In the first quarter of 2024, a clear uptick in interest around neural networks emerged across Russia, with a reported 60 percent rise compared to the same period a year earlier. This trend surfaced through an examination of online education platforms Bang Bang Education and MAED, both affiliated with Ultimate Education. The shift signals a growing appetite for AI knowledge as more professionals seek practical skills in today’s market, a pattern echoed in North America as well where Canadian and American learners increasingly explore AI tools and tutorials.
Text-based AI models saw demand surge by about 73 percent, while demand for image and video generation grew roughly 17 percent. Within this landscape, text-focused AI models gained traction at nearly five times the rate of image-centered tools, highlighting a stronger push toward writing, analysis, and natural language tasks among learners and enterprises alike. In Canada and the United States, businesses and students alike are gravitating toward text generation capabilities for content creation, code assistance, and rapid communication tasks, aligning with broader market needs for scalable AI-driven workflows.
Among text AI systems, ChatGPT stood out as the most widely used option, with interest rising by about 70 percent year over year. YandexGPT followed, showing an even more impressive 93 percent increase in attention. For North American audiences, the takeaway is clear: popular text models continue to dominate engagement as users seek reliable, conversational AI for drafting, tutoring, and rapid decision support. In parallel, Yandex Masterpiece emerged as the leading image-rendering model, with interest up 117 percent, while Midjourney remained a strong competitor but experienced a 27 percent dip last year. This dynamic mirrors a growing curiosity in visual AI tools for design, marketing, and multimedia production across North America, where teams experiment with visual prompts to accelerate creative workflows.
Ultimate Education observed that the rapid rise of artificial intelligence in Russia reflects more than curiosity. It points to a practical need for mastering new technology to perform professional tasks more efficiently, a theme that resonates with Canadian and American professionals and students who are integrating AI into everyday work. The trend is accompanied by a broader push toward AI literacy as a core skill in many sectors, from education to media, technology, and business operations, underscoring the importance of accessible, reliable AI education across North America.
In related news from the tech community, a notable figure published a playful yet illustrative source code release that sparked discussions about how AI assistants can be trained and shared. This development underscores the ongoing interest in open approaches to AI tooling and demonstrates how communities in Canada, the United States, and beyond are exploring collaborative pathways to adopt and adapt AI for practical use.
Citations: industry monitoring reports from education platforms and AI tool providers; comparative trends observed in North American user bases; expert commentary on AI adoption in professional settings [Citation: North American AI education data, 2024; industry trend analyses].