GenAI Innovation Soaring, With Patent Activity Nearly Tripling in Two Years

The generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) patent landscape has reached a new milestone, with more new patents published in 2024 and 2025 than in the entire preceding ten years combined, according to new data published today by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Published GenAI patent families – a widely used measure of new inventions – rose from approximately 14,000 in 2023 to over 37,800 in 2025. More than 56,000 new GenAI patent families were published in 2024 and 2025 combined, exceeding the cumulative output of the period from 2014 to 2023. GenAI now accounts for 8.7 per cent of all AI-related patent family publications, up from 6.1 per cent in 2023 and 4.2 per cent in 2017.

The findings come from the latest edition of WIPO's new Technology SPARK (Short Pieces of Analysis, Research and Knowledge) report, which provides the most current picture of where GenAI innovation is happening, who is driving it, and which technologies are at its leading edge.

The report also reveals that the race to protect generative AI inventions is increasingly being led by large multinational enterprises operating across diverse industries.

Japan’s SoftBank is the world’s leading GenAI patent applicant, publishing nearly 3,000 patent families during 2024 and 2025. This is followed by China's Tencent Holdings, Ping An Insurance Group and Baidu, alongside research institutions and infrastructure companies. Tech giants Alphabet, Microsoft and IBM from the United States also feature in the top ten.

Our data shows that Gen-AI patents are no longer just being filed by tech companies but also by large enterprises in areas like finance, telecommunications, infrastructure and other digital services. While the initial impact of Gen-AI has been on content, the next frontier will be in its impact on the way we innovate.