People always like to look to the future at the end of each year, even if they don’t do everything right. Last year, we didn’t see the arrival of generative AI, despite predictions that this would be a big year for automation, robotics, and RPA. However, we cannot ignore the breakthroughs of artificial intelligence in other fields, such as the advancement of autonomous driving technology and the development of speech recognition systems. In the future, we can expect that artificial intelligence will be more widely used in all walks of life, bringing more convenience and innovation to our lives.
We predict that the balance between digital and human will be key. The right hybrid work model will be an important focus, especially as large technology companies increase their efforts to bring talent back into the enterprise. This trend is proving to be an important area in 2023.
The following are the five major trends predicted for 2024:
There is no doubt that, Generative AI will continue to be a very important disruptor as the technology evolves and organizations deploy it into their operations. However, we believe that after the initial excitement and hype of 2023, people will start asking more probing questions around "What can we actually do?" That doesn’t mean GenAI won’t do incredible things. But its light-bulb applications may take longer to emerge. Artificial intelligence will become more embedded in everyday technology infrastructure, such as browsers, search engines, and databases, and thus become less visible. This makes it even more important to get the rules right. Regulation is expected soon, such as the EU’s AI
Act, which will crucially provide clarity on transparency, explainability, anti-bias and disinformation measures guidelines.
In terms of risk, generative AI clearly has the ability to help cybercriminals Launch sophisticated attacks at scale. We've seen some incredible examples of tailored phishing emails that appear to have been generated by artificial intelligence. Over time, the success rate of phishing campaigns is likely to increase exponentially, from the current level of around 0.1% to around 20%. Then there’s “AI poisoning”—infection with content that’s been incorporated into the AI algorithm’s learning process, making it inauthentic, biased, or downright malicious. To this, we can add malware—and before long, generative AI can develop malicious code that is nearly unstoppable. Malware is likely to reach new levels of power, and the cyber industry will need all the skills and investment it can muster, as well as the help of some “good” artificial intelligence, to combat it. When we put this together, it's not hard to see the risk posed by generative AI that it would be surprising to launch a major, disruptive and prominent attack somewhere in the public domain by 2024. .
While artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence will be the dominant themes, other areas will continue to develop. We can expect quantum computing to become an area of interest. The 2023 Digital Leadership Report found that one in 10 global digital leaders are already actively considering using quantum technology, and quantum-as-a-service (QaaS) is starting to grow as a product offering from the likes of IBM, Amazon and Google. If the cost of accessing QaaS falls, more and more enterprises may start using quantum computers to accelerate the calculations and computations they need to solve critical challenges. If governments around the world follow the UK's lead and invest heavily in this area, the application of quantum computing will further accelerate. Meanwhile, another non-AI discipline we expect to see growth in 2024 is platform engineering. This ranks fourth among Gartner's top ten technology trends for 2024, and we all agree that this will be a big trend. With platform engineers developing self-service infrastructure, templates and frameworks, it enables developers to accelerate productivity and get to end results faster. At a time when technology budget growth is under greater pressure, we can expect an increased focus on platform engineering as a way to improve ROI.
Despite efforts to change the situation, diversity levels in the technology industry remain disappointingly low. Only 14% of technology industry leaders are women; overall, only about a quarter of technology teams are female, with a similar proportion from minority backgrounds. We believe that 2024 will be the year that more and more technology industry stakeholders lose patience with changes in glacier speeds and hope to control the factors that can influence it. This means making changes within individual businesses and teams, reviewing not only recruitment policies and processes but also issues such as ‘who represents our teams in recruitment’. Try to put forward different people and represent more diversity, and you will find that these people can do a good job and bring a different perspective to the board, and maybe change the perspective. Change only happens by building a wave, a team, a business.
In fact, the technology industry needs to do more around sustainability and the path to net zero. One of the most sobering findings from the Digital Leadership Report is that the technology industry lags behind all industries in terms of net zero emissions targets and plans – 58% of technology company respondents said they do not yet have net zero emissions targets and plans in place . Well ahead of the next two industries: healthcare (51%) and business/professional services (50%). This position is indeed untenable. Businesses across industries will face increasing pressure to report and disclose more about their sustainability goals and progress. The technology industry must support this. Big businesses already have ambitious and progressive plans, but we need to see more commitment from across the industry. Just like diversity, expect tech businesses to focus on some very simple things they can control to lower their carbon footprint. For example, are there ways to reduce email traffic and remove unnecessary attachments? Is there a clear policy that devices can be turned off at night, if possible? Are collaboration tools used to manage travel? Look at your own value chain and see where you can make a difference. Ask cloud and data center providers about their footprint and the actions they are taking. Embrace transparency and openness. As an industry, the time has come for technology to rise to the occasion. By 2024, this problem will be placed in a more severe situation.
For many companies, 2023 is a year full of challenges. There are signs that things may improve slightly in 2024, and perhaps significantly in the second half of the year. Whatever happens, technology will remain critical to most organizations’ operating models and aspirations to transform, leaving those technology businesses that are truly focused on meeting customer needs well-positioned to thrive.
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