Listen to this articleWith 2023 the year that AI became a feature rather than the future, 2024 was the year AI hype peaked. Breathless announcements of new developments underscored the turning point as globally we saw thepower that big tech has– and what this means for democracy.A flurry of policy has accompanied global recognition of social media, surveillance and privacy concerns, as well as frustration about the personality influence of tech titans. Beyond Elon Musk’s well-documented role, Amazon, Meta and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are lining up to eachdonate $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund. The role of tech figures insupporting and advisingTrump will play out in the coming months.But for the technology itself, if the hype cycle hasindeed passedthe “Peak of Inflated Expectations”, hopefully, this portends more meaningful innovation and implementation of exciting new products that don’t rely on theworst parts of the data economy.A lot of tech-related policy has been implemented or proposed this year, so it’s worth taking stock to capture the developments.Australia has been seengloballyanddomesticallyas attempting to rein in big tech power. However, many of the measures are narrow and will not shift the power imbalance, if that even can be achieved. A digital competition framework is currentlyopen for consultation. And Australia madeglobal headlinesagain last week when the governmentannounced plansto introduce a new “tax” as an offset intended to encourage tech companies to make deals with Australian media to fund independent journalism.Mirroring global news consumption trends, half of Australians (49%)use social media to access news. This rises to nearlytwo-thirds of Gen Z(60%) that rely on social media as a main news source. These percentages will continue to rise. With information integrity vital to democracy, something must be done to ensure that misinformation and disinformation doesn’t become a staple.This year has been the most active anti-trust legal landscape globally in decades.Australia has also introduced a (rather controversial) law thatbans children under 16from using social media. Australia briefly flirted withbanning TikTok, while a Decemberappeal to a US courtupheld an order for parent company ByteDance to divest from the social media platform by 19 January to avoid being blocked in the United States.The United States hasescalated AI to a national security issue, covering data, connectivity, energy generation, computing capacity, semiconductors and the workforce. Sensitive data flows on Americans wererestricted tocountries of concern, including China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. A US-proposedban on Chinese-made EV’shas also built broader awareness of thedata collection capabilities of modern cars.But the concern goes beyond a focus on countries. The US Department of Justice proposed the divesture of Chrome from Google, following a landmark court ruling in August in which a federal judge ruled that Google maintained anillegal monopoly over online search. And Microsoft, which began 2024 as thedarling of AIfor taking a majority stake in OpenAI, rolled out the now controversial Recall feature, widely seen since as atool of surveillanceas well as aprivacy nightmarefor capturing credit card and social security numbers.Cyber security remains a challenge. Australia made thefirst use of autonomous cyber sanctionsagainst Russian citizen Alexander Ermakovfor his rolein the Medibank breach. There has also been amaturing of national coordinationfor cyber security incidents, and theCyber Security Act 2024became law.The finger has also been pointed directly at Chinese government-sponsored cyber-attacks, which this year included groupsVolt Typhoon,APT40andFlax Typhoon. While not a cyber-attack, the CrowdStrike outage in Julyillustratedjust how interdependent and vulnerable digital systems really are. Subsequently, Salt Typhoon hackerscompromisedlarge portions of the American telecommunications network. This led US officials to unexpectedlyurge Americans to use encrypted apps.But privacy is stillalive and clicking. Australianscare deeply about data privacyeven if regulation remains elusive. The first tranche of Australia’s privacy reform takes steps in the right direction butdoes not do enoughandmore is needed, soon. Advertising data about Australian defence and political leadersflows to foreign states and non-state actors. Images of Australian children werefound in AI training dataset LAION-5B, without parental consent. Building supplies company Bunnings was found to have employed a facial recognition system inbreach of Australians’ privacy.What does this mean for 2025? The bumpy ride will continue, but there is good news to recognise.This year has seen the most activeanti-trust legal landscape globally in decades. Big tech is facing lawsuits, anti-trustcasesand major court rulings across the United States, United Kingdom and Europe, which will continue to unfold into the new year. Regulators are motivated and apparentlyjust getting started.Much of theway we think about technology has so far been shaped by tech companies themselves. That will change in the year ahead. As the public gains increased awareness of alternative business models – and the kind of technology people and societies want – more exciting futures can be imagined. This will see a change in how people approach tech. Hopefully big tech companies can reset their relationships with democratic governments and populations and become drivers of new solutions.