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777pub bet sign up Franklin Resources Inc. Trims Stake in HealthStream, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSTM), a global e-commerce powerhouse, has established itself as a leader in the online retail revolution. The company stands out as a prime investment opportunity, as the bull market continues to reward growth stocks. With its innovative platform, expanding global footprint, and strong financial growth, Shopify offers immense potential for long-term investors. Here are three compelling reasons to consider adding Shopify to your portfolio today. Shopify is synonymous with e-commerce innovation, providing entrepreneurs and businesses with a comprehensive platform to set up, manage, and grow their online stores. It has helped Shopify to become the digital backbone for more than 2.1 million businesses around the world. In addition, the strength of the company is its ability to change with the changing dynamics of the market and requirements of customers. Shopify is constantly evolving its platform, introducing new features like Shopify Markets, which makes cross-border selling much easier, and Shopify Plus for enterprise clients. This innovation helps Shopify maintain its position in an industry that will hit $7 trillion in global sales by 2025. The financial performance of Shopify underscores its resilience and growth potential. Despite macroeconomic challenges, the company has demonstrated consistent revenue growth, driven by higher merchant adoption and increased gross merchandise volume (GMV). Shopify’s Q3 2024 earnings showcased a robust 25% year-over-year increase in revenue, reflecting its expanding market share and merchant base. Furthermore, subscription-based revenue ensures a stable income flow, while its merchant solutions, including payment processing and logistics, add scalability. Shopify’s cost-efficiency measures have improved margins, making the company increasingly profitable, a key milestone for tech growth stocks. Moreover, Shopify’s ability to scale its operations is unmatched. Whether it is small businesses launching their first online stores or large enterprises like Heinz and Allbirds managing global operations, Shopify caters to a diverse audience. Shopify is not just dominating the North American market; it is strategically expanding into emerging markets with immense growth potential. Through initiatives like localized payment systems, regional language support, and international partnerships, Shopify is positioning itself as the go-to platform for global e-commerce. Key regions like Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa are witnessing exponential growth in online retail, fueled by increasing internet penetration and smartphone adoption. Shopify’s ability to cater to these markets through innovative solutions like mobile-first stores and integrated social commerce tools makes it a frontrunner in capturing this untapped potential. In addition, Shopify’s partnerships with major players like Google, Facebook, and TikTok amplify its reach, enabling merchants to connect with millions of potential customers globally. As these partnerships deepen and new ones emerge, Shopify’s ecosystem becomes even more indispensable for businesses looking to thrive in a connected world. Overall, Shopify is more than just a stock; it is a stake in the future of global commerce. With its leadership in the e-commerce space, strong financial growth, and strategic international expansion, Shopify is well-positioned to deliver significant returns in the coming years. Shopify represents a rare blend of innovation, scalability, and resilience for investors looking to ride the bull market wave. Its robust business model and unwavering focus on empowering merchants worldwide make it a must-buy stock on the TSX.Jools Lebron, a Chicago-based content creator, gained fame when her "very demure, very mindful" catch phrase went viral. The quote was quickly embraced by other influencers, celebrities and politicians but when Jools went to trademark the phrase, she learned someone had beat her to it. A man reportedly filed an intent to trademark for use in marketing, advertising and promotion. Despite the timing of the trademark applications, Alexandra Roberts, a law and media professor at Northeastern University, says that Lebron can still challenge the trademark. Memes like "Hawk Tuah," "Brat Summer," and Moo Deng dominated online conversations in 2024. Viral humor intertwined with societal reflection, influencing pop culture and even political campaigns. As TikTok faces uncertainty, meme culture is poised for change in 2025. LOS ANGELES - The internet in 2024 was a chaotic blend of creativity, humor, and commentary. Memes once again became the language of the digital age, transforming fleeting moments into viral phenomena that united, confused, or divided online audiences. From AI-generated absurdity to cultural moments like the Paris Olympics, memes acted as both a reflection of society and an outlet for humor amid serious issues. Here's a look at the most iconic memes that defined this year. The Paris Olympics: The 2024 Paris Olympics were not just about athletic achievements; they became a cultural and meme-worthy moment. Viral highlights included Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen’s muffin reviews and gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik earning the nickname "pommel horse guy." Céline Dion’s moving