2024 is set to be a busy year for the UK, with Donald Trump being re-elected as President of the United States, interest rates slightly declining, and geopolitical tensions intensifying. As the new year approaches, Bloomberg News has interviewed several CEOs in the UK to discuss their outlook for 2025. These CEOs come from various industries, including finance, construction, and energy, sharing their insights on key themes for the coming years. Image source note: The image is AI-generated, with licensing provided by Midjourney.

Recently, as ByteDance's Doubao Large Model accelerates its commercialization process and shows impressive performance in the global AI sector, the "Doubao" concept stocks have become the new favorites in the capital market, leading to a new round of price increases in the AI track. Several listed companies, including Tianyu Shuke, Juran Smart Home, and Bee Assistant, have seen their stock prices hit the daily limit for multiple days in a row, with Tianyu Shuke achieving 6 consecutive limits in 10 days by Friday's close, Juran Smart Home hitting 5 limits in 6 days, and Bee Assistant reaching a peak of 20CM limit up during trading. This reflects the market's strong optimism about the Doubao Large Model and its ecosystem.

Recently, OpenAI announced a strategic partnership with UK-based media platform Future to integrate content from over 200 media brands under Future into OpenAI's user experience. Image source note: The image is generated by AI, with image licensing from Midjourney. Future is a company listed on the FTSE 250, dedicated to distributing trusted professional content through various platforms, including websites, newsletters, videos, magazines, and live events.

The renowned Japanese electronics company Panasonic recently announced the launch of an artificial intelligence (AI) version of its late founder, Kōnosuke Matsushita. Matsushita passed away in 1989, but Panasonic aims to use this technology to help the new generation of employees better understand and inherit the management philosophy of its founder. Image source note: The image is generated by AI, image authorized by service provider Midjourney, as companies evolve, those who were once trained directly by Kōnosuke Matsushita.

Teuken-7B, a language model with 7 billion parameters, has now been launched on Hugging Face, supporting all 24 official EU languages. This model was developed by the EU OpenGPT-X research project and is available as an open-source project for users. Unlike most AI language models that are English-centric, Teuken-7B was built from the ground up, with approximately half of its training data sourced from non-English European languages. Image source note: The image is AI-generated.

The latest research released by Google Cloud indicates that UK public services are under increasing pressure due to challenges such as tight budgets and staff shortages. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform the public sector by automating administrative tasks and improving service delivery. At the Google Cloud Public Sector Summit held in London, Iain Burgess, Director of Public Sector at Google Cloud UKI, pointed out that AI, particularly generative AI, can automate up to one-third of routine tasks within the public sector. He also stated, 'From tight budgets and staff shortages to substitutes...'

UK mobile operator Virgin Media O2 recently launched an innovative anti-fraud technology - an AI virtual grandma named 'Daisy', specifically designed to combat the rising tide of phone scams. This virtual grandma's sole task is to answer scam calls and delay the scammers as much as possible. When scammers dial a specific number set up by the operator, this AI robot, 'indistinguishable from a real person', will answer the call. According to O2, they have utilized multiple cutting-edge AI technologies and models.

According to the latest report from the Tony Blair Institute, artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to replace between 1 million and 3 million jobs in the UK private sector. However, despite a certain degree of unemployment in the short term, in the long run, the increase in unemployment will likely be limited to several hundred thousand, as the emergence of new technologies will create new job opportunities. The institute predicts that in the coming decades, between 60,000 and 275,000 jobs will be replaced each year.

Recently, HP has made new waves in the tech world! A recent study shows that many UK employees often skip lunch breaks, busy with mundane administrative tasks. The survey revealed that one-third of employees frequently skip lunch due to work demands, leaving them feeling very fatigued. To help these hard-working employees, HP has decided to launch a series of new tools aimed at improving work efficiency. The newly released 'Amplify AI' program by HP aims to provide partners with a variety of tools, resources, training, and certifications.