The Next Frontiers

GENERATIVE VIDEO

It was towards the end of 2024 that OpenAI came out with Sora, the Artifi­cial Intelligence (AI) model that creates videos. It startled users with its ability to bring life to just a line of text prompt. And then Google showed what its own model Veo 2 could do and it was even better because they owned YouTube, the largest video platform in the world, on which their model has been trained. All these are still short videos with limi­tations but the future is clear. Content creation continues to transform. Once the models become further refined, who knows, at some point in the not-so-distant future, entire movies can be made by someone typing lines. This year will see video generation become mainstream, just like image and audio. Other major AI players will introduce their models and creators who require videos will increasingly start using them.

DRIVERLESS TAXIS

It was in October that Tesla unveiled the Robotaxi, the driverless car that would enter the mass transport arena. They were not even the first movers. Already, in cities like San Francisco, there are driverless taxis operating but when a player like Tesla comes in, they bring humongous scale. In India, a driverless taxi is still years away but across other parts of the developed world, they are increas­ing steadily in number. In China, the boom is of such a scale that an upending of the transport model is anticipated. Companies like Google’s Waymo and Uber also have big plans for expanding the presence of driverless taxis in numerous cities in 2025. It might be an incremental increase for the moment but eventually critical mass will be arrived at and then the economics of scale will take over. Tesla also had announced Robovan, a driverless minibus, signal­ling the various forms this metamorphosis is taking.

THE AI AGENT

After generative AI, the next step in the evolution is Agentic AI and this is expected to be the year it takes off. Whereas an AI chatbot replies to your questions in a human-like manner, in this new form it will even perform tasks, sort of like a personal assistant for consumers and businesses. While there are already automated processes which do this, what AI brings in is adaptability, or the ability to make decisions according to changed circumstances. An agent could plan your holiday end-to-end for instance. Another area it could be applicable is in customer services for businesses, where it could pass off for a human while interacting and do the tasks demanded while learning on the job. Nvidia, which has a near-monopoly on the GPUs that fuel AI systems, organised a summit in November where its CEO Jensen Huang called 2025 the year of AI agents.

EXTENDED REALITY

In December, Google announced the launch of Android XR, a software platform for extended reality (ER) devices similar to the one it has for smartphones. Extended reality combines virtual and augmented real­ity, with the headset allowing you to be fully or partially immersed. An example is Apple Vision Pro. In 2025, extended reality is expected to become cheaper and more widely available. The Chinese company Vivo, for instance, is coming out with a headset that will compete with Vision Pro. Android XR will add a fillip to this technology. Google says Android XR will “launch on headsets that transform how you watch, work and explore. The first device, code named Project Moohan and built by Samsung, will be available for purchase next year.” Combine ER with AI assistants and you could eventually see entire new worlds open up within your gadget.

mRNA AND CANCER VACCINES

Just as 2024 was about to end, Russia an­nounced that it had come up with a cancer vaccine using mRNA, the technology that had led to Covid vaccines. The Russians claimed it could be made available as early as 2025. There has been an absence of specific details but, even so, Russia is not the only party working on this front. The Economist wrote last November that the US FDA could approve a cancer vac­cine in 2025 and that the UK is also fast tracking “thousands of patients into trials for mRNA-based personalised vaccines for colorectal, pancreatic and melanoma cancers.” mRNA technology was expected to lead to a number of breakthroughs once it had been tested during the Covid pan­demic and that promise is now coming to fruition.

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