ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI, has taken the world by storm since its debut in November 2022. Initially designed to enhance productivity by generating essays and code from simple text prompts, it has quickly transformed into a major player, with 300 million weekly active users.

2024 marked a major year for OpenAI, featuring several key milestones: a partnership with Apple for its generative AI product, Apple Intelligence, the release of GPT-4o with voice capabilities, and the much-anticipated launch of its text-to-video model, Sora.

However, OpenAI’s journey hasn’t been without challenges. The company saw the departures of high-profile executives, including co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and CTO Mira Murati. OpenAI has also been embroiled in lawsuits, with Alden Global Capital-owned newspapers accusing it of copyright infringement, and faced an injunction from Elon Musk to stop its shift to a for-profit model.

As OpenAI enters 2025, the company is grappling with concerns about losing its competitive edge to Chinese rivals like DeepSeek. It is working to strengthen its ties with Washington while pursuing an ambitious data center project and reportedly preparing for one of the largest funding rounds in history.