This briefing is part of our Digital Transformation Monthly 2022 in Review, which looks back over the trends that defined the past year and considers how they might impact the year to come.

In this series we'll look at the trends that arched across sectors, from finance to pharma, retail to travel, and be examining how businesses of all sizes have responded to these trends. This instalment takes a closer look at the phenomenon of generative AI, including image generators like Dall-E and the infamous ChatGPT, assessing the business opportunities they present as well as the risks.

The second half of 2022 was dominated by discussion, speculation, and controversy surrounding generative AI: a term that refers to artificial intelligence-powered tools that produce text, imagery, or video.

Before they were eclipsed by the viral release of ChatGPT in late November, the biggest buzz had been generated by image-generation AI tools like Dall-E 2, Craiyon, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, as people explored their capability for generating surrealistic, humorous, and sometimes startlingly lifelike imagery based on a wide range of text prompts. The technology has wide-reaching ramifications for the creation of imagery and ‘art’, with fierce debates still raging about the ethical implications of image generator tools, the impact on working artists, the legal and copyright implications, and the nature of art itself.