About the Fortune 50 AI Innovators (2024)
If you thought the pace of innovation or investor appetite for AI companies might cool off this year, you were in for a big surprise. Leading AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic saw their valuations surge, while increasingly powerful large language models and new multi-modal capabilities such as voice pushed the envelope of the technology’s mind-blowing potential ever further.
That gave us a lot to work with as we surveyed the field for our second annual Fortune 50 AI Innovators list. As with the inaugural 2023 list, we cast a wide net, looking at companies of all sizes, from all over the world. With feedback from industry experts, in-house technology leaders at corporations, AI-focused venture capital investors, and our own staff of tech experts, we picked 50 companies that exemplify the innovation, progress, and potential of AI.
Many of the stars of last year’s list maintained their spots among the AI 50, while startups that didn’t even exist 12 months ago also joined the ranks—a reflection of the top-flight talent dispersing from many companies and investor eagerness to back founders with deep AI experience. The breadth of businesses is also richer, encompassing vital infrastructure like chips and datacenters, the underlying frontier models driving AI capabilities, and application-specific uses of AI for drug development, transportation, and entertainment.