Kurzweil predicted in 1999 that AGI would arrive in 2029.

Judged as of 2026-01-20. True: Kurzweil's 1999 writing (The Age of Spiritual Machines) or 1999 public statements predicted that AI would reach human-level intelligence or pass the Turing test by 2029. Mostly true: the 2029 prediction is in his work from around that time, but the exact year or wording differs slightly, for example first stated in 1990 or 2000, or framed as Turing-test passing rather than 'AGI'. Mixed: he predicted something near 2029 but with a substantially different target or a vaguer year. Mostly false: his 1999 forecast gave a clearly different year (for example 2019 or 2045) for human-level AI. False: he made no such prediction around that time.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 The Age of Spiritual Machines Wikipedia · 20 September 2002

   “by 2029 machines "routinely" pass the test, although there is still controversy about how machine and human intelligence compare.”

2. E2 What is needed for AGI by 2029? johnsball.substack.com (John Ball) · 5 August 2024

   “He first made that prediction, that a machine will pass the Turing test in 1999, in his second book titled The Age of Spiritual Machines.”

3. E3 'Human' machines - get used to it The Christian Science Monitor · 11 March 1999

   “"By 2029, we will have the ability to scan someone's brain, and record every salient detail relevant to its processing of information. We can then re-create those precise processes in a neural computer of sufficient capacity," he says.”

4. E4 AI prediction case study 4: Kurzweil's spiritual machines — LessWrong LessWrong (Stuart Armstrong) · 14 March 2013

   “made several predictions for the years 2009, 2019, 2029 and 2099”

E1 summarizes The Age of Spiritual Machines as forecasting that by 2029 machines would "routinely" pass the Turing test. E2 states that Kurzweil first made the Turing-test prediction in 1999 in that book. E3, a Christian Science Monitor article from March 1999, quotes Kurzweil making forecasts for 2029 about recreating human brain processes in computers. Together these meet the "true" criterion: in 1999 he predicted machines would pass the Turing test by 2029.