performance at the opening ceremony also sparked widespread online love. RELATED: Australian breakdancer Raygun breaks silence after controversial Olympics performance Charli XCX’s "Brat" summer: Charli XCX’s album "Brat" redefined the word "brat" as a rebellion against perfection. Its cultural impact extended far beyond music, inspiring memes and social media trends about embracing chaos and hedonism in an otherwise tumultuous year. RELATED: What is a 'brat summer'? Why are people using the term 'brat'? Skibidi Toilet: This YouTube phenomenon continued to dominate online discourse in 2024. What started as a surreal web series became a shorthand for chaotic humor, spawning countless reaction GIFs and fan recreations. AI-generated "slop" art: AI tools flooded the internet with bizarre, anatomically inaccurate images, including shrimp-like Jesus figures and unrecognizable children pleading for birthday wishes. These surreal creations blurred the lines between humor and horror while sparking debates about AI ethics in art. Moo Deng’s unexpected popularity: Few could have predicted that Moo Deng, an adorable pygmy hippo from Thailand, would capture the internet’s imagination in 2024. Videos of the hippo’s playful antics and charming expressions became instant hits, sparking a wave of memes and fan art. Moo Deng’s rise to fame also helped shine a light on wildlife conservation efforts, making it a symbol of joy and environmental awareness. FILE - Moo Deng splashes in a bucket of water in her enclosure at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo on November 11, 2024 in Pattaya, Thailand. Underconsumption core: TikTok saw the rise of "underconsumption core," a trend encouraging users to reject constant consumerism. This movement, which advocates for appreciating what you already own, resonated with audiences tired of fast fashion and fleeting trends. The great X-odus: The mass departure from Elon Musk's X platform (formerly Twitter) reached new heights during the 2024 election season. Frustrated users migrated to alternatives like Bluesky and Threads, showcasing dissatisfaction with X’s growing issues and prompting memes about its decline. The rise of "Hawk Tuah": Haliey Welch’s unapologetic Southern drawl in a viral clip cemented "Hawk Tuah" as a summer anthem and launched Welch into unexpected fame. Memes surrounding the phrase became symbols of bold self-expression. RELATED: 'Demure:' What does it mean and why is it trending on TikTok? "Brain rot" lingo from Gen Alpha: The Oxford word of the year, "brain rot," captured Gen Alpha’s unique online language. Terms like "gyatt" and "Skibidi" highlighted the influence of younger generations on internet culture and left older audiences scrambling to keep up.

Fallout of change of regime in Syria: Some countries are whipping up Shia-PhobiaWASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump said he can't guarantee that his promised tariffs on key U.S. foreign trade partners won't raise prices for American consumers and he suggested once more that some political rivals and federal officials who pursued legal cases against him should be imprisoned. The president-elect, in a wide-ranging interview with NBC's “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday, also touched on monetary policy, immigration, abortion and health care, and U.S. involvement in Ukraine, Israel and elsewhere. Trump often mixed declarative statements with caveats, at one point cautioning “things do change.” A look at some of the issues covered: Trump hems on whether trade penalties could raise prices Trump has threatened broad trade penalties, but said he didn’t believe economists' predictions that added costs on those imported goods for American companies would lead to higher prices for U.S. consumers. He stopped short of a pledge that U.S. households won't be paying more as they shop. “I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow,” Trump said, seeming to open the door to accepting the reality of how import levies typically work as goods reach the retail market. That's a different approach from Trump's typical speeches throughout the 2024 campaign, when he framed his election as a sure way to curb inflation. In the interview, Trump defended tariffs generally, saying they are "going to make us rich.” He has pledged that, on his first day in office in January, he would impose 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico and Canada unless those countries satisfactorily stop illegal immigration and the flow of illegal drugs such as fentanyl into the United States. He also has threatened additional tariffs on China to help force that country to crack down on fentanyl production. ”All I want to do is I want to have a level, fast, but fair playing field,” Trump said. Trump suggests retribution for his opponents while claiming no interest in vengeance He offered conflicting statements on how he would approach the justice system after winning election despite being convicted of 34 felonies in a New York state court and being indicted in other cases for his handling of national security secrets and efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. “Honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump said of members of Congress who investigated the Capitol riot by his supporters who wanted him to remain in power. The president-elect underscored his contention that he can use the justice system against others, including special prosecutor Jack Smith, who