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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Race to AI Supremacy
Agentic AI for the Desktop
A Future Look into Tech
AI takeaways from January
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: CNBC
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Overview
Media landscape
Reporters to follow
Influencers to watch
Cool brand stories
Major milestones such as the unveiling of Project Stargate and the emergence of DeepSeek highlight the U.S.'s emphasis on fostering innovation to be the undisputed leader in AI in what media is dubbing the "AI arms race."
January had no shortage of companies unveiling new AI agents that interact with users' desktops to automate complex workflows, with ByteDance, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, and many more releasing new agents that are able to operate GUIs (Graphical User Interface).
This year's CES showed that the era of AI getting injected into everything is here. However this year's event shifted from flashy AI applications toward cost-optimized, energy-efficient infrastructure to deliver next-generation AI products and services. See the CES Pulse Report here.
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: Import AI
The Museo Nacional Del Prado in Spain in partnership with computer scientists at the Universities of Nottingham, Bradford and Stanford developed a specific AI algorithm to compare parts of renowned Renaissance artist Raphael’s Madonna della Rosa with the painter's other pieces, and found that the image of St. John (left) was likely painted by one of Raphael's pupils, Giulio Romano.
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Social
The online conversation in January about AI was dominated by discussions on China's DeepSeek disrupting the industry, AI’s geopolitical impact, market crashes, innovation, and decentralization.
"AI" Mentions on Social through January
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Source: Brandwatch, January 2025
AI mentions through January
AI conversations are shifting toward competition, security, and enterprise applications. China's DeepSeek is emerging as a challenger in the AI race, raising questions about market leadership and global influence. Concerns over AI-driven financial instability and decentralized systems are also gaining attention.
Cybersecurity is another key area of discussion. Experts highlight AI’s role in bot detection and cyber threats, while geopolitical analysts assess its impact on national security. Enterprise conversations increasingly emphasize AI hardware’s role in improving workplace efficiency beyond software solutions.
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About Brandwatch
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
From AI-driven medical breakthroughs to concerns over misinformation and global infrastructure investments, AI is reshaping industries, raising ethical questions about transparency, trust, and regulation, while fueling competition in technology, healthcare, and digital platforms.
DeepSeek is the newest front in the AI competition between the US and China
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TRENDING TOPIC
China’s DeepSeek AI model highlights the evolving global AI landscape, focusing on technological advancements, infrastructure investment, and international competition. The article examines AI's impact on industries, national strategies, and the broader implications for future innovation and economic growth.
Source: Fox Business
Meta scrambles to delete its own AI accounts after backlash intensifies
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TRENDING TOPIC
Meta removed AI-generated user profiles after backlash over their misleading identities and fabricated backstories. Users criticized the bots for spreading misinformation and blurring the line between real and artificial interactions, raising concerns about transparency, emotional manipulation, and the ethical use of AI in social media.
Source: CNN
AI Proves Useful for Ovarian Cancer Diagnosis
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TRENDING TOPIC
A new study shows AI outperforms human experts in detecting ovarian cancer from ultrasounds, achieving 86% accuracy. The technology reduces misdiagnoses and referrals, potentially improving efficiency and patient care. Researchers emphasize further studies are needed to validate clinical safety and effectiveness.
Source: US News
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, January 2025
Source: Quid, January 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 with advances in computing, automation, and smart devices, while investment, regulation, and competition shape its future.
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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 remains at the forefront of global discourse, shaping industries, economies, and governance. Recent developments highlight surging investments, regulatory battles, and geopolitical rivalries, as well as ethical concerns over misinformation, bias, and workforce disruption. AI-driven automation is restructuring jobs, while breakthroughs in healthcare, defense, and media spark debates on its societal impact.
With governments and tech giants accelerating AI infrastructure projects, the focus is shifting toward oversight, transparency, and defining responsible AI innovation in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Tech focus
AI is driving rapid advancements in the tech industry, reshaping computing, automation, and consumer devices. Companies are investing heavily in AI-powered infrastructure, with major players like Microsoft expanding cloud data centers and Nvidia pushing localized AI computing with personal supercomputers. Smart devices, autonomous systems, and AI-integrated platforms are becoming mainstream, redefining user experiences across industries.
At the same time, the rise of AI is fueling competition and regulatory discussions. As generative AI tools, robotics, and autonomous systems gain traction, businesses must navigate ethical concerns, data privacy, and AI governance. The evolving landscape highlights both the potential and challenges of AI-driven innovation in technology.
AI
Reporter to follow
Source: Quid, January 2025, ranked by story count
TechCrunch >
Maxwell Zeff is a senior reporter for TechCrunch, in which specializes in AI and emerging technologies. His recent coverage has focused on agentic AI, the emergence of DeepSeek and hot items at CES.
Maxwell Zeff
Media coverage surrounding AI continues to report on new product and feature releases across the enterprise environment.
Notably, coverage has emphasized the uncertainty of AI regulation, and the government's role in fostering AI innovation to keep ahead of China's emerging AI technology
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About Quid
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
Andrew Ng
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Dr. Andrew Ng is a globally recognized leader in AI (Artificial Intelligence). He has founded companies such as DeepLearning.AI, Landing AI and Coursera. Additionally, he has served as an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University’s Computer Science Department.
