AI


Gen AI is still a hype but will become a utility


GENERATIVE AI has commanded global attention since the public launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. But if 2023 and 2024 seemed years of breakneck development, how should we rate January 2025? UK prime minister Keir Starmer set out


a “blueprint to turbocharge AI” to “deliver a decade of national renewal”, with an AI Opportunities Action Plan to “make the UK irresistible to AI firms”. US President 7UXPS DQQRXQFHG


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sector investment in AI infrastructure, and at the end of the month, Chinese AI company DeepSeek unveiled a rival to ChatGPT, supposedly developed at a fraction of the cost, which wiped $1 trillion off the value of major US tech firms. The annual proceedings of the Alliance


of Social Science Associations, run by the American Economics Association in San Francisco in January, saw leading economists debate the impact of AI and the hope that a Gen AI boom may boost productivity and transform economies. Professor Susan Athey of Stanford


University noted the “enormous positive potential” of the technology but emphasised “how deeply unpredictable the future of this technology is”. Cambridge University Professor Diane Coyle warned: “We should temper our expectations about AI’s economic impact . . . there is little reason to expect it will significantly boost GDP growth in the short or medium term.” Google-Alphabet senior vice-president James Manyika agreed, noting: “The productivity gains are not guaranteed. They’re going to take a lot of work.” So, some caution in addressing the


impact of AI on the industry is in order. Krisztina Ratz, Deloitte director


and AI and data engineering practice lead, explained: “The biggest change to this time last year is how technology vendors started implementing AI within their offerings. The hyperscalers [tech platforms with the scale and infrastructure for large-scale data


THERE is strong public support


for more transparency around generative AI (Figure 39)


Organisations are struggling with the application of such rapidly developing technology


processing and storage] offer features and services that clients can configure within days or utilise by licensing.” Her colleague Andy Gauld, Deloitte


partner and AI and data lead as well as head of aviation, agreed. But he said: “People are still struggling with the technology’s application. Most organisations fit into one of three camps: those which don’t have a strategy and are trying to work out what their strategy should be, those trying to experiment but not sure what they’re trying to deliver, and those experimenting but don’t know how to scale. “Most organisations in this sector are


in the first two camps. They still have data they need to clean and get into a state ready for the application of AI. Organisations are struggling to make the leap between what the technology can do and how to apply it in an environment where they still have messy data and functions that don’t talk to one another properly.” Ratz noted: “The technology has


progressed much more than organisations have moved on this journey. Most organisations in the consumer, travel and hospitality sectors have a fundamental understanding of what Gen AI is. Some


FIGURE 39: GENERATIVE AI: TRANSPARENCY % of UK adults


% 100


20 40 60 80


0 80% 74% 79% 85% 81%


Should Gen AI firms be required to make public the data on which models were trained?


% 100 13% 5% All


18-24 Should


4% 5% 3%


25-49 50-64 65+ Should not


20 40 60 80


0 72% 64% 69% 76% 76%


Should Gen AI firms be required to pay royalties for text/audio/ video used to train models?


7%


10% All 18-24 Should


9% 25-49


6%


5%


50-64 65+ Should not


Source: YouGov, November 2024 Base: 2,149 UK adults


Travel Weekly Insight Report 2025 23


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