The AI ‘gold rush’ is here. What will it bring?

This year was expected to be a buzzy one for artificial intelligence. And a few weeks in, it has been.

Companies are racing to be part of the next big hit in the field, and taking drastic action to do it. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced on Friday that it will cut 12,000 jobs, saying the trims are necessary if they want to “bet big” on areas like artificial intelligence. Microsoft is reportedly in talks to invest $10 billion in OpenAI, the organization behind buzzy chatbots and image-makers.

The activity builds on recent advances. Last year, the field of generative artificial intelligence — where software creates text or images based on descriptions — became eerily human and entered the mainstream.