New Delhi, April 17 -- Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on track to become the defining technology of the 21st century, according to the latest Stanford HAI AI Index, but its gains will be uneven without deliberate oversight. The data, it cautions, reveals that progress is accelerating faster than institutions can keep pace.

Technically, leading AI models are converging, with open-weight systems narrowing the gap. But the means of measuring that progress are fraying: benchmarks are saturating, transparency is declining, and independent tests do not always align with developer claims, the report notes. In science, AI is shifting from assisting discrete tasks to replacing entire workflows. In medicine, tools such as ambient scribes are scal...