The year 2024 marked a significant turning point for information retrieval (IR) with the advent of deep learning and large language models (LLMs). Advances in AI have redefined search, data analysis, and knowledge synthesis, democratizing IR and expanding its applications across enterprise search, content discovery, and data synthesis. The scaling law is driving these advancements, enabling larger model sizes, datasets, and computational resources to give rise to increasingly powerful LLMs. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has matured significantly, transitioning from Twitter demos to production-ready systems, gaining adoption across industries. RAG has evolved with the integration of cross-encoder-based rerankers, offline labeling, and metadata filtering, enhancing precision and quality. Large language models have also enhanced document parsing and preprocessing, enabling the extraction of structured data from unstructured documents. ColBERT and ColPali have introduced transformative late interaction mechanisms that leverage multi-vector or token-level representations, preserving documents' visual and structural integrity. Knowledge engineering has become more prominent with LLMs, grounding responses in factual data and reducing hallucinations. Text-to-SQL technologies have empowered non-technical users to query databases using plain language, democratizing data-driven decision-making. The year 2024 has laid a solid foundation for the next wave of AI-driven applications, with vector databases like Milvus and Zilliz Cloud poised to deliver faster search speeds, lower storage costs, and seamless integration with emerging AI technologies.