Even as humanity frets about all the jobs AI will impact, for better or worse, one profession clearly under threat is that of predicting the future. What job does a futurist have if everything changes every week or so, as an AI company unveils a product that makes our collective jaws drop. Every January, I would fish out my crystal ball, and squint at it to predict the top ten things that would happen in tech that year; and then go back with some trepidation at year-end to score how I fared in my fortune-telling abilities. I did the same this January and whipped out my ten AI predictions for 2024. However, given the onslaught of innovation, I have resolved I will do a quarterly scorecard. As the first frenzied quarter of 2024 draws to a close, here it is:

Tech Wars would rage – The AI race would accelerate, with the toughest one being fought between Microsoft-OpenAI alliance and a resurgent Google. OpenAI will launch GPT5, which will outpace Gemini Ultra. Verdict: Still to play out, but the signs look promising. Sam Altman has teased a GPT5 in the “middle of the year”. Gemini Ultra seems to have had a major hiccup and has been temporarily withdrawn. So, this one seems right on the money 10/10

AI moves to the Edge – Gemini Nano on the Pixel and an AppleGPT on iPhones could be the sleeper hits, dislodging OpenAI from the lead, Mobile access and integration will win over PC. Verdict: Samsung AI Phone launched in February. Microsoft Surface AI version announced. Then, Intel AI PC announcement. Qualcomm predicts $99 AI phones by end of the year. No AppleGPT. But AI is hurtling towards the edge! 7/10

Race to Regulation – The race to AI regulation as big as the race to develop AI. Following the EU AI Act, many other countries will release AI regulations. There will be an effort for global regulation on the model of nuclear IAEA or climate COP summits. Verdict: The EU AI Act announced right on time. Otherwise, more noise than action. India and the US still to announce comprehensive regulation. 4/10

The future of work – AI will start fundamentally transforming work, especially with the aggressive launch of Microsoft Copilot and similar products: work will be the biggest use case for GenAI. Verdict: Microsoft is all in, with CoPilots for everything, including a copilot key on its Surface keyboards. Github Copilot doing well, but 365 Copilot still underwhelms. 3/10

AI impacts jobs – Jobs will not be directly hit, but many companies across the world will use AI and GenAI as a cover to retrench for efficiency. Verdict: Everyone across tech is shedding jobs, and ‘blaming AI related efficiencies’. Every country preparing for a great shift in jobs with AI. 7/10

Open and proprietary LLMs – The other race will be between proprietary and open-source GenAI with performance trading-off against decentralisation. Proprietary will continue to have the upper hand, at least in 2024. Verdict: Open source seems to be edging out proprietary! Grok goes open, Meta Llama is going gangbusters. There is momentum out there. Sticking my neck out, but I think 2024 still belongs to OpenAI and non-open models. 5/10

Big Tech reshaped – There will be new entrants into the traditional Big Tech Space shared by Microsoft, Meta, Netflix, Alphabet and Amazon. Verdict: The NVIDIA juggernaut rolls on. It is No. 3 Big Tech now, and its recent Developer Day had intriguing announcements. Alphabet/Google seems to be slipping, but I would not rule them out. 7/10

AI threatens democracy – With 2bn+ people going into election mode in 2024, technologies like Deepfakes will be used aggressively and actively by many players to change narratives and voters’ minds. Verdict: Teeth gritted on this this one. Too early to call since both US and India elections are later in the year. But the signs of deepfake destabilisation still look promising if that is the word…5/10

Microsoft and OpenAI – Microsoft may buy OpenAI or break up with it. Some of the big funded GenAI startups may close (Stability?), and some may merge. Verdict: Ah, this is the interesting one. Microsoft poaching Mustafa Suleyman and Inflection in a massive hedge move against OpenAI. Altman looking a bit shaky. Emad Mostaque out; Stability not that stable anymore… 8/10

Chief AI Officers – More companies will appoint CAIOs, like many of them had Chief Digital Officer. The CAIO will become the new hot ticket in town. Verdict: Well, one must go wrong somewhere;-) Not seeing too many CAIOs out there, as enterprise still to warm up to GenAI. At least, not yet… 0/10

They say that one should never make predictions especially about the future. But the tech world agrees with Peter Drucker when he said that the best way to predict the future is to create it. And no one single thing is creating the future like AI is.