The year 2024 was nothing short of a rollercoaster for OpenAI, a company that has become synonymous with the cutting edge of artificial intelligence. From groundbreaking product launches and innovative ChatGPT updates, to leadership shake-ups and even legal disputes, OpenAI navigated a whirlwind of events. These happenings showcased both the promise and the challenges of building advanced AI systems in an ever-evolving technological and ethical landscape.
Let’s take a deep dive into the highs, lows, and everything in between for OpenAI in 2024.
OpenAI Highlights of 2024
The Year Kicked Off with Election Preparedness
January 8, 2024: OpenAI entered the year by tightening safeguards in its models and outlining its strategy for the responsible use of AI during election campaigns. ChatGPT was updated to provide credible sources and updated responses for all election-related queries. The model also started rejecting requests to create deepfake images of politicians. This move emphasized transparency and responsible deployment of AI tools.
ChatGPT Store Launched
January 10, 2024: OpenAI introduced the ChatGPT Store, a platform enabling users to create, customize, and share GPTs tailored for specific tasks. This development revolutionized the world of AI by making GPT building tools and millions of custom GPTs accessible to both developers and users. Initially available to paid subscribers, the store soon became a hub for innovative applications across industries.
Andrej Karpathy: The First of Many to Leave
February 13, 2024: Andrej Karpathy, a founding member of OpenAI and esteemed AI researcher, announced his departure from the company for the second time. He expressed his intention to focus on personal projects, leaving OpenAI to reassign his responsibilities to other senior researchers. This caused the year’s first major shake-up in the company’s leadership. In July, Karpathy started a new AI+Education company called Eureka Labs.
OpenAI Introduced Sora
February 15, 2024: OpenAI introduced Sora, a text-to-video model available for red-teaming to manage potential harms and risks. In a promotional demo, OpenAI released several realistic, high-definition video clips created by Sora which awed the public and went viral. You may remember watching a monster next to a candle, people walking in Tokyo, and footage of the California gold rush, making rounds on the internet. The company planned to release Sora at a later, unspecified date when it becomes safer for public use.
First Major Lawsuit: Digital News Outlets
February 28, 2024: The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging unauthorized use of their journalistic content to train AI models like ChatGPT. The plaintiffs claimed copyright violations and sought damages, initiating a series of legal battles for OpenAI.
Elon Musk’s Legal Battle Begins
February 29, 2024: Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, alleging that the company deviated from its original nonprofit mission to prioritize profits over public benefit. Musk later withdrew the lawsuit in June, only to revive it in August. He later amended it in November to include Microsoft, accusing both entities of anti-competitive practices.
The Transition from ChatGPT Plugins to GPT Store
March 7, 2024: OpenAI announced the winding down of the ChatGPT plugins beta, owing to the launch of the GPT Store and more and more people switching from plugins to custom GPTs. Post March 19, users could no longer install new plugins or start new conversations with the existing ones. However, ongoing plugin conversations continued working until April 9.
New APIs Introduced
April 24, 2024: OpenAI introduced new APIs for GPT-3.5 Turbo and Whisper, allowing developers to integrate their apps and products into these newer models. Along with this, OpenAI announced the deprecation of several older models, including the Edits API (text-davinci-edit-001).
U.S. Newspapers Join the Fray
April 30, 2024: Eight U.S. newspapers, including the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and Denver Post, sued OpenAI and Microsoft. They accused the companies of using millions of copyrighted articles to train AI chatbots, without permission or compensation. They claimed this practice infringed on their rights to intellectual property.
The Big Launch: GPT-4o
May 13, 2024: OpenAI made waves by unveiling GPT-4o, a multimodal AI capable of processing text, images, and even audio. Faster and smarter than its predecessors, GPT-4o expanded possibilities in areas like content creation, customer service, and advanced research. This model wasn’t just an upgrade; it was a testament to OpenAI’s commitment to pushing boundaries.
On the same day, OpenAI expanded access to its ChatGPT Store, making it available for free to all users. This move democratized access to the growing library of custom GPTs, encouraging broader innovation and collaboration within the community.
A Major Departure: Sutskever Moves On
May 14, 2024: In a surprising move after the big launch, Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and Chief Scientist of OpenAI, announced his departure to pursue a new venture. Sutskever co-founded Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), a company focused on the safe development of superintelligent AI systems. This marked a significant moment in OpenAI’s history, as Sutskever had been instrumental in shaping its technical vision.
Mini but Mighty: GPT-4o Mini
July 18, 2024: To cater to startups and developers looking for cost-effective AI solutions, OpenAI introduced GPT-4o Mini. Compact yet powerful, this model offered nearly all the capabilities of GPT-4o but at a fraction of the cost. GPT-4o Mini opened doors for smaller businesses to leverage AI, democratizing access in ways that were previously unattainable.
A Changing Guard: Leadership Shifts
August 5, 2024: Co-founder Greg Brockman announced an extended leave until the end of the year, sparking conversations about the future of his role at OpenAI. Meanwhile, co-founder John Schulman departed to join rival AI startup Anthropic, to focus more on AI alignment research.
GPT-4o Fine-Tuning Capabilities Expanded
August 20, 2024: OpenAI expanded fine-tuning capabilities to GPT-4o, allowing developers to customize this advanced model for specific tasks. With features like epoch-based checkpoints, hyperparameter configuration, and comparative analysis tools, fine-tuning GPT-4o empowered businesses to tailor the model’s output to meet unique requirements.
