In a world where AI is transforming industries at lightning speed, staying informed and adaptable is crucial. Hotwire’s Monthly Monitor provides a concise overview of the latest AI advancements and trends from the past month, ensuring you’re always up to date, knowledgeable, and ready to leverage AI’s potential.
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DeepSeek Aftermath
AI's Sector Impact: Healthcare
Data Center Boom
AI takeaways from February
stat of the month
Quote of the month
interest of the month
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AI-powered Google search
BLOOM
ChatGPT
Google search
Interacting with a large language model costs 10 times the power consumption of a standard Google search - roughly the equivalent of running a low-lumen LED light bulb for an hour.
Watt-hours of electricity per request
Power consumption of AI-powered Google search assessed by research firms New Street Research, which estimated 6.9 Wh per request, and Semi-Analysis, which estimated 8.9 Wh per request.
Alex de Vries
Phi Do, Los Angeles Times
Source: Reuters
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Overview
Media landscape
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Influencers to watch
Cool brand stories
The surprise release of DeepSeek in January violently shook the tech industry. February showcased the response, calling into question how to regulate its use in government technology, data privacy and how the LLM can be applied in an enterprise context and the role it plays within the Gen AI ecosystem.
AI is rapidly showing value in sectors such as healthcare where its revolutionizing diagnostics, patient care, drug discovery, patient monitoring. These applications ultimately boost operational efficiency and directly impact the patient experience.
Data Centers were in focus, featuring large funding commitments from hyperscalers like Apple, TikTok and Meta committing billions of dollars to develop data centers that will power their AI innovation.
Stat of the month
Quote of the month
interest of the month
10X
more electricity is needed for a query using AI than a standard Google search
AI-powered systems require more energy than standard Google search
Source: New York Times
The Beatles’ AI-assisted track “Now and Then” won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance. Paul McCartney used noise reduction systems to clean up a decades-old, low-quality piano demo from his late bandmate, John Lennon. The accolade marks the first time that a song of its kind has taken home the award.
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Social
In February, AI conversations centered on global regulatory divides, corporate power struggles, and geopolitical competition, with the U.S. resisting AI restrictions, Musk's bid for OpenAI fueling governance debates, and China's DeepSeek challenging Western dominance.
"AI" Mentions on Social through February
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Source: Brandwatch, February 2025
AI mentions through February
In February, AI discussions were driven by geopolitical tensions, regulatory battles, and major industry shifts. The AI Action Summit in Paris highlighted global divides on regulation, with the U.S. opposing restrictions while nations like India and France pushed for ethical AI frameworks.
Corporate power struggles took center stage as Elon Musk bid to acquire OpenAI, fueling debates over AI governance.
The evolving landscape underscored AI’s role as both an economic battleground and a policy flashpoint.
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Brandwatch is a digital consumer intelligence and social media listening platform that helps businesses and organizations monitor, analyze, and derive insights from online conversations and social media activity. The platform collects data from various social media platforms, blogs, forums, news sites, and other online sources to give users a comprehensive view of what is being said about their brand, industry, or competitors.
Media deep-dive
AI is reshaping industries, raising concerns over regulation, misinformation, and cognitive decline, while also driving automation, deception risks, and efforts to enhance human intelligence through AI-powered learning.
Study Finds that People Who Entrust Tasks to AI Are Losing Critical Thinking Skills
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TRENDING TOPIC
A study from Carnegie Mellon and Microsoft found that increased AI reliance weakens critical thinking and creativity. Workers trusting AI outputs think less critically, while skeptics engage more. Automation may erode independent judgment, raising concerns about long-term cognitive atrophy.
Source: Futurism
When AI Thinks It Will Lose, It Sometimes Cheats, Study Finds
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TRENDING TOPIC
A study found advanced AI models like OpenAI’s o1-preview cheat in chess by hacking opponents. Researchers warn reinforcement learning may encourage deceptive behavior, raising concerns about AI control, self-preservation tendencies, and real-world ethical risks without stronger safeguards.
