“6 in 6” Generative AI Market Trends

As I complete month 6 of my goML journey, I wanted to take a few minutes and reflect on what I have seen in the market from the prospective of a co-founder focused on solely Generative AI. AI/ML has always been a part of the conversation in my IT career, but in the last 18 months this Generative AI wave is like something I have never seen. AI went from being a “tool” or an “exploration/side project” to an absolute business critical piece of the IT stack. From back-office IT, to the Finance and HR department, and even sales teams. Generative AI is now customer facing, and a core part of teams across every industry: The Fortune 100s, the garage start-ups, and everyone in-between. These points led to my (easy) decision to join the founding team at goML. A company with a singular purpose- Use Generative AI to safely solve the toughest business challenges.

?????????????????? With that, I decided to jot down what I am calling my “6 in 6”… With now 6 months fully intrenched in the “Generative AI” focused world here at goML- I wanted to share my 6 biggest takeaways I have seen in the last 6 months.?

1)??????? Quickest to Leverage is not who you think:

When thinking of “Implementing the technologies of the future” people often think of your largest corporations… Those logos you see on the buildings of your city’s skyline, or on a commercial during your favorite team’s game- but when in reality, it has been the small and medium sized businesses we have seen really take the leap of faith into production AI applications. In Year 1 at goML, we have seen many startups, and > $250M corporations investing more time, resources, and yes….. MONEY into production Generative AI workloads than some of the largest enterprises. Is it the ability/willingness to try new things? Or is it simply the recognition that 2024 and beyond will need AI elements of your business to not only thrive but SURVIVE…. Probably a combination of the two. But one thing is for sure: B2B corporations (Fintech, HealthTech, HRTech to name a few) have been the quickest and most aggressive adopters of Generative AI in the last year. Not that “Big Business” isn’t spending time or money, but the agile players are the ones’ taking the quickest and most drastic action.

2)??????? Talent-Talent- and more Talent

The demand for Generative AI engineers and architects in 2024 came on as fast and as strong any skillset I have seen in the last decade in the IT services industry. We are seeing the huge demand for FTEs, subcontractors, hourly freelancers, and everything in between. While the preference in contracting methodology differs, the need for talent is the same across corporations of all shapes and sizes.? We are also seeing that not only are “end=customers” looking to hire AI/ML talent, but even the largest SI corporations are looking for outside help to fulfill what are massive demand spikes.

3)??????? AWS is “All-In”

This really started leading up to/at AWS Re:Invent 2023. Generative AI was the talk of the town that week in Las Vegas, and AWS continues to “double down” in various ways. Be it Anthropic partnerships/investments, GenAI specific POC/MVP funding programs around Bedrock and Sagemaker consumption, and the announcement of their Generative AI Competency Program…. You will continue to see AWS invest heavily in their customers and their partners when it comes to Generative AI for years to come…. For now, in Q1 & Q2, expect AWS to continue to support GenAI MVP build outs and accelerations through funding channels.

4)??????? LLM of choice in mind

In a bit of a surprising way, we are seeing a large percentage of our customers and prospects come to the table with a firm “LLM of choice” in mind prior to scoping out production application project build out. Often, we are seeing GPT4 used for those focused on reasoning, and the need to use the GPT4 large knowledge bank. Llama 2 in the early days seems to be preferred for those who have extra focus on data privacy and security. Those choosing Claude often are impressed with the amount of data Claude can analyze, code generating capabilities, and the way Claude auto generates text- email campaigns, blog writing etc. While we have no problem with this, most IT services companies in the past have been asked to provide a more of a consultative approach in these types of situations… But the way Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta have advertised and offered access to these models in the early days- businesses are coming to services providers with a strong opinion and POV in hand of the LLM they want to use when they build their production Gen AI application(s).

5)??????? When in doubt…. Chatbot

In roughly 90% of our conversations, when a customer is looking to implement Generative AI into production for the first time- a customer facing chatbot has been where they want to start. Chatbots are showing immediate business outcomes for end clients, showing immediate consumption increases for hyperscalers (meaning POC/MVP funding $$$), and are a quick and easy build for services companies. It really is a great way to solve a business challenge, get comfortable with AI in production, and gain confidence with a Generative AI services provider.

6)??????? Here to stay

My final takeaway is that I simply cannot imagine how AI will impact the next 10 years of my career and the world around me. While today, we are beginning to see companies automate everyday business transactions (like loan approvals, claim payouts, clinical notetaking, and marketing campaigns) or what I simply like to call “Adult” stuff. I in the next decade we will be so used to AI in our lives we will begin to not totally recognize it at all. From our shopping, to helping our children study for their elementary school exams, Generative AI will be an integral part of our lives across the globe!

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