led the case on Trump’s role in the siege on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump confirmed his plan to pardon supporters who were convicted for their roles in the riot, saying he would take that action on his first day in office. As for the idea of revenge driving potential prosecutions, Trump said: “I have the absolute right. I’m the chief law enforcement officer, you do know that. I’m the president. But I’m not interested in that." At the same time, Trump singled out lawmakers on a special House committee who had investigated the insurrection, citing Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. “Cheney was behind it ... so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee,” Trump said. Asked specifically whether he would direct his administration to pursue cases, he said, “No,” and suggested he did not expect the FBI to quickly undertake investigations into his political enemies. But at another point, Trump said he would leave the matter up to Pam Bondi, his pick as attorney general. “I want her to do what she wants to do,” he said. Such threats, regardless of Trump's inconsistencies, have been taken seriously enough by many top Democrats that Biden is considering issuing blanket, preemptive pardons to protect key members of his outgoing administration. Trump did seemingly back off his campaign rhetoric calling for Biden to be investigated, saying, “I’m not looking to go back into the past.” Swift action on immigration is coming Trump repeatedly mentioned his promises to seal the U.S.-Mexico border and deport millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally through a mass deportation program. “I think you have to do it,” he said. He suggested he would try to use executive action to end “birthright” citizenship under which people born in the U.S. are considered citizens — although such protections are spelled out in the Constitution. Asked specifically about the future for people who were brought into the country illegally as children and have been shielded from deportation in recent years, Trump said, “I want to work something out,” indicating he might seek a solution with Congress. But Trump also said he does not “want to be breaking up families” of mixed legal status, “so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.” Trump commits to NATO, with conditions, and waffles on Putin and Ukraine Long a critic of NATO members for not spending more on their own defense, Trump said he “absolutely” would remain in the alliance “if they pay their bills.” Pressed on whether he would withdraw if he were dissatisfied with allies’ commitments, Trump said he wants the U.S. treated “fairly” on trade and defense. He waffled on a NATO priority of containing Russia and President Vladimir Putin. Trump suggested Ukraine should prepare for less U.S. aid in its defense against Putin’s invasion. “Possibly. Yeah, probably. Sure,” Trump said of reducing Ukraine assistance from Washington. Separately, Trump has called for an immediate ceasefire . Asked about Putin, Trump said initially that he has not talked to the Russian leader since Election Day last month, but then hedged: “I haven’t spoken to him recently.” Trump said when pressed, adding that he did not want to “impede the negotiation.” Trump says Powell is safe at the Fed, but not Wray at the FBI The president-elect said he has no intention, at least for now, of asking Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to step down before Powell's term ends in 2028. Trump said during the campaign that presidents should have more say in Fed policy , including interest rates. Trump did not offer any job assurances for FBI Director Christopher Wray, whose term is to end in 2027. Asked about Wray, Trump said: “Well, I mean, it would sort of seem pretty obvious” that if the Senate confirms Kash Patel as his pick for FBI chief, then “he’s going to be taking somebody’s place, right? Somebody is the man that you’re talking about.” Trump is absolute about Social Security, not so much on abortion and health insurance Trump promised that the government efficiency effort led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will not threaten Social Security. “We're not touching Social Security, other than we make it more efficient,” he said. He added that “we're not raising ages or any of that stuff.” He was not so specific about abortion or his long-promised overhaul of the Affordable Care Act. On abortion, Trump continued his inconsistencies and said he would “probably” not move to restrict access to the abortion pills that now account for a majority of pregnancy terminations, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. But pressed on whether he would commit to that position, Trump replied, “Well, I commit. I mean, are -- things do -- things change. I think they change.” Reprising a line from his Sept. 10 debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump again said he had “concepts” of a plan to substitute for the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which he called “lousy health care.” He added a promise that any Trump version would maintain insurance protections for Americans with preexisting health conditions. He did not explain how such a design would be different from the status quo or how he could deliver on his desire for “better health care for less money.” Barrow reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Jill Colvin and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.