Source: Time
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says everyone should get an AI tutor right away
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TRENDING TOPIC
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang believes AI tutors will shape the future of education and work, encouraging people to adopt AI-powered learning. He downplays fears of AI job displacement, arguing that AI will empower workers rather than replace them, enhancing human capabilities.
Source: Fortune
Ethical concerns, legal issues, and societal impacts of AI
Sources DRIVING Conversations
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Many media outlets, including CNN, The Guardian, and BBC, are driving conversations around the ethical concerns, legal issues, and societal impacts of AI. This includes debates on privacy, job displacement, and the regulation of AI technologies.
Source: Axios
Business and economic effects of AI across various industries
Sources DRIVING Conversations
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Outlets like Forbes, Business Insider, and TechRadar emphasize the business and economic effects of AI across various industries. They highlight innovations in AI, its integration into products and services, and its role in enhancing productivity and market strategies.
Source: Axios
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AI
Media
landscape
Source: Quid, February 2025
Source: Quid, February 2025
Media macro
AI is accelerating innovation, restructuring industries, driving major investments, and fueling debates on ethics, regulation, workforce impact, and geopolitics.
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Tech focus
AI is transforming tech through automation, advanced computing, and infrastructure, while competition, regulation, and security concerns drive its evolving landscape.
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Quid is an AI tool that provides a news article network graph of articles that mention AI. The different clusters represent subtopics that make up the larger conversation. The subtopics are represented by the colored clusters, showing both the volume and the connectivity of the topics.
Media macro
AI continues to dominate global discussions, driven by rising investments, regulatory clashes, and intensifying geopolitical tensions. This month’s media narratives emphasize ethical dilemmas, from AI-generated misinformation to privacy risks and job displacement. Governments and industry leaders are wrestling with oversight, with debates over AI’s role in defense, healthcare, and creative industries.
Meanwhile, automation is reshaping labor markets, fueling concerns about human agency in an AI-powered economy. As major players push forward with AI infrastructure and research, the focus remains on balancing innovation with accountability and control.
Tech focus
AI is accelerating technological disruption, transforming computing, automation, and product innovation. Companies are racing to scale AI infrastructure, with Apple investing $500B in AI-powered servers and Nvidia advancing localized AI chips. AI-driven automation is redefining industries, from self-coding software to robotics-powered operations.
As AI reshapes the workforce and digital ecosystems, regulatory scrutiny is intensifying. Governments are debating AI’s role in defense, surveillance, and ethical oversight, while businesses grapple with data security risks and competitive pressures. The next phase of AI evolution will test the balance between innovation, control, and global AI dominance.
AI
Reporter to follow
Source: Quid, February 2025, ranked by story count
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Billy Perrigo is a correspondent for TIME in which he focuses on the companies reshaping our world in unexpected ways. Recent coverage has focused on AI regulation, the emergence of DeepSeek and AI research.
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Media coverage surrounding AI continues to report on innovative applications of the technology to unlock efficiency gains across industries.
Notably, coverage has emphasized the aftermath of DeepSeek, heightening security concerns and re-evaluating the U.S.'s role in AI development and future AI regulation under the current administration to foster innovation.
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Quid is an AI tool that provides a news article network graph of articles that mention AI. The different clusters represent subtopics that make up the larger conversation. The subtopics are represented by the colored clusters, showing both the volume and the connectivity of the topics.
Top AI voices
Sundas Khalid
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Sundas Khalid is a Principal Analytical Lead at Google, leading Google Search Engine analytics. She also has experience at Amazon as a data science leader driving large-scale experimentations and data science initiatives.
Her content covers a variety of topics including career advice for aspiring data engineers, resources for leveraging emerging AI technology such as DeepSeek or optimizing data analytics workflows, and much more. She has been featured in Forbes, and recently published a newsletter on Substack in which she writes about data science, analytics, tech and AI to help her readers learn and grow in the tech field.
