âBy 2030, if we donât have models that are extraordinarily capable and do things that we ourselves cannot do, Iâd be very surprised,â said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in an interview published by Politico in September. After this year, âI think in many ways GPT5 is already smarter than me at least, and I think a lot of other people tooâ.
The AI advances we have seen this year could âset the world on a path of explosive growthâ, said The Economist. âThe picture that is emerging is perhaps counterintuitive and certainly mind-boggling.â
The latest âcharismatic megatraumaâ
We have reached a âpivotal momentâ in our relationship with artificial intelligence, said Idan Feingold on CTech. Over the last year, the AI hot potato has âevolved from a buzzword to the epicentre of every business conversationâ. There has been an unprecedented âsurgeâ in productivity linked to AI innovation, with practical applications advancing âat a pace we have never seen beforeâ.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
âAI has begun to settle like sediment into the corners of our lives,â said David Wallace-Wells in The New York Times. We have emerged from a âprophetic phaseâ that followed the release of ChatGPT in 2023, and have relaxed into âsomething more quotidianâ. Like many other âcharismatic megatraumasâ, such as nuclear proliferation and climate change, AI retains the power to distress and disturb, but it no longer provokes mass hysteria.
AIâs role in the healthcare sector has come a long way in the last decade. Microsoft announced this year that its AI diagnostic orchestrator performed four times more accurately than human doctors, with 20% reduced cost. âThe real testâ, said Time, will be how tools like this perform in real-world settings, but there is hope they might âset the stageâ for introducing high-quality medical expertise in parts of the world without access to cutting-edge healthcare.
âEconomic revivalâ or âfinancial bustâ?
However you look at it, 2025 has been unique. âThe hype and the hopes around AI have been like nothing the world has seen before,â said The Economist. Audiences have âmarvelledâ at ChatGPTâs abilities and were âmesmerisedâ by Sora 2âs generative video capabilities. That fascination shows no signs of fading; one estimate predicts more than $7 trillion will be spent on AI by the end of the decade.
As the past year progressed, concerns grew over when the AI bubble might burst. But that may be âasking the wrong questionâ, said Jurica Dujmovic in Market Watch. Donât be misled by the 2000 dot-com crash: we are experiencing an âorderly deflationâ rather than a sudden collapse. Amid the doom and gloom, the AI market still presents âgenuine opportunitiesâ for investors, operators and consumers alike.
Focus is now âshiftingâ to the outlook for AI in 2026, especially concerning its commercial profitability, said The Economist. Revenues from AI in 2025 amounted to a âmeaslyâ $50 billion a year, which equated to roughly an âeighth of Apple or Alphabetâs entire annual revenuesâ. Next year, expect reactions to be even more extreme, with âeconomic revivalâ, a âfinancial bustâ and âsocial backlashâ all possible.