The Launch of the Mightiest One: o1 Models
September 12, 2024: OpenAI launched the powerful o1-preview and o1-mini models, marking a significant advancement in AI reasoning capabilities. Designed to excel in scientific problem-solving and complex coding tasks, these models introduced a new level of efficiency and precision for developers working on specialized applications. The launch of the o1 series was seen as OpenAI’s move to provide lighter and more task-specific AI tools. This broadened the company’s offerings beyond general-purpose systems.
Yet Another Major Departure
September 25, 2024: Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati, who played a pivotal role in shaping OpenAI’s product roadmap, announced her departure. This marked a significant moment, as her technical expertise was a cornerstone of OpenAI’s development.
Introduction of the Realtime API
October 1, 2024: On OpenAI SF DevDay 2024, the company unveiled the Realtime API, enabling developers to process streaming audio and text inputs in real-time. Realtime API came with additional features such as function calling, vision-fine tuning, distillation, and prompt caching. This facilitated applications like live transcription, interactive voice assistants, and real-time customer interactions, further broadening its use cases.
A Lucrative Valuation
October 2, 2024: OpenAI raised $6.6 billion from investors, potentially valuing the company at $157 billion. The funding attracted returning venture capital firms like Thrive Capital and Khosla Ventures. It also brought in Microsoft as a major backer and Nvidia and SoftBank as new investors. This solidified its status as one of the most valuable private firms globally.
OpenAI Adds a Canvas to GPT 4o
October 3, 2024: OpenAI gave ChatGPT yet another upgrade with canvas. This new interface made writing, coding, and working with ChatGPT more intuitive, going beyond a simple chat. Offering a dedicated working window, real-time editing with version control, editorial suggestions, and more, ChatGPT 4o with canvas substantially improved the platform’s user experience. This innovative new model is still in its beta phase and hence only available to ChatGPT Plus and Team users for now.
OpenAI Unleashed a ‘Swarm’ of AI Agents
October 11, 2024: OpenAI secretly launched Swarm – an experimental open-source framework for building agentic AI. It facilitates the development, management, and orchestration of multi-agent AI systems, allowing seamless task transfers between agents. This marked OpenAI’s first step towards creating the next generation of scalable, testable AI agents and multi-agent systems.
Military Applications and Controversies
October 25, 2024: OpenAI found itself in the spotlight when reports emerged that the Pentagon had purchased its tools for military operations in Africa. This sparked debates about the ethical use of AI in defense and warfare, highlighting the dual-edged nature of advanced technologies.
OpenAI Introduces ChatGPT Search
October 31, 2024: Yet another innovation from OpenAI came in the form of ChatGPT Search – an AI-powered search tool that integrates real-time web information into ChatGPT’s conversational interface. It offers users the access up-to-date data, including sports scores, stock quotes, and news through an intuitive search experience. These real-time responses also come with reliable links to relevant sources for easy verification. The launch of ChatGPT Search, thus, positioned OpenAI as a direct competitor to traditional search engines like Google.
Expanding the Ecosystem
November 6, 2024: OpenAI reportedly spent over $10 million to acquire a domain, signaling its intent to solidify its online ecosystem. While details about the URL were scarce, industry experts viewed this as a strategic move to create a unified platform for its suite of AI tools.
Return of a Co-Founder
November 12, 2024: Fortunately for OpenAI, Greg Brockman returned to office after his extended leave. His comeback was met with optimism, as many view him as a stabilizing force amidst the year’s turbulence.
What to Expect from OpenAI in 2025
2024 was a defining year for OpenAI, witnessing immense growth, new possibilities, and significant challenges. Be it the launch of GPT-4o, leadership changes, or legal battles, OpenAI’s journey portrayed the complexities of leading in the AI space.
As we move into 2025, here’s a glimpse of what the industry is buzzing about OpenAI’s next moves:
- Advanced Models: Following GPT-4o’s success, rumors of GPT-5 are already circulating. Speculations suggest it could include features like real-time reasoning and even more refined multimodal capabilities.
- Focus on Ethics: With controversies like the copyright lawsuit and military applications, OpenAI is likely to double down on ethical AI deployment in the coming year.
- Enterprise Solutions: OpenAI is likely to expand its offerings for businesses, introducing tailored, industry-specific models addressing niche requirements.
- Collaboration Expansion: OpenAI may further explore collaborations with educational institutions and global organizations, to make AI more accessible.
- Agenting AI Exploration: With the success of the Swarm framework, OpenAI is bound to experiment further on agentic AI systems. 2025 will see OpenAI come up with new AI agent building tools and frameworks, paving the way for broader applications.
- The Rise of AGI: Discussions around Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) are expected to gain momentum in 2025. OpenAI is already working towards achieving a more general form of intelligence that could revolutionize industries globally.
- The Launch of a New Browser: Insider information following the hiring of Darin Fisher, a former Chrome engineer, is that OpenAI is developing a new AI-integrated browser. It is said to offer cutting-edge AI capabilities built directly into the user experience. Once launched, this browser could challenge the market dominance of existing players like Google and Bing.
As we look ahead, one thing is certain: OpenAI will continue to shape the future of AI, setting the stage for another transformative year in 2025.
Sabreena Basheer is an architect-turned-writer who's passionate about documenting anything that interests her. She's currently exploring the world of AI and Data Science as a Content Manager at Analytics Vidhya.
