Artificial intelligence (AI) has permeated our lives, transforming how we live and work. Over the past few years, a rapid and disruptive acceleration of progress in AI has occurred, driven by significant advances in widespread data availability, computing power and machine learning. Remarkable strides were made in the development of foundation models – AI models trained on extensive volumes of unlabelled data1. This innovation has given rise to what is known as ‘General purpose AI’, capable of performing a wide array of tasks, including the generation of various forms of new content2, commonly referred to as ‘generative AI’. The quality of the output produced by these models is such that it is difficult to distinguish it from human-generated content.
Generative AI is a general technology that is accessible, powerful and adaptable to a vast range of uses, from health to smart cities, and from meteorology to space and military uses. It has the potential to revolutionise human-machine interaction and enhance productivity across value chains and organisational functions, laying the foundation for novel economic activities. The use of generative AI is estimated to create business value equivalent to EUR 2.4-4.0 trillion per year3. Within the first quarter of 2023 alone, global private investment in AI was estimated to reach EUR 16.5 billion, up from EUR 8.9 billion in Q4 2022.
