If you think back to January, you might remember that artificial intelligence featured in K7’s 7 TV Predictions for 2023 under the title The A.I. Revolution will be Televised. Among the developments discussed were the social media craze for A.I. generated art and the launch of Dreamspark, an innovative company using A.I. to create TV formats. Since then one form of A.I. has quickly risen to become the most talked-about tech on the market, and that’s chatbots.

Easily the most famous example to date and the key driver behind this trend is ChatGPT. Launched as a prototype by developer OpenAI in November 2022, it quickly became the fastest growing app in history, surpassing 100m users in just two months. It’s easy to see why. With the basic version freely available and accessible (when not crashing due to overwhelming demand) thanks to its simple interface, ChatGPT is easy to use, smart, and genuinely useful rather than merely amusing like the more primitive AI chatbots of years gone by. Despite its young age, the version of ChatGPT that grabbed the headlines has already been succeeded by a more advanced model.

In March 2023 OpenAI began rolling out GPT-4, which can respond to images rather than just text, and can be used for purposes such as writing a caption for a photo or suggesting recipes from the image of an ingredient. It can also process up to 25,000 words – that’s eight times as many as ChatGPT. Last month also saw the launch of a serious competitor, and from a true heavyweight in the tech industry no less. Google’s Bard is different to OpenAI’s current products thanks to its ability to access up-to-date information from online. It is also able to namecheck its sources for facts.

Neither product is perfect however, with both OpenAI and Google having made clear that they still have limitations which may lead them to “hallucinate”, a phenomenon in which artificial intelligence makes reasoning errors or invents facts. With careful editing by professionals however, it’s easy to see how the tech could be used to speed up workflows in various professions, including areas where facts are key.

In the TV world, early examples include Kidaverse Fast Facts, a 3D animated web series from US kidsco Genius Brands, designed to share bite-sized knowledge on a variety of subjects with four to 11 year-olds; and Groupo Formula’s Nat (short for Neural.A.I.Technology, pictured), Latin America’s first A.I. News Anchor, which uses a script written with the aid of ChatGPT. A.I.-assisted scriptwriting becoming mainstream is a somewhat scary but undoubtedly intriguing prospect, and it will be interesting to see what other examples surface in the months ahead. We look forward to updating you on A.I.’s broader development in the TV industry in our Predictions for 2024 at the end of the year.