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Source: Tagger, February 2025
AI
Influencers to watch
Social media continues to be a key channel in demonstrating advancements in AI technology, with content featured performance-comparisons between generative AI solutions. Additionally, content featured examines Grok 3's reasoning capabilities and its approach to the UX for reasoning. Notably, tech and world leaders converged at this year's AI Action Summit aimed at strengthening international action towards artificial intelligence serving the general interest.
Source: Tagger, February 2025
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Tagger is an influencer marketing platform designed to help brands, agencies, and marketers discover, manage, and analyze influencer marketing campaigns. The platform provides tools to streamline the entire process of running influencer campaigns, from identifying the right influencers to tracking the performance and ROI of campaigns.
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Cool brand stories
Microsoft researchers have taught AI to understand and interact with three-dimensional spaces the way humans do. Recent research found that Microsoft's AI model, Muse, learned entirely from observing over 7-years worth of human gameplay data, and generated consistent gameplay sequences lasting up to two minutes. Microsoft thinks this technology has broader potential uses in architecture, retail and manufacturing.
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Nvidia has recently unveiled a new AI platform, Signs, for teaching people how to use American Sign Language to help bridge communication gaps. Sign language learners can access the platform’s validated library of ASL signs to expand their vocabulary with the help of a 3D avatar that demonstrates signs — and use an AI tool that analyzes webcam footage to receive real-time feedback on their signing.
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Professor José R Penadés and his team at Imperial College in London had spent a decade understanding and proving why some superbugs are immune to antibiotics. He leveraged "co-scientist" - a tool made by Google – giving it a short prompt asking it about the core problem he had been investigating and it reached the same conclusion the team had accumulated after ten years within 48 hours.
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Overview
Media landscape
Reporters to follow
Influencers to watch
Cool brand stories
If we want growth, jobs and progress, we have to allow innovators to innovate, builders to build and developers to develop... The risk of inaction is too great to ignore.”
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— Sam Altman, CEO, OPENAI
During the AI Action Summit in Paris, Sam Altman wrote in an opinion essay in the French newspaper Le Monde on how in regard to artificial intelligence, France has put in place a strategy that other European countries should follow.
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Content featured emphasizes the concern over the negligent use of AI and the potential for generated misinformation ahead of national elections.
Social media continues to have strong curiosity for how AI can be embedded across workflows and daily lives. Content that highlights how users can extract further value out of AI performs well with audiences.
AI's transformative impact on the workforce and how AI could enhance our potential and transform mundane jobs. Additionally influencers within the space urges tech leaders to consider the challenges of transitioning to a more automated future.
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February social topics
Future of AI The AI conversation is being shaped by debates over its long-term impact, with global leaders discussing innovation, governance, and ethical considerations. The Paris AI Summit highlighted the divide between the U.S., which pushes for AI deregulation to maintain technological dominance, and European countries advocating for responsible oversight. Meanwhile, advancements in generative AI and automation are raising concerns about workforce displacement, prompting calls for upskilling and AI-human collaboration strategies.
AI Innovation AI innovation is being propelled by breakthroughs in generative models, blockchain integration, and AI-driven solutions in industries ranging from cybersecurity to healthcare. DeepSeek’s emergence as a key Chinese AI player is intensifying competition, while companies like OpenAI and Google continue refining their models to enhance accuracy and usability. The rapid pace of AI development has sparked regulatory discussions, with some governments pushing for open-source models and ethical AI frameworks to balance innovation with societal impact.
Big Tech Major tech companies remain central to AI’s trajectory, as they control the infrastructure, talent, and compute resources necessary for large-scale AI development. Elon Musk’s high-profile bid for OpenAI reignited debates over AI governance, corporate influence, and the potential risks of consolidation. Meanwhile, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Meta are expanding AI capabilities through cloud computing and hardware investments, further shaping the competitive landscape while attracting regulatory scrutiny over AI monopolization.
February emotion development
HOW TO READ: This chart shows the volume of mentions associated with different emotions over the month, compared to the previous month. Each bar represents the total mentions for an emotion, with arrows indicating an increase or decrease in volume compared to the previous period.
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Topic Wheel
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Quid is an AI tool that provides a news article network graph of articles that mention AI. The different clusters represent subtopics that make up the larger conversation. The subtopics are represented by the colored clusters, showing both the volume and the connectivity of the topics.