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So ends one of the wildest weeks in recent memory for the Nebraska football program. The one-week overlap of high school recruiting, transfer portal entries, coaching changes and bowl game decisions meant there were highs and lows for Nebraska fans to go through — but the program’s leader wasn’t bothered by the departures and changes that hit the Huskers. “If we have good players and we have good coaches, then people are gonna come try to get them,” Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule said on Wednesday. “If no one’s trying to take our players, it means we’re in trouble.” With news to break down in each of those areas, let’s drop into coverage: Nebraska’s defensive coaching staff will look much different in 2025 compared to 2024, but Rhule is hopeful that the defense itself won’t change much. Defensive coordinator Tony White is off to Florida State and has taken defensive line coach Terrance Knighton with him, a major blow to a Nebraska defense that ranked inside the top 20 nationally each of the last two seasons. Knighton was one of Rhule’s best hires for his initial Nebraska coaching staff. The defensive line, presumed to be a question mark in 2023, instead became a strength of the team. Players like Ty Robinson and Nash Hutmacher reached new heights under Knighton’s coaching, while several young Huskers also made an impact up front. There’s plenty of returning talent in the defensive line room even after some roster turnover, but NU’s next defensive line coach will have big expectations to continue Knighton’s good work at the position. As for White, he implemented his 3-3-5 scheme to great success a year ago, but Nebraska lined up slightly differently this fall with a four-man rush utilized far more often than in 2023. He’ll be a good fit at Florida State, while Nebraska has turned to John Butler in the interim to lead its defense. There’s no doubting Butler’s pedigree as a former NFL defensive mind, and his influence showed up in the way the Nebraska defense operated this season. Whether it’s Butler or an external hire who leads the Nebraska defense next season, continuity on that side of the ball is the expectation. “The defense isn’t going to change, but the offense is going to be better,” Rhule said. That optimism is underscored by the return of Dana Holgorsen as Nebraska’s offensive coordinator. Having brought in his own wide receivers coach, Daikiel Shorts Jr., Holgorsen will begin transforming the Nebraska offense this spring after the team’s bowl game. Nebraska signed a 20-player recruiting class on Wednesday that is loaded with talent across the board. While recruits can still sign with teams in February, expect Nebraska to be finished along the recruiting trail — and that means it’s time to take stock of the players in its 2025 recruiting class. Here are five of those signees who should impact the long-term future of the Husker football team. First up is linebacker Dawson Merritt. The highest-ranked signee in NU’s 2025 class was an Alabama commit for a reason, and it’s because the pass-rushing potential he shows. Set to be an off-ball linebacker and hybrid edge rusher at Nebraska, Merritt is the type of player who can make an impact early in his collegiate career. If he reaches his long-term potential, Merritt should be an NFL prospect when he leaves Nebraska. Nebraska also landed a top playmaking prospect in wide receiver Cortez Mills. Another wide receiver recruit, Isaiah Mozee, will provide an impact — but Mills is the all-around prospect who could dominate targets in a year or two’s time. The fast, athletic pass-catcher knows how to run himself open against coverage and excels at winning in one-on-one situations. Quarterback Dylan Raiola will like playing with Mills. In the secondary, cornerback Bryson Webber should be a starter down the road. His status as a former wide receiver gives him the ball skills Nebraska is after the spot, and Webber’s long, athletic frame will help him against opposing wide receivers. He may not be a day-one starter at cornerback, but Webber will make the position his own in the years which follow. Another explosive playmaker on offense is running back Jamarion Parker. Having signed alongside Bishop Neumann’s Conor Booth, Parker could be the lightning to Booth’s thunder as a one-two running back punch in the years which follow. A big-play threat and tough runner, Parker is an all-around talent who Nebraska and Holgorsen will find a way to utilize. The final pick is linebacker Christian Jones. Hard-nosed, athletic inside linebackers are hard to come by, but Jones is one of the rare few who could have a future at the position. He’s a top athlete who could push for playing time early in his career. For those interested, here are the five players I identified from NU’s 2024 class one year ago: Dylan Raiola, Carter Nelson, Willis McGahee IV, Mario Buford and Grant Brix. While Jacory Barney Jr. is a notable miss from that list, all but Brix played in at least 10 games and had an