In 2023, he was named to the Time100 AI list of the most influential AI persons in the world, and has authored or co-authored over 200 research papers in machine learning, robotics and related fields. His recent content has focused on the evolution of China's AI innovation, the future of AI and new ways AI is helping developers quickly explore many ideas and invent new things.
See posts >
Source: Tagger, January 2025
AI
Influencers to watch
Social media continues to be a key channel in demonstrating new applications for AI technology across a variety of industries including healthcare, gaming, enterprise and much more. Additionally, content featured how the launch of DeepSeek highlighted China's progress in fostering AI innovation. New agentic AI tools are being embedded across workflows, changing how enterprises are deploying and evaluating the right agents to meet the needs of the enterprise.
Source: Tagger, January 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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AI
Cool brand stories
Samsung announced Samsung Food, a new feature on its TVs that leverages the company’s AI processor to recognize food on screen and find a recipe for it. In addition to recommending recipes based on what it “sees,” Samsung Food on TV can show the progress of grocery and takeout deliveries you place through the Samsung Food mobile app.
Read more >
During the X Games Aspen 2025, an experimental Google Cloud-based AI technology was used to analyze and judge competitors in the snowboard superpipe events. The AI judge analyzes live video of the snowboarders' runs and can more accurately capture the landings and grabs. Notably, the AI judge's scoring won't have an impact on the outcome, but will be evaluated for actual use in upcoming X Games events.
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Delta introduced Delta Concierge, an AI assistant will work on behalf of the customer to better understand arrival and departure needs and create efficiencies that save time and stress. From reminding users about passport renewal and visa requirements, to providing them with packing suggestions for their trip, to security advice at the airport, the Concierge service is designed to be a personal travel butler
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Overview
Media landscape
Reporters to follow
Influencers to watch
Cool brand stories
AI systems have got so useful that the thing that will set humans apart from one another is not specific hard-won skills for utilizing AI systems, but rather just having a high level of curiosity and agency.
“
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— Jack Clark, Co-Founder, Anthropic
In his AI newsletter, Anthropic Co-Founder Jack Clark outlines the societal impact of AI applications, and how access to a readily available smart assistant decreases the importance of hard skills but increases the importance of agency and curiosity.
*Image created by ChatGPT
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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.
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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January social topics
AI Agents AI-powered agents are revolutionizing business operations, with a focus on automation, customer interactions, and cybersecurity. Discussions highlight OpenAI’s latest agent capabilities, the rise of AI-powered task management, and how companies are integrating agents into workflows. Debates continue around their autonomy, with some pushing for more transparency in decision-making.
DeepSeek DeepSeek is gaining attention for its open-source approach, with comparisons to GPT-4 and discussions on its efficiency in multilingual tasks. Enthusiasts praise its performance in technical problem-solving, while critics question its long-term viability against commercial models. A key debate is whether open-source AI will remain a strong competitor in enterprise applications. Security Security concerns dominate AI discussions, particularly around deepfakes, misinformation, and AI-powered cyber threats. Policymakers and industry leaders are debating stricter regulations, especially following reports of AI-generated content deceiving users. Meanwhile, companies are exploring AI-driven threat detection systems to counteract evolving security risks.
January 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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Recent Adobe Holiday Retail data found that web-traffic to retail sites stemming from generative AI-powered chatbots shot up by 1,300% compared with the previous holiday season.
This trend highlights how the technology's influence in retail as shoppers turned to the technology for gift ideas and direct them to cheaper items.
Source: CNET
Regulation and ethics remain central themes. Discussions on AI’s use of copyrighted content are intensifying, alongside ongoing worries about misinformation and data privacy. Sustainability is a growing focus, with Chief Sustainability Officers exploring AI’s role in energy efficiency and infrastructure.
1/30/25
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Emotion Development Insights
Joy (+42%) Excitement around AI agents and automation is growing, with users praising DeepSeek’s capabilities and AI’s role in cybersecurity, fraud detection, and workflow optimization across industries.
Fear (+65%) Concerns center on AI-driven misinformation, deepfake scams, and data privacy. Users highlight ethical issues in AI training models, particularly regarding copyrighted data and the regulation of large-scale AI systems.
Sadness (+53%) Users express frustration over AI replacing creative roles and concerns about bias in hiring and surveillance. Debates on AI regulation continue, with skepticism over whether policies can keep up with advancements.
Technical AI conversations are driven by advancements in automation, hardware optimization, and algorithm design, with innovations like AI-focused chips and autonomous agents reshaping industries. Applications in cybersecurity, generative AI, and real-time code generation are redefining workflows, showcasing both the potential and complexity of AI integration.
However, these breakthroughs come with challenges such as high energy consumption, data privacy concerns, and algorithmic bias. Risks like AI-driven scams and misinformation amplify the need for oversight, while debates over open-source innovation versus corporate control fuel tensions in the tech ecosystem.
The narrative continues to be focused on balancing innovation with responsibility, emphasizing ethical deployment and sustainable practices. Policymakers and industry leaders are prioritizing clear guidelines to address privacy, bias, and security as AI continues to transform the technological landscape.
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.
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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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Source: Brandwatch, January 2025
TechCrunch