7 popular AI companies to watch in 2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to revolutionise industries at an ever-increasing pace. From healthcare advancements to self-driving cars, AI is shaping the future. The past year has seen generative AI take centre stage, with large language models producing increasingly realistic text, code and images. This has fueled a rise in creative applications of AI, but also concerns about potential misuse.

Google became an Ai-first company in 2016 and continues to make strides in natural language processing. The company bought UK-based DeepMind in 2014 but merged it with Google Brain last year to create a larger unit that works on advancements in their Gemini language model using TPU (tensor processing unit) technology.

This non-profit research company is credited to bring sophisticated AI-powered chatbot technology to the masses via ChatGPT. It is backed by heavyweight investors like Microsoft, and is renowned for its groundbreaking work in large language models popularly known as GPT. The company is said to be working on the GPT-5 model.

A major player in AI research, Microsoft is making significant contributions in areas like healthcare diagnostics and enterprise productivity tools. The company has put to use the technology provided by OpenAI in its services and Azure cloud platform.

A new kid on the block, Apple is also working to integrate AI into its devices and services. Company CEO Tim Cook had said in a recent investors call that the company is looking forward to bringing AI into its products. It has reportedly talked to Google and Baidu for using their AI tech into its products.

The e-commerce giant is already leveraging AI for product recommendations, logistics optimisation and its Alexa virtual assistant. Their cloud platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), offers a wide range of AI tools for developers. The company has also developed its LLM Code named “Olympus.”

Meta is utilising AI for content moderation, personalised advertising and virtual reality experiences. The company has released two LLMs – Llama and Llama 2 – and is said to be working on Llama 3. Their research labs are constantly exploring new applications of AI in the social media landscape.

The Chinese tech giant Baidu is a major force in AI research within China. The company is so large on the home turf that recent reports suggested that Samsung replaced Google's AI with Baidu’s Ernie on its Galaxy S24 phones in China.