Once again, we've reached the time of year when we look ahead to what technology has in store for us in 2024. Digital transformation never ends, it's an ongoing process, and the breakthrough trends that made 2023 one of the most exciting years for innovation will continue to reshape our world. In many exciting ways.
Machine intelligence, the blurring of boundaries between the real and the virtual, and the ongoing development of the Internet will all radically affect our lives. But perhaps most important of all is finding ways to continue to grow and prosper while minimizing our damage to the environment – and perhaps even reversing some of the damage done in the past.
So, here's an overview of these game-changing trends, along with my predictions for how each will impact life, society, and the planet.
Generative AI – Everyday Automation
2023 was the year that generative AI exploded into the mainstream. 2024 will be the year the world learns how powerful and useful they truly are. Today, if you're not technical, just phrase artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence) can cause shivers of fear – if you're not worried about it taking over the world or destroying the human race, you're probably waiting nervously for it to steal your job and make you redundant.
But as generative AI finds its way into more of the applications we use every day, from search engines to office software, design packages and communication tools, people will understand its potential. If used correctly, it's like having a super-intelligent personal assistant at hand 24/7, making us more efficient, faster and more productive.
Most importantly, through our every day delivery Menial mental work – Capturing information, scheduling, managing compliance, organizing ideas, and structuring projects – For AI, we will find ourselves with more time to leverage our truly human skills. We will spend more time creating, exploring new ideas and original thinking, or communicating with humans rather than programming machines. The genie is out of the bottle, and although there are undeniable challenges around ethics and regulation that still need to be resolved, I think 2024 will be the year everyone starts to understand how much generative AI will change our lives.
Phygital Convergence
The physical and the digital have become increasingly intertwined. Technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and Immersive Internet It breaks down the barriers between the physical world and the digital realms where we spend more and more of our time. More than ever, we exist as digital avatars within virtual environments. This applies to work, where we collaborate remotely through platforms like Zoom, Teams, and Slack, and play, where online gaming and eSports are more popular than ever. We use social media apps like TikTok and Instagram to create virtual spaces where we share moments from our “real” lives – curated and filtered to create digital personas that become our own. hypothetical The souls.
Across industries, we see this concept emerging in the form of… Digital twin – A virtual representation of a real-world object, system, or process. This could be as simple as an individual component or as complex as an entire city or even an ecosystem. Most importantly, the digital twin is built on data from its real-world counterpart. Advances in genomics mean we are able to decompose the basic essence of life into digital code, which can then be manipulated and reconstructed in the real world in order to engineer new medicines and eliminate diseases.
In 2024, we will continue to see less and less distinction between the real world and the virtual world. This means that the digital world is becoming increasingly real, and that reality is becoming as fluid and flexible as the digital world.
Sustainable technology
Sustainable technology will continue to take center stage through 2024 as countries and companies continue to work to meet net-zero emissions commitments. At the same time, individuals will increasingly make use of technology in order to reduce their personal impact on the environment.
Sustainable technology includes greener ways of doing the things we already do – such as electric cars, bicycles and public transportation, which will continue to increase their market share in 2024. It also includes new solutions to environmental problems, such as carbon capture and utilization. Storage, as well as green and renewable energy technologies. The circular economy will become an increasingly important concept as durability, recyclability and reusability are integrated directly into products at the design stage. The world of technology will embrace ideas such as green cloud computing, where infrastructure and services prioritize reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions, and sustainable applications – software tools designed to help us live in a more environmentally friendly way.
Challenges that developers and users of sustainable technology will have to confront during 2024 will include the need to develop ethical and sustainable methods for sourcing and extracting the materials needed to manufacture devices, infrastructure requirements resulting from changing consumer habits such as the adoption of electric vehicles, and potential disparities between different geographic or socioeconomic groups. In its ability to access green alternatives. We will also become increasingly alert to the presence of… Greenwashing – Superficial efforts aimed only at generating positive public relations about a particular technology.
Cyber resilience
Research indicates that one in two companies has been the victim of a successful cyberattack in the past three years, and the cost of these attacks on the industry is expected to grow to more than $10 trillion by the end of 2024. In the face of this rapidly growing threat, technology solutions designed to strengthen defenses And providing us with a fighting chance is high on every organization's must-have list.
However, cyber resilience goes beyond cybersecurity, as it also includes measures that can be taken to recover and ensure continuity when defenses are compromised or due to circumstances beyond our control. This may mean having remote working procedures in place to ensure companies are able to operate when employees cannot access central locations – a technological solution that may not traditionally be considered an element of cybersecurity.
Automating cyber defense through AI and machine learning, integrated frameworks that integrate security measures with continuity protocols and awareness of societal factors from social engineering attacks to fighting public relations fires are all essential elements of any cyber resilience strategy.
Cyber threats are becoming more complex, and competition is intensifying to bring new solutions that leverage advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence to the market. This ensures that cyber resilience will become an increasingly prominent trend throughout 2024 across business and consumer technology.
Quantitative statistics
There has been a growing buzz around quantum computing for a while, and I believe 2024 will be the year it transitions to tangible benefits. Quantum computers are able to perform large numbers of calculations simultaneously by harnessing weird and wonderful elements of quantum physics, such as quantum entanglement and superposition. This enables them to work with quantum bits (qubits) that can exist in multiple states at once, rather than just 1 or 0, like traditional computer bits.
Early investors in quantum technology include banks and financial services institutions that hope to be able to leverage the power of artificial intelligence systems developed in recent years for the purposes of fraud detection, risk management and high-frequency trading.
Quantum computing won't speed up every job we use computers for, but in 2024, I think we'll start to see the benefits when applied in various areas of heavy computing, including drug discovery, genome sequencing, cryptography, meteorology, and materials science. Improving complex systems such as traffic flow through large cities, and even the search for extraterrestrial life.
These are all areas that hold enormous potential to solve the challenges facing us and our planet, and I am very excited to see what breakthroughs will be achieved with the help of quantum computing in the near future.
Read more about these topics in my book, The Internet of the Future: How the Metaverse, Web 3.0, and Blockchain will transform business and society and “Business Trends in Practice,” which won the 2022 Business Book Award. Don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter and follow me x (Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube to learn more about future trends in business and technology.
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