impact as freshmen. Nebraska’s transfer portal entrants have begun trickling out, and there will be many more which follow as a result of the 105-player roster limit teams must abide with next season. Many of the toughest departures to stomach have come on defense, where a veteran-heavy group will look much different in terms of its personnel next season. Defensive lineman Jimari Butler, a two-year starter at the position, has decided to move on. So have linebackers Mikai Gbayor and Stefon Thompson — who might’ve been starters next season — and rising young defenders Princewill Umanmielen, James Williams and Kai Wallin. Williams, Wallin and Umanmielen were all impactful defenders for Nebraska this fall, but their status as pass-rushing specialists still left room for improvement as all-around defenders. Butler and Gbayor, however, would’ve been pegged as no-doubt veteran starters, so their choice to move on will impact NU’s defensive strength. No entry was more surprising than that of running back Emmett Johnson, a player who emerged as NU’s top rusher late in the 2024 season. The up-and-down nature of Johnson’s Nebraska career — he showed flashes down the stretch in 2023 and was hardly utilized this fall prior to Holgorsen taking over — may have impacted his decision to seek out a new opportunity. Nebraska’s transfer portal targets will become clearer in the coming days, but one player has already stated his interest in the Huskers. Fresno State linebacker Phoenix Jackson, a multi-year starter at the position, announced on social media that Auburn, Indiana, Nebraska and SMU are the four teams he’s considering transferring to. Prior to learning its bowl opponent, Nebraska had a light week of practice before things get intense later this month. The Huskers practiced on Tuesday and Thursday last week with its veterans sitting out as younger players got reps in front of their coaches instead. Rhule said he expects Nebraska to practice from Tuesday to Thursday this week, with another day on Saturday during which the Huskers could bring transfer portal visitors to campus. “Being in bowl practice right now is exactly what this team needs, exactly what we need moving forward,” Rhule said. “I saw guys practice (Tuesday) and look like I haven’t seen them look all year.” After his firing at Nebraska, former head coach Scott Frost didn’t need to rush into his next coaching job, instead waiting for a situation and school that made sense for him. While it didn’t work out in Lincoln, there’s no denying the success Frost had at UCF. The in-state talent around the school and Frost’s offense made for a great fit, even if he only had two seasons to show it. The Knights are no longer in the AAC, though, instead having moved to a new-look Big 12 which has the makings of a difficult conference. It’s a good fit for Frost, but there’ll still be an element of pressure for him to deliver results and show that he can rebuild the program once again. Get local news delivered to your inbox!

AP Sports SummaryBrief at 5:42 p.m. EST2 ASX 200 shares announcing acquisitions today

Air Canada plans to bar carry-on bags and impose a seat selection fee for its lowest-fare customers in the new year, as discount carrier tactics increasingly enter the mainstream. Starting Jan. 3, basic fare passengers on trips within North America and to sun destinations will have to check duffel bags, rolling suitcases and large backpacks for a fee — $35 for the first, $50 for the second. A small personal item such as a purse or laptop bag will be allowed on board for free, as will strollers, mobility aids and medical devices. The country’s largest airline also said that as of Jan. 21, lower-tier customers will have to pay if they want to change the seat assigned to them at check-in — a policy it had suspended just two days after implementation earlier this year amid backlash from travellers. The moves mark a shift toward a budget airline-style offering from Canada’s flag carrier, which along with rivals has relied increasingly on ancillary fees for formerly bundled services that range from checked bags to on-board snacks and Wi-Fi access. Air Canada says the changes align its fare structure with similar ticket options from other Canadian carriers and “better distinguish its fare brands.” In June, WestJet rolled out its “UltraBasic” fare. The ticket tier allows no more than a personal item on board — stored under the seat — and charges a fee for seat selection, including after check-in, whether online or in-person. Discount carrier Flair Airlines always charges for a carry-on, which costs between $29 and $74 depending on its size. No-frills fares carry growing appeal for big airlines seeking to capture cost-conscious travellers as budgets tighten after inflation and interest rate hikes. “They’re competing with these low-cost carriers on various routes,” said Richard Vanderlubbe, founder of Hamilton, Ont.