Top 10: Tech Trends for 2024

From further advances in artificial intelligence to advances in cyber security and quantum computing, we hear from a range of technology experts on their predictions for 2024. As the year draws to a close, the business landscape of 2024 will be transformed by a powerful confluence of disruptive forces. The creative power and problem-solving capabilities of generative AI unlock hidden efficiencies. Sustainability, no longer a buzzword, is becoming a strategic imperative, especially when building AI models. And quantum computing, once the stuff of science fiction, opens up once-unimagined possibilities. Technology Magazine talks to top tech company executives to learn more about the top trends to watch out for in 2024.

AI takes center stage, moving from theory to practice

John Roese, global chief technology officer at Dell Technologies, hopes that the GenAI dialogue will move from theory to practice with a shift from training infrastructure and costs to inference and operational costs. While GenAI has generated incredibly creative ideas about how it will change business and the world, there has been very little actual, large-scale GenAI activity. As we enter 2024, we will see the first wave of GenAI projects of the enterprise that has reached a level of maturity that shows the significant scale of GenAI that in the early stages has not been understood," he said.

 Convergence of IT and security teams

As new threats emerge in 2024 blurring the lines between IT and security responsibilities, Zeki Turedi, European CTO at CrowdStrike, predicts an opportunity to improve organizational resilience by combining corporate IT and security teams. Traditionally operating in separate silos, these teams are finding their goals and day-to-day operations increasingly interconnected. This change is driven not only by the rapid evolution of technology, but also of the evolving landscape of security risks that directly affect IT infrastructure. This approach is particularly timely and necessary as individual threats today simultaneously target both infrastructure and security, requiring a unified response. Through closer collaboration, sharing of technologies and platforms, previously disparate teams can combine their expertise to strengthen defenses against complex cyber threats .The emergence of new cyber security platforms tailored for IT teams is a testament to this trend These platforms are designed to seamlessly integrate with IT operations, providing real-time information and automated responses to security incidents, thereby reducing response time and improving overall security posture."

Hyperscalers drive a powerful real-time ecosystem

Generative AI is often criticized for exploiting old data to achieve mission-critical results. However, Rodrigo Liang, CEO of SambaNova Systems, predicts that the collaboration between hyperscalers and AI models will change the entire landscape of data analytics, matching existing data with real-time fine-tuning, leading with significant improvements in speed, accuracy and cost. We continue to move towards real-time fine-tuning, which allows models to adapt and understand existing data, thus advancing the development of AI applications in every industry," he said. "The combination of advanced chips and hyperscale data capabilities creates a powerful ecosystem that enables the development of massive Compose Expert models to handle more complex use cases than we see today in industries like marketing, advertising, health care, climate, banking and more."

A renewed focus on zero-trust models

In today's hybrid work environment, people use more devices, applications and services than ever before, many hosted in cloud systems that are physically out of the control of corporate IT. This new landscape requires a zero-trust model. In the coming year, Chris Peake, CISO and Head of Security at Smartsheet predicts, we will see organizations add additional layers to their models. For example, some organizations may add role-based security, which allows them to define roles for different types of users and manage their access accordingly," he said. "This allows them to protect sensitive information by reducing access barriers for authorized parties. Organizations can also add time-based access, allowing them to manage user access to information based on the length of the project they are working on. Furthermore, generative AI has enormous potential to strengthen data security and add additional protection. No one can manually monitor all the data flowing through their business; intelligent systems must shoulder the burden of that. Machine learning can grow to understand what is normal and what flags something, whatever that is."

IT spending is more focused on business outcomes than ever before

Faced with an evolving macroeconomic and competitive environment, Linda Yao, CEO and Chief Strategy Officer of Lenovo Solutions & Services Group, predicts that companies will focus on getting more value from IT spending in a number of ways. The first is that they need more flexibility in their operations in terms of the value they return," he said. “They want more predictability in their cash flows, whether that's using technology to stabilize revenue growth or achieve cost savings, or applying that technology in a way that allows for predictable cash payments flow. Companies are also focusing on how IT implementation directly supports or drives business outcomes. We're seeing more customers use IT based on the business outcomes they want to achieve, whether that's the top line , the bottom line, or specific customer experience, retention , throughput, customer acquisition, type of metrics: More companies link their technology adoption to these metrics than technology deployment and maintenance to a vacuum. As a result, IT spending on legacy infrastructure will shift to next-generation technology and grow rapidly over the next five to 10 years as customers modernize or upgrade their end-to-end IT stack. This includes moving from legacy IT systems to the hybrid cloud, using a more virtualized and interconnected IT environment and eschewing traditional software licenses for on-demand custom technology.

