It is clear that AI will not be going away anytime soon, as organisations continue to invest in a product that could unlock real business value.
AI continues to hold the potential to revolutionise numerous key industries, including healthcare, finance and manufacturing. It can be used to free up human workforces faster to complete more complex tasks, or it can be harnessed as a copilot to offer extra insights to improve business outcomes.
We consider some of the leading companies in the United States that are committed to harnessing continued AI innovation. This list is based on how company stocks are performing so far in 2024.
10. Salesforce
Salesforce is a cloud-computing company that develops personalised customer relationship management software. The company’s Einstein AI Platform enables enterprise users to create and deploy AI experiences natively in Salesforce to enable customers and employees to converse directly with Einstein to solve issues faster.
The company conducts research into the AI business landscape and has advocated for data integration strategies to maximise productivity in line with the technology. In addition, it recently hired a Chief Trust Officer to recognise the effect of trust on business goals.
9. IBM
IBM is one of the oldest and most influential companies in the AI industry, having first been founded in 1911. The company continues to focus on enterprise-led solutions, cloud computing and AI and consulting as it seeks to push the boundaries of technology.
As an AI world leader, IBM offers critical support for a range of key industries in the pursuit of how AI innovation can cause impact. At the start of 2024, it was reported that IBM held the most generative AI (Gen AI) patents, overtaking competitors. It boasted more than 1,500 patent applications in 2023.
8. OpenAI
Founded by several investors, including Elon Musk and Sam Altman, in 2015, OpenAI is a research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity.
The company ultimately shifted the conversation of AI and Gen AI to the general public on a wide scale never seen before with the launch of its conversational AI tool, ChatGPT, in addition to its GPT-4 model in 2023. It is also responsible for the DALLE model, which can create realistic images from natural language descriptions.
7. Apple
Apple continues to be one of the leading technology organisations in the world and continues to be the top buyer of AI and machine learning companies worldwide, having acquired 32 start-ups in 2023 alone.
According to CDO Magazine, Apple maintains a lead in equity and add-on investments in AI technologies since 2017, with a 21% share compared to other competitors.
Currently, the company is slowing in some business areas, having allegedly cancelled a long-running electric vehicle project. However, its 2024 release of its Vision Pro headset was a success, as it allowed the company to mark a new era of spatial computing.
6. Adobe
Historically, Adobe specialised in software for the creation and publication of a wide range of content, including graphics, photography, illustration, animation and motion picture. Its AI product, Adobe Firefly, is a generative machine learning model that is used in the design sector.
Created on Adobe’s Sensei platform, Adobe Firefly has been designed to assist users in expanding upon their natural creativity. Serving as both a product and an embedded model within Adobe applications, Firefly provides Gen AI tools tailored to creative requirements, applications, and workflows.
5. Meta Platforms
Having recently turned 20 years old, Meta has come a long way from its creation of Facebook. The American multinational technology organisation has successfully built an empire of social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Whatsapp, in addition to other services.
In recent years, Meta has been keen to shift towards digital extensions of the physical world via social media, virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR). The most significant of these offerings is the Reality Labs’ Meta Quest 3 headset has been hailed as a real triumph for the future of VR, facilitating a greater blend between actual and virtual reality, from gaming to education.
4. Google Cloud
Since being founded in 1998, Google has turned into a world leader in technology and AI with a goal of organising the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful.
Google Cloud offers a vast array of products and services, including AI, online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce and consumer electronics. The organisation has partnered with the likes of UiPath and Hugging Face to accelerate AI and also make it more accessible to all.
3. AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a pioneering force in the cloud computing and AI industries. With its parent company, Amazon, having been founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, the company has only continued to push the boundaries of technological innovation.
Having been launched in 2002, the cloud computing company has expanded to be one of the most comprehensive and widely-used platforms in the world. AWS has more services and features than any other cloud provider – from infrastructure technologies like compute, storage and databases, to emerging technologies like AI and machine learning, analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Investing in AI at a global scale, AWS believes in the power of AI and the cloud to offer greater insights into a wide range of business strategies.
2. Microsoft
Microsoft is headquartered in Washington state and is spearheaded by CEO Satya Nadella, having originally been founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
Having been one of the figureheads of the digital revolution, Microsoft’s goal is to empower every person and business to achieve more with the power of technology. It believes that technologies like AI can be used as a force for good, with meaningful innovation leading to a brighter future.
Microsoft has invested heavily in AI in recent years, most notably holding a 49% stake in OpenAI as of 2023. The company is also keen to facilitate AI equity and better access to the technology, having pioneered several key educational initiatives around the world to train and upskill workforces in AI.
1. NVIDIA
