AIGC Chronicle: The Remarkable Impact of AI in 740 Days

12/20 2024 434

AI is reshaping the world around us.

As 2024 draws to a close, this year marks the inception of AI implementation, with AI technologies gradually being integrated into various fields, particularly in creative generation and marketing services.

Looking back at the evolution of this AI wave, the emergence of ChatGPT stands as a pivotal milestone. At the time, most people worldwide were unaware that humanity was on the brink of entering a new era of general-purpose AI.

In the over 700 days since ChatGPT's inception, the generative AI wave has evolved progressively, transforming our production processes and daily lives:

Initially, there was a global arms race for large models, centered on foundational large models.

Subsequently, people realized that AI capabilities extend beyond foundational models, existing in useful and engaging applications. Numerous enterprises began exploring ways to implement AI in diverse scenarios.

After two years of evolution, AI is now entering a phase of comprehensive application explosion. In fields such as creation and marketing, AI is serving as a productive tool, helping enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency.

01

The Era of the Hundred Models War

In January 2023, ChatGPT set a new historical record. Within just two months of its launch, it surpassed 100 million monthly active users, becoming the fastest-growing consumer application in history in terms of user base expansion.

This unprecedented speed and intensity of attention were akin to a technological explosion. It also introduced the world to a new concept: generative AI. The generative pre-trained AI based on the Transformer architecture, represented by ChatGPT, is leading the AI industry into a new era of general-purpose AI. Since then, the global tech industry has embarked on a race to catch up with OpenAI by developing larger models with stronger capabilities.

In February of last year, Google, the inventor of the Transformer architecture, did not immediately launch a large model but did make investments. It invested approximately $300 million in the startup Anthropic. Shortly after, Meta introduced Llama1, becoming the first among Silicon Valley giants to enter the foundational model battlefield. Anthropic, which received investment from Google, launched Claude 1 a month later, attempting to keep pace with OpenAI.

Domestic enterprises quickly joined the fray. On March 16, 2022, starting with Baidu's ERNIE Bot, the domestic Hundred Models War commenced in earnest. In April, Alibaba launched Tongyi Qianwen, and SenseTime unveiled its RDI series of large models. Over the following months, a host of emerging and established giants, including Zhipu, Baichuan, MiniMax, and Tencent, rushed to introduce their own large models. The "Six Little Tigers" of large language models also emerged one by one.

Amidst the turmoil in the large language model race, a text-to-image AI unicorn named Midjourney suddenly went viral on social media. This magical company, with only 11 full-time employees, has attracted over 10 million paid subscribers with its simple and user-friendly interface and exceptional image generation capabilities, generating over $100 million in annual revenue.

As the internet buzzed with amazement at the idea that "a great company only needs 11 people," the imagination for AI in creative marketing and content generation was fully unleashed. Many professionals in the marketing and design fields realized that AI had truly arrived.

Beyond the continuous iteration and competition in the field of large language models, the battlefield for multi-modal models was also bustling. Early this year, Sora went viral, igniting the video generation race. People further discovered that the threshold for creative content creation was poised to decrease even further.

After Sora released its concept video, several domestic enterprises successively introduced trial products. By June of this year, Kuaishou's video generation model Keling AI was launched, increasing video generation time to the minute level, prompting hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to queue up for trials. Chinese enterprises in this field have demonstrated astonishing speed in catching up, showing a tendency to surpass others later on.

The intense competition for foundational models has also driven up the market demand for AI computing power, pushing NVIDIA's market capitalization to new heights. On June 13, 2023, NVIDIA's market capitalization surpassed $1 trillion, and it has since continued to grow, currently exceeding $3.4 trillion, making it one of the most valuable companies.

02

Applications Are Here

In November last year, Bill Gates published a long article on his personal blog, predicting that everyone will have an AI personal assistant within five years, and that AI will significantly reshape human production and life.

To some extent, this is a signal that is gradually becoming a consensus in the industry: while the continuous upgrading of foundational model capabilities is exciting, the greater imagination lies in AI applications.

Generative AI has also entered its second phase. The focus of the large model race has shifted to application implementation, and people have discovered that software applications in various industries and fields are worth redoing with AI, with enterprises eagerly attempting to reconstruct their businesses with AI.

Search is one of the first sectors to be reconstructed by AI. The first player to emerge was a startup named Perplexity AI. Launched shortly after ChatGPT, it surpassed 5 billion user queries in just one year, setting a new record for funding among internet search startups.

