Collins English Dictionary names 'AI' word of the year

The contraction of artificial intelligence — AI — has been named as Collins' Word of the Year for 2023, the dictionary publisher announced on Tuesday.

"Considered to be the next great technological revolution, AI has seen rapid development and has been much talked about in 2023," a blog post from the publisher said.

The company arrived at the word after analyzing the Collin Corpus, a database that contains over 20 billion words with written material from websites, newspapers, magazines, published across the world. It also factors in spoken language from television and radio shows.

Managing Director Alex Beecroft said: "We know that AI has been a big focus this year in the way that it has developed and has quickly become as ubiquitous and embedded in our lives as email, streaming or any other once futuristic, now everyday technology." 

What were the other considerations?

'AI' featured at the top of the list of the words shortlisted by Collins' word analyzers. Another word on the list was 'Bazball' — a style of test cricket in which the batting side attempts to gain the initiative by playing in a highly aggressive manner.

Deinfluencing, ultra-processed, debanking, semaglutide and greedflation also featured on the list.

Debanking refers to the act of depriving a person of banking facilities. Meanwhile, semaglutide is  a medication used to suppress the appetite and control high blood sugar.