Despite the tempestuous economic landscape of 2023, transformational digital technologies have continued on their intended course for progress. Life seems to come at us fast and whether it’s redrawing of the global energy-resources map or rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI), the world is changing at mind-boggling speed. Today, IT Directors and Business owners are facing unprecedented challenges to improve business outcomes, transform business models, modernise technology and enhance customer experience. Simply keeping pace with the emerging technology landscape can be difficult for even the most tech-savvy leaders. Active Digital can help. Our technology professionals have deep experience applying technologies to help you achieve your business goals.
In preparation for a successful 2024, we have produced an overview of the upcoming trends set to influence the technology ecosystem that are a must-know for anyone operating in the digital world.
We look forward to working with you and helping you to leverage opportunities for you and your customers.
Best wishes
Dan Walter
Head of Technology
Trend 1: The rise of declarative data, analytics, and AI
According to Gartner ,by 2026 generative AI will significantly alter 70% of the design and development effort for new web applications and mobile apps.
The landscape is changing and projects that ended with tasks such as general queries, explanations and the like will give way to bots, agents and in-app user experiences where users simply declare their intents, sit back and let AI connect with the appropriate data, as well as performing any necessary calculations of that data. These tools will help elevate data literacy across the company while also cutting down on shadow IT projects and filling in skills gaps.
Trend 2: An explosion of GenAI chatbots and voice assistants
OpenAI’s fully customisable GenAI GPTs (chatbots) are open to all and unlike Microsoft Co-Pilot, will not impose steep usage fees, which will make GPTs very popular, particularly among consumers. Many GPTs will be useful tools, but others can be poorly executed which can attract the attention of regulators. GenAI will also give general purpose voice assistants a much-needed shot in the arm, with new capabilities including multimode outputs. Alongside Google’s integration of Bard (its GenAI chatbot) with Google Assistant, we expect Amazon to use its investment in Anthropic (developer of Claude) to supercharge Alexa and for Apple to unveil its own version of ChatGPT, which will benefit Siri.
Trend 3. A convergence of IT and security teams
As we emerge in 2024, the lines continue to blur between IT and security responsibilities. Zeki Turedi, CTO Europe at CrowdStrike, predicts that there will be an opportunity to enhance organisational resilience by converging IT and security teams within enterprises. He commented ,“traditionally operating in separate silos, these teams are finding their objectives and daily operations increasingly intertwined. This shift is driven not only by the rapid advancement of technology but also by the evolving landscape of security risks that directly impact IT infrastructure. This convergence is particularly timely and necessary as singular threats now simultaneously target both infrastructure and security, demanding a unified response.”
Trend 4. IT spend will be focused on business outcomes more than ever
Faced with an evolving macro-economic and competitive landscape, Linda Yao, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Strategy, Lenovo Solutions & Services Group, predicts that businesses will be focused on deriving more value from their IT spending in a couple of ways. She said, “the first is they will demand more flexibility in their operations, in terms of having their investments scale with the value they return,” she also added “They will want more predictability in their cash flows, whether that means using technology to stabilise revenue growth or to achieve expense savings or implementing that technology in a way that allows for predictable cash flow payments.” She continued, “Businesses will also be focused on ensuring IT deployment directly supports or drives business outcomes. We will see more customers adopt IT based on business outcomes that they want to achieve whether it’s top line, bottom line, or to hit specific customer experience, sustainability, throughput, customer acquisition and type of metrics. More businesses will tie their technology adoption to these metrics rather than deploy and maintain technology in a vacuum.
In summary, predictions are that spending will shift to next generation technology and businesses will ensure budgets are made, modernise or revamp their IT stack. This includes moving from legacy IT systems to hybrid cloud, adopting more virtualised and interconnected IT environments and eschewing traditional software licences for highly personalised tech on demand. If you need help or advice in modernising your systems or infrastructure, please do speak to our digital team.
