The Hotplate of 2024

It had AI, it had NPUs, it had new LMs, it had AI smartphones - and not just on the back-burners

- By Pratima H

A Flash-back is, often, the best way to get a Flash-forward. There's no denying that the year 2024 was dominated by AI buzz for most of the time. But this year was also a crucial chapter that took forward AI in a really pronounced, and quite beyond the initial hype, way- in terms of scale, speed, spread, and specificity. So was the case with many other pages in the ever-expanding book of technology. Let's read it through the lens of some hottest words from the shortlists of some pantheons of this year like the Oxford, Cambridge, Merriam-Webster and Macquarie Dictionaries. They, somehow, aptly describe some hottest technologies of the year while also giving a hint of what may come up ahead:

YASSIFICATION

Yassification means the act of giving something a glow-up or makeover - turning it more visually appealing. In that sense Gen Al went through a lot, yes really a lot, of yassification in 2024.

In 2025, the rise of AI-powered cyberattacks, including Generative AI-enabled phishing and malware, is enabling larger, more sophisticated campaigns that evade detection and scale operations for widespread impact.

- Sundar Balasubramanian, MD India and SAARC, Check Point Software Technologies

Interestingly, it was not just about text anymore. “Aside from text production, generative Al has also made outstanding progress in the fields of picture as well as video synthesis. For example, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion can produce extraordinarily realistic images from rather basic text commands. Additionally, such tools have evolved Al-assisted video editing which, as a result, provides ease in the production of high-quality videos for both individuals and corporations.” Weighs in Rethesh Nair, Senior Specialist Infrastructure Delivery, Publicis Sapient.