Introducing the The GenAI Prism, the Most Comprehensive Visualization of the Generative AI Universe in One Stunning Infographic

Over six months in the making, I'm excited to introduce the GenAI Prism v1.0 in partnership with JESS3 and Conor Grennan !

The generative AI ecosystem has grown so rapidly, there are over 10,000 GenAI projects currently in play around the world. Our goal was to identify emergent leaders and organize them by usage and outcomes to visualize the generative AI landscape as it takes shape. We’re now tracking over 90 leading startups across many verticals. (Full list below.)

Depicting them in a single image wasn’t our main goal. To track, organize, and classify the incredible spectrum of generative AI startups required a mental model to also activate a new era of collaboration between humans and artificial intelligence. 

To do this, I partnered once again with JESS3 design studio to create the GenAI Prism infographic, a sequel to our original Conversation Prism series. We also partnered with Conor Grennan, Dean of Students and Head of GenerativeAI at NYU Stern School of Business.

Design

The GenAI Prism is an exercise in digital ethnography, inspired by how light refracts to create a spectrum of different colors. The result in a prismatic halo in nature, in which ice crystals create beautiful concentric circles. 

This initial version organizes the GenAI companies which are on the forefront of reshaping the landscape of how people create and work, both in our personal and professional lives. They are weighed by industry investments, viability, and presence. 

Version 1 is not reflective of the total landscape, but instead a snapshot of a moment in time. But more than just a visualization of the generative AI landscape, the GenAI Prism offers a mental model to mindfully and intentionally approach prompts and any work in which generative AI becomes a collaborator in work and life. 

Exploring the GenAI Prism to Enhance Your Creativity and Capacity

The design of the prism is intended to “refract” the GenAI “light” to slow the speed of a fast-moving genre. The illumination spreads through twenty verticals of generative AI, passing through seven concentric halos of the content creation process. Hopefully this helps you to reflect on the spectrum and understand the significance of each wavelength.

The specific path you take depends on the project. For a CEO exploring GenAI opportunities for new products and market reactions to entice innovation, they may ultimately decide the net benefit was Experimental. While an indie developer may use (for example) GitHub Copilot and Figma to generate a radically new user interface wireframe, and declare the final result to be truly Innovative – such as a new genre of video game or feature movie.

GenAI isn’t just about the prompts (though they play a huge part in designing the output), it’s also about the intent. It’s about starting with an idea, not quite a vision, but perhaps, a visionary idea. And thinking through how to supercharge it.

Here’s how to chart your imagination journey through the halos:

Center: Vision

You are operating at the center of the prism. It’s your imagination and vision that will shape what emerges on the other side of the prompt. 

Halo 1: Risk vs. Reward

Every prompt can feed different LLMs, language models, or image/content generators in different ways that carry inherent risks and rewards. Because data is involved, some models and prompts must be evaluated for trust, and how that data is used to further train LLMs. It’s important to understand this as you also consider the potential rewards. Private data in certain models is no longer private.

Halo 2: Intended Outcomes

The outcomes are categorized according to their impact on the content created: Augment, Create, Automate, Optimize, or Solve. (They’re analogous to the Conversational Prism’s categories of Listen, Learn, Engage, and Co-Create.)

So as you endeavor to bring your generative AI project to light, consider the potential outcome you’d like to achieve: 

1) Are you solving a problem?

2) Are you exploring new horizons to create something that nets out as new?

3) Are you optimizing or automating an existing process or product or service or work?

4) Are you augmenting something to perform exponentially?

5) Are you experimenting?

Halo 3: Genre

These refractions represent the Halo 1 genres for generative AI services and apps, across the key verticals: Design, Flows, Conversational, Text, Video, and Sound. 

Halo 4-5: Categories/Companies

Services and apps are organized into twenty Halo 2 level categories which aim to arrange them by capabilities, activities, and outcomes. (Compare with the 28 companies and /categories of social media in the Conversation Prism.)

The startups depicted here, by the way, do not reflect the total spectrum of light. They simply represent those refracting the brightest light at the time of the infographic’s creation in the later half of 2023.  

Halo 6: Results

The outcome you’ve envisioned and subsequently achieved, is not classified by type, but by your evaluation of the results: Iterative, Innovative, Exponential, or Experimental. Of the work you created with generative AI, ask yourself: 

1) Was it iterative or incremental to what exists today?

2) Was it innovative? Did it create something net new? Or introduce new value?

3) Did it augment something that’s in motion today to exponentially impact output?

4) Was it experimental and did it provide insights into what to do or not do next time?