Trend 5 – Human skills will be essential for the uptake of AI
NTT’s 2023 Global CX Report found that the majority of CX interactions still require a form of human intervention, with executives agreeing that this will remain a critical part of customer journeys. Despite four in five organisations planning to incorporate AI into CX delivery within the next 12 months, Sashen Naidu, Vice President, CX Services at NTT Ltd explains that the human element will be central to its success.
Furthermore, NTT DATA uncovered that business leaders are more likely to have seen profitability of more than 25% over the last three years because of investments in reskilling and upskilling initiatives. This will continue into 2024, with more curated teaching experiences to help close skills gaps and meet the needs of organisations.
Trend 6 – Embracing Sustainable technology
Naturally, sustainability needs to be at the top of IT departments lists for 2024. Sustainable technology should be used as a framework to enable environmental, social and governance (ESG) outcomes that support long-term ecological balance and human rights. The use of technologies such as AI, cryptocurrency, the Internet of Things and cloud computing is driving concern about the related energy consumption and environmental impacts.
This makes it more critical to ensure that the use of IT becomes more efficient, circular and sustainable. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2027 25% of CIOs will see their personal compensation linked to their sustainable technology impact.
By 2027, Gartner predicts that 80% of CIOs will have performance metrics tied to the sustainability of the IT organisation. So in summary, these trends continue to show that IT Directors, CIOs and Business owners are under pressure to modernise systems and infrastructure throughout their business in a forward thinking, cloud based, sustainable way.
Trend 7 – mHealth and fitness applications
mHealth and fitness applications are one of the topmost trends in mobile apps. Focus on healthcare mobile applications is nothing new. From health and fitness-conscious individuals to healthcare professionals and organisations, everyone is making the move toward healthcare. As of now, the global fitness app market size is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.6 percent from 2020 to 2030 timeframe.
As per the World Economic Forum, downloads of fitness apps increased worldwide by 46.0 percent due to the increase in the trend of online fitness classes.
Apple CEO, Tim Cook was quoted in an interview, “If you zoom out into the future, and you look back, and you ask the question, ‘What was Apple’s greatest contribution to mankind,’ it will be about health.” This statement goes on to show the focus tech companies have put on the healthcare sector and the advancements we are to witness in the arena.
Trend 8. 5G Connectivity
5G wireless network brings a myriad of benefits and is poised to transform the mobile app development process. According to the 2022 Ericsson Mobility Report, the number of 5G subscribers is expected to reach 4.4 billion by the end of 2027. Key aspects of the growth of 5G are the timely availability of mobile devices from vendors, falling prices, and China’s early deployment of the 5G network.
Naturally, thousands of our customers are looking to achieve better 5G capabilities as part of their mobile service with us. Of course, we know in general that broader 5G networks gives us all faster connectivity, better user experience, enhanced functionality, and latency of less than one millisecond. We look forward to seeing 5G growth across the networks in the coming year. Do let us know if there are any particular areas in the UK that you are hoping to see 5G connectivity in 2024?
Mobile malware is continuing to proliferate, both in volume and in the number of variants detected. According to Zimperium’s Global Mobile Threat Report 2023, between 2021 and 2022, the total number of unique mobile malware samples rose by 51%, with more than 920,000 samples detected. Experts predict that mobile security threats will continue to increase in 2024. In fact, according to a recent report from Cybersecurity Ventures, the number of mobile security threats expects to increase by over 500% in the next three years.
The potential risks associated with mobile app security breaches can range from data theft and unauthorised access to more severe consequences, such as financial loss, reputational damage, and legal repercussions.
There are many ways companies can protect mobile devices by implementing secure development practices, encryption, and authentication. Here at Active Digital, we can help you create some guidelines and best practices for giving your employees secure devices, with proper handling of sensitive data. This also extends to app permissions, so the user will be informed about why an app requires certain permissions and who is able to grant or deny them.
Using mobile device management and other similar solutions, we can help protect your devices against security attacks and other communication-based threats, ensuring your business data is protected, security compliant and safe.
With so much happening on the telecoms horizon, 2024 is surely going to be an interesting year. Which technology trends sound the most promising or interesting to you? What are you more excited about in the coming year?
