As we come to the end of 2023, it’s time to look forward to what we can expect from tech in the coming year. As we’ve come to expect, AI is a trend that looks set to dominate across the business landscape of 2024.
Here are some of the tech advances we can expect in 2024 and how they may impact our organisations next year.
Top tech trends 2024.
Generative AI – moving from theory to practice.
John Roese, Dell Technologies’ Global Chief technology officer has predicted that Generative AI will scale from theory into practice.
In 2023, GenAI sparked creative thought about how it could transform both business and the world. Despite this, there were very few real-world, scaled GenAI activities. In 2024 however, we’ll likely see the first wave of GenAI enterprise projects that expose its dimensions not understood in the early phases.
Hyper scalers and AI will shape data analytics.
Critics of GenAI have highlighted its use of old data to drive mission-critical results.
2024 looks set to change this; there have been some predictions that hyper scalers and AI models will collaborate to revolutionise the entire data analytics landscape.
Gen AI shifts toward real-time fine-tuning will allow models to adapt and understand current data. The combination of advanced chips and hyperscale data capabilities will create a powerful ecosystem to address and improve speed, accuracy, and price across industries like marketing, advertising, healthcare, climate, banking and more.
IT and Security will converge.
Experts predict that 2024 will see an escalation in the number of cyber threats that will blur the lines of responsibility between organisational IT and security teams. As such it’s believed that businesses might converge their IT and security teams to boost organisational resilience.
As a testament to this trend, 2023 saw an increase in cybersecurity platforms, tailored specifically for IT teams.
By working more closely together and by sharing technologies and platforms, these once-siloed teams can combine their expertise to bolster defences against sophisticated cyber threats.
These platforms are designed to seamlessly integrate with IT operations and provide real-time insights and automated responses to security incidents. The resulting reduction in response times helps to enhance the overall security position of the organisation.
Zero-trust models.
Today’s hybrid working environments mean that more people than ever rely on devices, apps, and cloud-hosted services. Since many of these are out of the control of corporate IT, this new landscape requires a zero-trust model.
In 2024, thinkers predict that organisations will add extra layers to their models that may include restrictions such as role-based security and time-based access.
On top of this, Generative AI has huge potential to strengthen data security and add an extra layer of protection. The volume of data flowing through businesses can only be accurately monitored by technology. Machine Learning will grow to “understand” what’s normal and highlight anything that isn’t.
Quantum progression.
2024 is likely to see advances in Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) – a software-based approach that works with conventional systems to protect data from future quantum attacks.
PQC can be adopted by browsers, operating systems, and libraries and will be integrated into protocols that govern classic cryptography. It will then be cascaded down organisations to help enhance data security in the post-quantum world.
Another trend we might expect is the growing importance of quantum networking which will enable quantum computers to communicate and collaborate for more scalable quantum solutions.
These advances will demand Quantum Networking to receive significant new investment for research and development by government and financial services; both of which have high demands for data security and processing.
AI and the human touch.
Four in five organisations plan to incorporate AI into their Customer Experience (CX) delivery over 2024.
And despite huge tech advances across AI in 2024, the majority of (CX) will still demand a human touch and will rely on this intervention for its success.
The fundamentals of AI and big data analytics will become baseline skills for the majority of jobs across industries. The skills shortage means that new hires can’t be relied upon to be the only method to meet these needs.
According to the NTT 2023 Global CX Report, business leaders relied upon reskilling and upskilling initiatives to yield a profit over the last three years. These initiatives will continue into 2024, with more curated learning and development experiences to help close skills gaps and meet the impending needs of organisations.
Social Engineering education.
Identity-based attacks are fruitful and will continue to be the main weapon for threat actors in 2024.
According to a recent report, 80% of breaches occur through compromised identities. This makes identity protection the most critical protection that companies should look to strengthen in 2024. Social engineering has been a weak link here and businesses will strive to educate their employees about the common ways to recognise they are being deceived. This includes elements such as forms of identification and authorisation credentials.
AI guardrails and policy.
As the number of companies deploying AI becomes more widespread, organisations will become more aware of its underlying risks and will take targeted action to mitigate this.
To protect integrity of information, for example, Retrieval Augmented Generation can help LLMs generate results from only authoritative sources. Additional techniques such as preserving the human touch in both training and inference for the most sensitive scenarios are also ways of moderating the augmented intelligence that Generative AI provides.
2024 is also likely to see an increase in robust governance policies, processes, and tools including testing and validation for AI-generated content.
Organisational policy surrounding the use of AI will be a common theme that will be a mark of 2024.
Strengthened AI policies that lay out the criteria surrounding the ethical, responsible, and inclusive use of AI will also be implemented more broadly in 2024. This will be accompanied by improved organisational learning so that teams working in this space can acquire the skills necessary to implement the guidance.
In sum
AI has long been a feature on the Top Tech Trends lists of any given year. But perhaps we have never seen it appear so heavily as the 2024 listings.
Guidance, AI tools features and deployment create a 360 degree touchpoint which make it clear that 2024 will be AI’s year.
For more on top tech trends, and how these may have changed over the past year, find our 2023 thoughts in part 1 and part 2 here.
