible directly within ChatGPT and is also powering Microsoft Bings image generation tool. It’s a definite step up from Dalle-2 and it’s strengths appear to be in cartoon, comic book and character generation. Lifelike photo generation can be a little hit and miss although, strangely this function it seems to work better within Bing than ChatGPT. We expect to see Dalle-3 continue to improve in 2024, however it’s fair to assume that OpenAI are more focused on the functions of ChatGPT and reaching General Artificial Intelligence.

Stable Diffusion & Clipdrop

Stable Diffusion and Clipdrop. Initially known for it’s ability to fine tune and customise it’s results, Stable Diffusion found a strong audience in those wanting to take a more technical approach to content creation. As Midjourney improved and became more accessible, the SD user base declined. To counter this SD introduced Clipdrop in 2023. As of December 2023 Clipdrop is a long way off the quality of the other image platforms. 2024 will be a critical year for Stability AI. With over $150m in investment in the last 18 months they’re under pressure to demonstrate they are real players in the market.

Leonardo.AI

Leonardo AI. From almost nowhere comes Australia’s own Leonardo.AI. Having successfully flown under the radar at the start of the AI boom, Leonardo.AI has created a range of tools that other platforms don’t currently have. It’s these tools that compliment the image generation process and make Leonardo a real player in the space. From sketching an image and seeing a real time image generated through to using images to guide styles and poses, Leonardo is definitely one to watch in 2024.

A new era of storytelling:
AI video takes centre stage

The nature of video creation means it has needed a longer runway in the AI space. The need for huge amounts of data processing together with the challenge of automating creativity and movement in video has been met head on by a handful of brave, forward thinking startups, with varying degrees of success. The final quarter of 2023 however has seen a significant leap forward.

In 2024, AI video will take its first giant step toward cinematic mastery, generating hyper-realistic clips that blur the lines between digital and reality. What makes much of this possible is a company called Nvidia. Previously better known as a supplier of chips to power gaming, Nvidia have fast become central to everything AI. To date, much of what has been responsible for driving AI forward has been Nvidia’s H100 GPU. Supply of the H100 has been extremely limited, creating some frustrating waits for many AI related companies. In November 2023, Nvidia announced the release of the H200, which has more memory capacity and bandwidth, speeding up its work with generative AI and LLMs. No doubt this will be equally as hard to get hold of but there is no question of the impact this release will have on AI, specifically in the AI video space.

There are a number of significant players in AI video and we expect to see significant changes and growth from each of these in 2024.

RunwayML / Gen2

Undoubtably the most hyped of the AI video platforms, Runway ML got off to an early lead in the space thanks to a simple, multi-tasked AI solution, solid funding and some smart marketing. Early generative results with Runway were sketchy at best but the release of the more powerful Runways Gen2 and introduction of Nvidia as a significant investor in June 2023 means we can surely expect to see more from Runway in 2024.

Pikalabs

Running a close second (in our mind at least), comes Pika. Since first appearing in mid 2023, Pika has run within Discord and, perhaps because of this, has tapped into the existing Midjourney users on the same platform. What makes Pika a big one to watch in 2024 is that they have successfully raised $55 million to date, with heavy hitter tech investors including the CEO’s of Hugging Face, Elevenlabs and Quora. More than that, there is a huge amount of hype around the recently released Pika V1.

Kaiber and Magic Hour

Since founding in November 2022, Kaiber bootstrapped it’s way to Beta and became the AI video tool of choice for Kid Cudi, Linkin Park and Mike Shinoda – among 2.5 million others.

The introduction of the mobile app version gives Kaiber some legs and it will be interesting to watch in 2024.

Magic Hour has largely flown under the radar in 2023 but, for our money, provides far more stable and interesting results than Kaiber – see the below results as an example.

”Generative AI is the most powerful tool for creativity that has ever been created. It has the potential to unleash a new era of human innovation
Elon MuskTesla Etc

How is AI affecting
digital marketing?

AI has been used in digital marketing for years. It’s how Facebook and Insta have been showing you relevant ads. It’s how your TikTok feed is always on point and it’s how Google manages both their advertising and ranking. In these cases, AI has largely been flying under the radar. With the increase in computing power in recent years, AI’s ability to rapidly analyse vast amounts of data has increased ten fold and we’re starting to see AI being integrated into, well, everything. As an example, consider the amount of data collected by a CRM connected to Google Analytics and all social platforms. Analysing this data would have once taken humans weeks or months. AI is now capable of analysing well structured data and making predictions almost immediately. For instance, predictive marketing, utilizing AI, now identifies optimal marketing strategies based on data analysis, significantly speeding up processes that once took humans weeks or months. AI has also ushered in a new era of personalisation by analysing customer behaviour and preferences. Expect to see significant changes to your marketing capabilities in the coming 12 months!

Looking Ahead

Looking ahead, AI’s continuous learning capabilities will further improve data analysis, revealing deeper insights into behaviours and market trends. In content creation, AI’s potential for crafting engaging content, social media posts and personalised email campaigns hints at a future where AI does a lot of the heavy lifting.

We’re particularly interested in the capabilities of voice technology and digital avatars. In 2023 ElevenLabs lead the way with their incredible voice cloning and translation tools. Here at Start we cloned the voices of Steve Jobs, John Lennon and even long gone relatives. Creepy? Yep but incredibly cool. Expect to see this tech play a huge role in everything from new podcasts, audio training guides and music. Combine the capabilities of ElevenLabs with a digital avatar from platforms such as HeyGen and you might even be able to coax the digital version of me onto a video! Hello YouTube marketing……

As AI becomes more integrated into digital marketing strategies, it offers marketers unprecedented tools to understand and engage with their audience. It’s going to be important to strike a balance between data-driven tactics and creative marketing insights.

Challenges for Generative
AI in 2024

It is worth noting though that ChatGPT are launching a new app store early in 2024. This in itself could lead to a whole new marketplace of custom GPT’s tailored to suit any number of markets.

We recommend following Matt Wolfe on YouTube for the latest, unbiased news in the AI space.

What the
Future Holds….

It’s easy to get caught up in the media narrative about AI. There is no doubt the world will experience a significant shift in the coming years but the end of the world is unlikely. We think.

It’s easy to see that industries and sectors will evolve and adapt at different times, however, for our industry the need to consider not only how to utilise AI but how to integrate AI into our service offering, is immediate. Of course, we could wait until services are polished and optimised but where’s the fun in that. More to the point, where is the learning happening?

Our industry is at a crossroads, where the choice is not about if we should embrace AI, but how we can integrate AI into our creative process. This isn’t a race to simply introduce new technology; it’s about creating an environment where AI enriches our services and enhancing our experiences.

The journey into AI will have challenges, but therein lies the excitement and the potential for growth. Our predictions, therefore, are tinted with some optimism but grounded in realism. AI won’t replace us, but it will become a major player in the stories we create and the solutions we design.

So, we run in to 2024 with an open mind and a sense of the unexpected in more ways than one. The AI cat is out the bag, and it’s going to change everything!