Quantum advances but not quantum leaps

According to Liz Centon, director of strategy for Cisco's applications division and executive vice president of GM, post-quantum cryptography (PQC) will be used by 2024—even before it's standardized—as a software-based approach that works with conventional systems. . to protect data from future quantum attacks. PQC is adopted in browsers, operating systems and libraries, and innovators are experimenting with integrating it with protocols such as SSL/TLS 1.3, which govern classical cryptography. PQC is also beginning to spread to business as they ensure data security in a post-quantum world. Another trend is the growing importance of quantum networks, which in four or five years - maybe more - will allow quantum computers to communicate and collaborate for more scalable solutions in Quantum networks will exploit quantum phenomena such as entanglement and superposition. QKD as an alternative or complement to PQC, depending on the required level of security and efficiency, will benefit from significant new research and investment in government services. and financial, with high security and data processing requirements, to create quantum networks."

Human skills are essential to the use of artificial intelligence

NTT's 2023 Global CX Report found that most CX interactions still require human intervention, and executives agree that this remains a critical part of the customer journey. Despite four out of five organizations planning to integrate AI into their CX delivery in the next 12 months, Sashen Naidu, vice president of CX services at NTT Ltd, explains that the human element is central to its success. As companies turn their attention to how automation can augment and enhance human skills, they are placing more emphasis on closing the growing skill set that will challenge AI's aspirations. The fundamentals of AI and big data analytics is becoming a core skill for most jobs across industries, but hiring isn't the only five. NTT DATA research found that business leaders are more likely to see a greater than 25% return on investment in retraining and strengthening initiatives over the past three years. This will continue into 2024, with more curated learning experiences that help build skills and capabilities to meet the needs of organizations."

The continued growth of social engineering attacks 

According to Crowdstrike's Tured, identity-based attacks will continue to be the main weapon of threat actors in 2024, for the simple reason that it continues to be a very versatile technique.  As revealed in CrowdStrike's latest threat hunting report, 80% of breaches occur through compromised identities. Also, adversaries are not only relying on compromised valid credentials, instead they are abusing all forms of identification and authorization, including purchasing weak credentials from the metro, and they have honed their phishing and social engineering skills. Social technology is leading the way here as companies try to educate their employees about common ways to get scammed. This makes identity protection the most critical defense companies must strengthen in 2024. If not, Adversaries will continue to target this weak spot - and they will succeed more often than not."

The advancement of AI increases energy consumption

As Cisco Centoni explains, sustainable energy plays an important role in addressing climate change. By choosing smaller AI models with fewer layers and using case-specific filters, companies are starting to reduce energy consumption costs compared to conventional systems. These specialized systems are trained on smaller, highly accurate data sets and perform very well on specific tasks. Deep learning models, on the other hand, use large amounts of of data. Also contributing to energy efficiency is the rapidly growing category of energy grids, which combine an electrical system of software-defined grids and continuous microgrids. The application of the grid to power and connectivity with data, energy grids provide comprehensive visibility and benchmarking of existing emissions and a gateway to optimize energy consumption, distribution and storage Energy Grid also helps organizations more accurately measure energy use and emissions, automate many IT functions, smart building, and IoT sensors, and unlock inefficient and unused energy, with built-in energy management capabilities. the grid becomes the leader in measurement, monitoring, and control of consumption.

Businesses focus on building fences to mitigate AI risks

According to Lenovo SVP and Chief Information Officer Art Hu, companies implementing AI are becoming more aware of the risks and nature of AI, and more companies are willing to take targeted steps to mitigate it. For example, new templates like Retrieval Augmented Generation will help LLMs generate results from powerful sources," he said. "Complementary strategies, such as ensuring the quality and accuracy of training data and keeping a human informed in training (learning from human feedback) and predicting for the most sensitive situations, are ways to balance the increased intelligence provided by Generative AI . We are also seeing the rise of robust governance policies, processes and tools, including testing and validation of AI-generated content, embedding system-wide monitoring, robust governance policies, processes and tools. There clear AI policy that sets the criteria for deciding what is ethical, responsible and inclusive drives the use of AI This, along with education so that teams working in this space learn the necessary leadership skills, is the foundation upon which we will see companies execute tangible AI plans.