-based travel agency Tripcentral.ca. “This is what wins in the price-sensitive area of the market.” Criticism of bare-bones ticket offerings is “easy,” Vanderlubbe said, but the fare tiers — up to seven at Air Canada — give travellers choice. U.S. carriers such as United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have similar categories, though American and Delta still allow basic economy travellers to bring a bag onto the plane at no cost. “It’s a market solution to kind of an ugly problem,” Vanderlubbe said. “If you’re paying the lowest of the low, then who should get the middle seat at the back?” He added that customers need to be aware that what they see as the lowest fare on a price comparison search may not wind up being the cheapest option once the fees are tallied. “It’s not transparent until you’ve gotten a certain depth into the booking: ‘Oh, here’s the seat selection fee. Oh, here’s the baggage fee. Oh, here’s the carry-on fee.’ And watch out if you don’t check in online, there’s a massive penalty if you don’t,” Vanderlubbe said. “It’s kind of drip, drip, drip, drip. And it works,” he said, calling the trend “troublesome.” Transport Minister Anita Anand agreed. “I was just made aware of a decision by Air Canada to introduce new carry-on baggage fees. I am extremely concerned. Canadians work hard and save up to travel. They rightly expect excellent service, not extra fees,” she said Wednesday in a social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Some competitors sought to seize on Air Canada’s announcement to highlight their own offerings. “Now the choice should be clear,” Flair said in a post on X. “The products are the same, one just costs way less.” That’s not always true. Some Toronto-Vancouver tickets in March start at $129 for Flair and $135 for Air Canada and WestJet. Other routes see a bigger difference, with Calgary-Toronto priced at $139 for Flair, $209 for Air Canada, $175 for WestJet and $198 for Porter. Air Canada noted that basic fare passengers who arrive at the boarding gate with ineligible bags will be charged $65 per item to check them. It also announced that customers on its “comfort economy” fare — the middle of the seven tiers — can check two bags for free starting Jan. 3, rather than one. Air Canada took in nearly US$2 billion in so-called ancillary revenue in 2022, up by nearly 50 per cent from five years earlier, according to airline consulting firm IdeaWorksCompany. The category’s share of total revenue for the company grew to more than 15 per cent from below 11 per cent in the same five-year period.USMNT star Christian Pulisic suffers new injury: When could AC Milan's top player return to the pitch?

AP News Summary at 5:41 p.m. EST

We predicted that Stability AI would shut down this year. The company has had a chaotic 2024 ... [+] punctuated by the departure of its CEO/cofounder Emad Mostaque, but it has not shut down. At this time last year, we published a list of 10 predictions about what would happen in the world of artificial intelligence in 2024. To keep ourselves honest, with 2024 now coming to a close, let’s revisit these predictions to see how things actually played out. There is much to learn from these retrospectives about the state of AI today. Interestingly, an online betting market about our 10 predictions popped up and has been active over the course of 2024. Take a look to see what the markets thought about our predictions. And keep an eye out for our 2025 AI predictions, coming out later this month! Prediction 1: Nvidia will dramatically ramp up its efforts to become a cloud provider. Outcome: Right FBI Warns iPhone, Android Users—Change WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal Apps What To Know About The UnitedHealthcare CEO Murder—As NYPD Releases New Photos Of Suspect iOS 18.2 Release Date: iPhone’s New Upgrade Is Hours Away Nvidia invested heavily to expand its DGX Cloud offering in 2024, nearly tripling its quarterly spend on cloud services and leaving little doubt that it considers this a major strategic priority. It now touts case studies from numerous happy customers of its AI-focused cloud offering, from Amgen to Deloitte to ServiceNow. For now, Nvidia offers its cloud service in partnership with the major cloud providers Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. But make no mistake: while Nvidia and the cloud providers are deeply reliant on each other today, these giants increasingly find themselves on a competitive collision course. Nvidia may hope to cut out the middleman by offering its chips directly to end customers rather than relying on the cloud vendors as intermediaries. Meanwhile, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are all developing their own homegrown AI chips to lessen their dependence on and compete more directly with Nvidia. It will be fascinating to watch this “frenemy” dance play out in the years ahead. Prediction 2: Stability AI will shut down. Outcome: Wrong Things went from bad to worse for Stability AI at the beginning of 2024. CEO/founder Emad Mostaque was pushed out of the company in March. Several key personnel departed around the same time, including star researcher Robin Rombach, leading