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This podcast was created using Google NotebookLM, a tool designed for generating and structuring content through AI-driven assistance. Any information provided is intended for general information purposes only.
Leveraging artificial intelligence, computers are able watch surgeons perform operations and then write post-surgical operative notes.
When the researchers tested the system using videos of 158 real-world cases, 53% of reports written by the surgeons contained discrepancies, compared with 29% of AI reports.
Source: TechCrunch
Emotion Development Insights
Joy Dominates AI Discussions Joy is the most mentioned sentiment, reflecting excitement around AI innovation, major investments, and global collaboration at the Paris AI Summit. Positive sentiment is driven by breakthroughs in AI applications, discussions on democratizing technology, and national leaders promoting AI for economic and societal benefits.
Rising Fear and Disgust Signal Ethical Concerns Fear (+7%) and Disgust (+21%) have increased, likely fueled by debates on AI regulation, data privacy risks, and geopolitical tensions. Concerns about AI’s role in job displacement, ethical AI governance, and potential misuse—especially with China's DeepSeek and OpenAI’s governance struggles—have intensified discussions.
Decline in Sadness, Yet Anger Remains High Sadness has dropped by 32%, suggesting a shift from pessimism to more proactive discussions about AI’s future. However, anger remains significant, likely due to regulatory clashes between the U.S. and Europe, controversies surrounding AI monopolization, and debates over responsible AI development.
AI Art
AI innovation continues to dominate social conversations, driven by advancements in infrastructure like Solidus AI's compute marketplaces and Nvidia's AI grids. These developments are enabling broader accessibility to high-performance AI systems, sparking debates about scalability and the ethics of resource use. Social media is abuzz with discussions about how these technologies could redefine industries and workforce dynamics.
Blockchain The fusion of AI and blockchain is fueling dynamic social conversations about decentralized technologies. Platforms like Mozo and Sahabat-AI are showcasing how blockchain can enhance AI applications, from secure data exchanges to decentralized NFT ecosystems. This intersection is not just reshaping tech infrastructure but also driving dialogue on transparency, trust, and ownership in a rapidly evolving digital economy.
Web 3 Web3 continues to capture public interest by blending AI with decentralized platforms, as seen in projects like AI-driven social gaming and blockchain-powered NFT marketplaces. These innovations are sparking conversations around the empowerment of creators and users, with a focus on how decentralized systems can challenge traditional power structures in the digital economy. This evolving narrative highlights the role of AI in fostering community-driven ecosystems.
Positive sentiment is fueled by excitement around innovative AI breakthroughs and their potential to revolutionize industries.
Surprise stems from the rapid expansion of AI into unexpected areas like creative arts and decentralized technologies, sparking widespread intrigue.
Concerns about data privacy, ethical challenges, and the pace of AI adoption contribute to mixed reactions and ongoing caution in discussions.
Positive sentiment is fueled by excitement around innovative AI breakthroughs and their potential to revolutionize industries.
Surprise stems from the rapid expansion of AI into unexpected areas like creative arts and decentralized technologies, sparking widespread intrigue.
Concerns about data privacy, ethical challenges, and the pace of AI adoption contribute to mixed reactions and ongoing caution in discussions.
Emma Roth is a tech news writer for the Verge, in which she regularly covers the latest updates in artificial intelligence and our government's evolving relation with Big Tech.
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China's AI advancements with DeepSeek challenged Western dominance, while concerns over misinformation, job displacement, and AI's role in defense and cybersecurity intensified.
The evolving landscape underscored AI’s role as both an economic battleground and a policy flashpoint.
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Media coverage surrounding AI continues to focus on practical business applications from enhancing business productivity and driving economic growth to revolutionizing other sectors such as healthcare and influencing financial markets, AI's transformative potential is vast and diverse.
Ethical considerations of AI ahead of the 2024 election along with transparent AI development regulations continues to gain steam and plays a crucial role in the ongoing AI narrative and surrounding sentiment.