The first domestic AI hit, Miaoya Camera, gained popularity at an astonishing rate. By simply uploading a few photos from daily life, users could generate exquisite portraits, transforming themselves into beauty with just one click at minimal cost. From July last year, it was ubiquitous on social media. However, this whirlwind that sent offline photo studios and Heymat a shiver sent as quickly as it came. After the craze subsided, how to retain users became a question facing all enterprises involved in AI applications.

Automotive companies have recognized the potential of AI in upgrading autonomous driving and cabin interaction. Xiaomi, XPeng, Huawei, and other enterprises are committed to bringing "say what you see" interaction to automobiles. By simply stating needs inside the car, AI upgraded based on large models rarely fails to understand user commands, and the days of "mentally handicapped" AI assistants are fading away.

Some enterprises have also tasted the sweetness of applying AI to specific industry scenarios. Overseas digital marketing enterprise AppLovin has seen its stock price soar in the past year due to integrating AI capabilities into advertising placement and user matching scenarios, with its market capitalization increasing nearly eightfold since the beginning of this year.

03

The Inaugural Year of AI Marketing Implementation

Currently, large models are entering a comprehensive implementation phase. In AI marketing fields, including content creation, creative generation, market analysis and placement, and customer service, large models are taking the lead in implementation. Efficient and simple AI marketing tools are also helping businesses with a keen sense of smell gain an edge in competition.

Hejiamei, a merchant in the condiment sector, is a typical example. This enterprise previously hoped to establish a new business presence on Kuaishou but was hesitant about the input-output ratio. This is a common concern among small and medium-sized merchants. Investing hundreds of thousands of yuan annually, recruiting and training live streamers, and incurring operational expenses such as hardware equipment, bandwidth, and live streaming room decoration – can the business succeed?

The situation is rapidly changing with the AI-upgraded digital human products. The advantage of digital humans is that merchants can start live streaming at a low cost, generating revenue while reducing the risk of upfront investment in traditional live streaming rooms. Moreover, with the support of large model capabilities, current digital humans already perform well in live streaming scenarios, such as speaking naturally and explaining product information.

In May this year, Hejiamei utilized the female digital human from Kuaishou's magnetic engine intelligent products, achieving remarkable results. Within one month of going live, its GMV exceeded 100,000 yuan. After several months of exploration, the enterprise's monthly GMV surpassed 1 million, with the ROI of the AI digital human reaching a level of 2 to 3.

Beyond digital humans, customer service is also a rigid demand scenario for many enterprises. AI-powered customer service, empowered by large models, is helping many enterprises overcome the three obstacles of recruitment, training, and scaling.

A barbecue restaurant in the local services sector has experienced the benefits of AI-upgraded intelligent customer service. Previously, the restaurant received numerous inquiries from potential customers about location and pricing information. Due to limited manpower or timing issues, they often could not respond to these inquiries in a timely manner.

For example, some consumers inquire about event information late at night, when human customer service representatives may already be off duty. It often takes until the next day for service personnel to respond, providing a poor service experience for consumers.

The digital employee π from Kuaishou's magnetic engine AI marketing products solves this enterprise dilemma. The digital employee π serves as an intelligent customer service representative, working around the clock to seamlessly handle business opportunities and service issues.

The digital employee π can understand inquiries from customers and respond quickly, significantly enhancing the user service experience. After using the digital employee π, the enterprise has seen a noticeable increase in the retention rate of potential customers, laying the foundation for subsequent business opportunities.

In the era of short videos, video production and content creation remain significant challenges for many enterprises and individual creators. The AI-powered short video creative production platform Kuaishou Chuangkai leverages its AIGC capabilities to help small and medium-sized merchants and individual players reduce the threshold for video production. For example, it can mine high-quality industry cases based on user needs and help customers get the same style with one click. When materials are insufficient, Kuaishou's Keling AI video generation capabilities, integrated into the Chuangkai platform, can generate more materials to expand creativity for enterprises.

A crucial aspect of marketing is advertising placement and audience matching. AI can also be used to help merchants improve advertising efficiency and more accurately match target audiences. Kuaishou's magnetic intelligent placement tool UAX enables enterprises to achieve better placement results with lower costs. One hosting enterprise using this product has reduced its placement costs by over 20%, doubled its active plan ARPU, and achieved a nearly 30% cold start success rate.

In these cases, AI is not just a novelty for enterprises but has transformed into a productivity assistant, deeply embedded in production, operation, and business processes, truly creating value.

In AI's world, a day feels like a year in the real world. It's hard to imagine how this wave will transform production and life in another 24 months. The only certainty is that you and I have already grown accustomed to the days of using AI assistants and tools, and enterprises can no longer do without these productivity tools that bring new business opportunities, reduce costs, and increase efficiency.

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