Halo 7: Engagement, Growing, Learning, Communicating

In the final halo, we evaluate what a given product ultimately achieved: Communicate, Grow, and/or Learn. But we should be honest with ourselves about these outcomes. As sociologist William H. White wrote in 1950, the great enemy of communication is the illusion of it. (Trenchantly, White also coined the term “groupthink”.)

GenAI is new. It’s evolving. It’s incredible in terms of its potential. It’s also confusing, and even daunting. But the path to the future is forged by those who explore new horizons and live to tell. It’s our opportunity to change the narrative. Put GenAI to work. Put outcomes into focus. Dream bigger than the work you know today. 

Our vision, and our investments into augmented and innovative outcomes, our experiments, and how we learn and communicate those learnings, will help us, and those around us, grow and innovate forward.

GenAI Startups Represented In This Prism By Category

Design – Image 

• Adobe Firefly
• Bing Image
• Canva Magic Edit
• DALL-E 
• Hotpot AI
• Jasper AI Art
• Leonardo AI
• MidJourney
• Stable Diffusion
• StockIMG

Design – Layout

• Adobe Express
• Canva Magic Design
• Designs.ai 
• Figma AI
• FontJoy
• Microsoft Designer
• Uizard
• Visual Eyes
• WIX ADI

Design – Brand 

• Designs.ai Logomaker
• DesignEVO
• Hatchful by Shopify
• Khroma (color)
• LogoAI
• Looka Logo Maker
• Tailor Brands
• WIX Logo Maker
• Babbel

Flows – Productivity

• Clara
• CoGram
• Fathom
• Otter AI
• Reclaim

Flows – Selfcare

• Fitbod
• Headspace
• MealMate
• Sleep.ai

Flows – Learning

• Babbel
• Birdbrain
• Duolingo Max
• Kena.AI
• Moises

Conversational – General

• BING Chat
• ChatGPT
• Chatsonic
• Claude
• Google bard
• LLaMa
• Mosaic ML (MPT-7B)
• Perplexity

Conversational – Health / Personal

• Dr. Snooze
• MedPaLM
• Replika
• Wysa

Conversational – Service

• Digital Genius
• Forethought 
• Nice
• Tidio

Text – Chat

• BING Chat
• ChatGPT
• Chatsonic
• Claude
• Google Bard
• LLaMa
• Mosaic ML (MPT-7B)

Text – General / Prose

• Ginger
• Grammarly
• Koala Writer
• Notion AI
• ProWritingAid

Text  – Copy

• AdCopy
• Jasper.Ai
• Phrasee
• Smartwriter
• Writer

Coding

• Amazon CodeWhisperer
• CodeSquire
• Github Copilot
• Tabnine

 Video - Creation

• Midjourney
• Pictory AI
• RunWay
• Synethesia
• Pika
• Stable Video Diffusion
• Hey Gen

Video – Animation

• Cascadeur
• DeepMotion

Video – Enhancement

• Ebsynth
• Topaz AI

Video – Editing

• Descript
• Topaz Video AI
• Visla

Sound – Speech / Voice

• Fliki
• Voicify
• Uberduck
• Revoicer
• Eleven Labs

Sound – Music

• Aiva
• Audiocraft
• Mubert
• Soundful

Sound – Enhancement

• Audo.ai

Significance

It’s been said that AI won’t take jobs, but those who use AI will have a strong advantage over those who don't. Studies already show that with vision, creativity, and a commitment to experimentation, work not only accelerates, but also elevates the quality of output. In one such study, Wharton Professor Ethan Mollick in partnership with social scientists at Boston Consulting Group found that consultants who used AI finished 12.2% more tasks on average, completed tasks 25.1% more quickly, and produced 40% higher quality results.

The ultimate goal with generative AI is to enhance or more so, augment, the creative power of human potential, incorporating this technology to create and perform more thoughtful, effective, and extraordinary projects. 

The GenAI Prism also serves as a guide to futureproof human ingenuity. The technology isn’t here to do the work of people or replace them, but be part of a workflow that puts AI in service of people. With practice, prompts will unlock capacities not previously attainable, especially by small startups, to deliver exponential outcomes. 

Anyone seeking to displace people with genAI doesn’t understand their existing problems or potential opportunities. As composer, musician, and avant garde artist Laurie Anderson once said, “If you think technology will solve your problems, you don’t understand technology — and you don’t understand your problems.”

About Brian

Brian Solis is a world-renowned futurist and digital anthropologist, Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow, author of 8 bestselling books, and international keynote speaker.