insiders to describe the company as “totally hollowed out” and “in a death spiral.” The company underwent a round of layoffs in April. It seemed as if Prediction 2 were bound to come true. But the company has not shut down. Over the summer, it hired a new CEO, managed to raise a lifeline of additional funding, and persuaded its cloud providers to forgive hundreds of millions of dollars in current and future debt. The company even convinced legendary filmmaker James Cameron to join its board of directors. The Stability AI that exists today may be a shell of its former headline-grabbing self, but the company remains a going concern. Prediction 3: The terms “large language model” and “LLM” will become less common. Outcome: Wrong At least Andrej Karpathy agreed with the point we were making here. In a tweet a few months ago, Karpathy wrote: “It's a bit sad and confusing that ‘Large Language Models’ have little to do with language; it’s just historical. They are highly general purpose technology for statistical modeling of token streams. A better name would be Autoregressive Transformers or something. They don’t care if the tokens happen to represent little text chunks. It could just as well be little image patches, audio chunks, action choices, molecules, or whatever.” We agree. As we argued last year, we still maintain that “large language model” is not the best term for today’s frontier AI models. But the reality is that the terms “large language model” and “LLM” have not become any less widely used in 2024. Maybe in 2025 the terminology will begin to better align with the technology. Prediction 4: The most advanced closed models will continue to outperform the most advanced open models by a meaningful margin. Outcome: Right The release of Meta’s state-of-the-art open-weight Llama 3 models this year, combined with persistent delays in the release of OpenAI’s GPT-5, may have made it tempting to conclude that the performance gap between closed and open models is closing. Then OpenAI dropped o1. o1, OpenAI’s new reasoning model, has opened up an entirely new vista in artificial intelligence research. In his seminal 2019 essay The Bitter Lesson , Rich Sutton emphasized “the great power of general purpose methods, of methods that continue to scale with increased computation even as the available computation becomes very great.” Sutton posited that “the two methods that seem to scale arbitrarily in this way are search and learning .” Before o1, frontier AI models relied heavily on the second method and largely neglected the first. o1 has changed this. Rather than improving AI by massively scaling learning during training , o1 introduces a new paradigm of massively scaling search during inference . Because it is so recent and so novel, o1’s full significance is not yet widely appreciated. But it will profoundly impact AI’s trajectory in the years ahead. It is true that open-weight alternatives to o1 have already emerged, mere months after o1’s launch, including some—like Alibaba’s QwQ-32B-Preview —that appear to rival o1 in performance. This is not surprising, and it does not change the fact that the most important zero-to-one innovations in AI continue to come out of the closed labs. As we wrote last year: “As in many other domains, catching up to the frontier as a fast follower, after another group has defined it, is easier to achieve than establishing a new frontier before anyone else has shown it is possible. For instance, it was considerably riskier, more challenging and more expensive for OpenAI to build GPT-4 using a mixture-of-experts architecture, when this approach had not previously been shown to work at this scale, than it was for Mistral to follow in OpenAI’s footsteps several months later with its own mixture-of-experts model.” Prediction 5: A number of Fortune 500 companies will create a new C-suite position: Chief AI Officer. Outcome: Right In 2024, organizations from Eli Lilly to Morgan Stanley to Qualtrics to Accenture Federal Services announced that they were creating a Chief AI Officer (or equivalent) role, appointing leaders to oversee their organizations’ AI efforts. Considering that AI strategy remains a top priority for virtually every enterprise today, expect to see more companies follow suit in 2025. Prediction 6: An alternative to the transformer architecture will see meaningful adoption. Outcome: Right The transformer remains the dominant AI architecture today, by far. But 2024 proved to be the year that, to quote last year’s article, “a challenger architecture broke through and won real adoption, transitioning from a mere research novelty to a credible alternative AI approach used in production.” That alternative architecture is the state space model (SSM). Mamba , today’s most prominent state space model, has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times on Hugging Face since its publication about a year ago. Mamba has inspired a number of variants that are in wide use today, from Vision Mamba to Mixture-of-Experts Mamba to MambaByte . As one example, well-funded