AI Modalities

From text and vision to touch and brain interfaces: exploring every way AI can perceive and interact with the world.

Current Modalities

These modalities are production-ready today, powering applications from chatbots to autonomous vehicles.

πŸ“Mature

Text

The foundation of modern AI. Large language models (LLMs) process and generate human language with remarkable fluency.

Capabilities

  • β€’ Natural conversation and dialogue
  • β€’ Code generation and analysis
  • β€’ Translation across 100+ languages
  • β€’ Summarization and content creation
  • β€’ Reasoning and problem-solving

Leading Models

GPT-4Claude 3GeminiLlama 3Mistral
πŸ‘οΈMature

Vision

Understanding and analyzing images, from object recognition to complex scene interpretation and visual reasoning.

Capabilities

  • β€’ Image classification and detection
  • β€’ OCR and document understanding
  • β€’ Visual question answering
  • β€’ Medical imaging analysis
  • β€’ Satellite and aerial imagery

Leading Models

GPT-4VClaude 3 VisionGemini Pro VisionLLaVA
πŸ”ŠMature

Audio

Processing speech, music, and environmental sounds. Includes speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and audio understanding.

Capabilities

  • β€’ Speech recognition (ASR)
  • β€’ Voice synthesis (TTS)
  • β€’ Music generation
  • β€’ Sound classification
  • β€’ Real-time translation

Leading Models

WhisperGPT-4oElevenLabsSunoMusicGen
🎬Emerging

Video

Understanding video content and generating video from text or images. Rapidly advancing in 2024-2025.

Capabilities

  • β€’ Video understanding and captioning
  • β€’ Text-to-video generation
  • β€’ Video editing and manipulation
  • β€’ Action recognition
  • β€’ Long-form video analysis

Leading Models

SoraVeo 3Runway Gen-3PikaHunyuanVideo
🎨Mature

Image Generation

Creating images from text descriptions using diffusion models and transformers.

Capabilities

  • β€’ Photorealistic image generation
  • β€’ Artistic style transfer
  • β€’ Inpainting and outpainting
  • β€’ Image editing with text
  • β€’ 3D asset generation

Leading Models

DALL-E 3MidjourneyStable Diffusion 3Imagen 3Flux
🧊Emerging

3D & Spatial

Understanding and generating 3D content, spatial relationships, and augmented reality elements.

Capabilities

  • β€’ 3D model generation from text
  • β€’ Point cloud understanding
  • β€’ Depth estimation
  • β€’ Scene reconstruction
  • β€’ AR/VR content creation

Leading Models

Point-EShap-EMagic3DDreamFusionNeRF variants

Leading Multimodal Models

Models that combine multiple modalities in a single architecture, enabling richer understanding and generation.

GPT-4o

OpenAI
TextVisionAudio

Natively trained end-to-end on text, vision, and audio. 232ms voice response time.

First truly omni model with real-time voice

Gemini 2.5

Google
TextVisionAudioVideo

Supports all four major input types with 1M+ token context. Native multimodal training.

Most versatile multimodal context window

Claude 3

Anthropic
TextVision

Safety-focused multimodal model with strong reasoning. Constitutional AI alignment.

Industry-leading safety and helpfulness balance

Veo 3

Google DeepMind
TextVideoAudio

Generates high-resolution video with synchronized audio, music, and dialogue.

First text-to-video with native audio

Llama 3.2

Meta
TextVision

Open-source multimodal model. 11B and 90B vision variants available.

Leading open-source multimodal option

Future Modalities

The next frontier: sensory modalities currently in research that will expand AI's perceptual abilities. Ericsson predicts 2030 as the year of the "Internet of Senses."

🀚

Touch / Haptics

2025-2028

Digitizing tactile sensations for robotics, VR, and prosthetics. Enabling AI to understand and simulate touch.

Research Areas

  • Haptic feedback for BCIs restoring sensation
  • Tactile sensors for robotic manipulation
  • VR gloves with force feedback
  • Texture recognition and synthesis

Challenges

  • High bandwidth requirements
  • Standardization of haptic data
  • Latency sensitivity
πŸ‘ƒ

Smell / Olfactory

2027-2030

Digital scent technology for food, healthcare, and immersive experiences. Early research in molecular detection.

Research Areas

  • Electronic nose sensors (e-noses)
  • Digital Odor Society archiving city smells
  • Disease detection through breath analysis
  • Scent synthesis for VR/AR

Challenges

  • Complexity of molecular compounds
  • Individual perception variation
  • Miniaturization
πŸ‘…

Taste / Gustatory

2028-2032

Digital taste simulation for food science, medical applications, and virtual dining experiences.

Research Areas

  • Electrical tongue stimulation
  • Flavor profile prediction from molecules
  • Personalized nutrition AI
  • Food quality assessment

Challenges

  • Highly subjective sense
  • Complex chemical interactions
  • Safety considerations
πŸƒ

Proprioception

2025-2027

Body position and movement sensing. Critical for robotics, rehabilitation, and embodied AI.

Research Areas

  • Kinesthetic feedback in prosthetics
  • Motion capture and prediction
  • Balance and posture AI
  • Athletic performance optimization

Challenges

  • Real-time processing requirements
  • Integration with motor control
  • Individual calibration
❀️

Interoception

2026-2030

Internal body sensing: heartbeat, breathing, hunger, temperature. Foundation for health AI.

Research Areas

  • Heart rate variability analysis
  • Stress and emotion detection
  • Early disease warning systems
  • Mental health monitoring

Challenges

  • Privacy concerns
  • Baseline variation
  • Medical validation requirements
🧠

Brain-Computer Interface

2025-2035

Direct neural interfaces for thought-based control, sensory restoration, and cognitive enhancement.

Research Areas

  • Neuralink speech restoration trials (2025)
  • Motor control for paralysis patients
  • Memory augmentation research
  • Thought-to-text interfaces

Challenges

  • Surgical risks
  • Long-term biocompatibility
  • Ethical considerations
  • Bandwidth limitations
πŸ“‘

Electromagnetic Sensing

2027-2032

Sensing radio waves, magnetic fields, and electrical signals invisible to humans.

Research Areas

  • WiFi-based gesture recognition
  • Through-wall imaging
  • Electromagnetic health monitoring
  • Environmental EM mapping

Challenges

  • Signal noise
  • Privacy implications
  • Interpretation complexity
βš—οΈ

Chemical / Molecular

2028-2035

Understanding and predicting molecular structures, drug interactions, and chemical reactions.

Research Areas

  • AlphaFold for protein structure
  • Drug discovery AI
  • Materials science prediction
  • Environmental toxin detection

Challenges

  • Computational cost
  • Validation requirements
  • Training data scarcity

The Path to Artificial General Intelligence

Human intelligence is inherently multimodal. We don't just process textβ€”we see, hear, touch, smell, and sense our bodies in space. The expansion of AI modalities is not just about adding features; it's about moving toward systems that understand the world as richly as we do.

Current research suggests that truly general AI will need to integrate information across all sensory modalities, understanding how sight relates to sound, how touch informs movement, and how internal states affect cognition. The journey from text-only GPT to omni-modal systems is just the beginning.

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