Tech’s AI armies are huge, yet struggling to innovate

OF ALL the questions that ChatGPT has raised about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), one still reverberates through Silicon Valley: Why couldn’t the industry’s largest technology firms breed an innovative service with a similar kind of impact, especially after amassing some of the world’s largest AI teams?    

Exclusive new data from a London-based analytics startup shows that the five biggest tech firms have an estimated army of 33,000 people working directly on AI research and development, with Amazon boasting the largest pool of AI-focused employees, at 10,113. Microsoft has 7,133 AI staff and Google has 4,970, according to Glass.ai, which used machine-learning technology to scrutinise tech company websites and thousands of LinkedIn profiles of their AI-focused employees. The numbers might not yet account for the recently announced layoffs at Amazon, which were expected to affect AI staff, but they are also a conservative estimate, excluding software engineers who might well be working on AI, too. 

The numbers underscore how seriously the world’s biggest technology firms have been taking their work on AI, but also how slow and cautious they have been to create services with the technology until a tiny firm, San Francisco-based OpenAI, prodded them to act.