Israeli startup AI21 Labs built its flagship model (named Jamba) on the Mamba architecture. Cartesia, a young startup out of Chris Ré’s Stanford lab focused on productizing and commercializing SSMs, has seen significant growth this year. Its generative audio models—built on the SSM architecture—have emerged as a serious challenger to industry leaders ElevenLabs and OpenAI thanks to their superior efficiency, latency and ability to handle long inputs. (Other challenger architectures also made progress this year—for instance liquid neural networks —but none have yet achieved the real-world adoption that state space models have.) Prediction 7: Strategic investments from cloud providers into AI startups—and the associated accounting implications—will be challenged by regulators. Outcome: Right Hyperscalers’ investments into AI startups have faced plenty of regulatory scrutiny this year. The FTC is actively investigating Microsoft’s investments in OpenAI. U.K. officials announced in October that they are looking into Google’s $2 billion investment into Anthropic. Regulators have also challenged Amazon’s investments in Anthropic and even Microsoft’s modest investment in Mistral, though these latter two have been cleared. These regulatory inquiries have centered more on antitrust concerns than on accounting violations associated with “roundtripping.” Prediction 8: The Microsoft/OpenAI relationship will begin to fray. Outcome: Right A steady drumbeat of news has come out over the course of 2024 pointing to the growing tension and misalignment between OpenAI and Microsoft. (A recent New York Times headline was worded almost identically to our prediction: “Microsoft and OpenAI’s Close Partnership Shows Signs of Fraying.”) OpenAI and Microsoft increasingly compete directly to sell similar AI products to the same enterprise customers. They have each struck deals this year to work with the other’s competitors, diversifying away from their once ironclad alliance. Microsoft has recently launched partnerships with Anthropic , Mistral and Cohere ; OpenAI, for its part, announced a landmark alliance with Apple this summer. Other sources of friction that have spilled out into the open in 2024 include disputes over computing resources and the appointment of controversial DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman as Microsoft’s new AI chief. Prediction 9: Some of the hype and herd mentality behavior that shifted from crypto to AI in 2023 will shift back to crypto in 2024. Outcome: Wrong We wrote in last December’s predictions article: “Crypto is out of fashion right now, but make no mistake, another big bull run will come. In case you haven’t noticed, after starting the year under $17,000, the price of bitcoin has risen sharply in the past few months, from $25,000 in September to over $40,000 today. A major bitcoin upswing may be in the works, and if it is, plenty of crypto activity and hype will ensue.” This has proven prescient. Bitcoin has been on a tear in recent months, setting new all-time highs on a weekly basis. Three days ago the price of bitcoin crossed $100,000 for the first time ever, marking a major milestone. Venture funding has begun pouring back into crypto. With crypto-hater Gary Gensler out at the SEC and a crypto-friendly Trump administration about to take office, this bull run may just be getting started. So why did we grade this prediction as “Wrong”? While crypto has made a comeback in 2024, the hype and herd mentality around AI has in no way moderated since this time last year; it has only grown more deafening. Prediction 10: At least one U.S. court will rule that generative AI models trained on the internet represent a violation of copyright. The issue will begin working its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Outcome: Wrong Nearly three dozen lawsuits are underway in the United States today on the issue of whether generative AI models trained on internet data represent a violation of copyright, or conversely are protected by the fair use doctrine. Every major AI provider, from OpenAI to Anthropic to Meta, has been caught up in the litigation. But a meaningful ruling has not yet been issued in a single one of these cases. In other words, expecting this prediction to come true in 2024 reflected an overoptimistic assessment of how quickly U.S. courts move. But substantive rulings from the courts on these cases are coming soon. Summary judgment decisions are expected within months in two different cases on this topic, one against Nvidia and another against legal AI startup ROSS Intelligence. By the first or second quarter of 2025, we will have much more signal (though by no means the final verdict) about where courts are landing on this critical issue. See here for the original article with our 2024 AI predictions. See here for our 2023 AI predictions, and see here for our retrospective on them. See here for our 2022 AI predictions, and see here for our retrospective on them. See here for our 2021 AI predictions, and see here for our retrospective on them.