Beyond the hype: 5 top tech predictions for 2024

This week I will be donning my snow boots and attending the 2024 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum - along with other leaders from across the worlds of business, politics, civil society and the media.

Undoubtedly, many of the sessions, workshops and round tables will focus on how we can use AI to drive positive outcomes for our economy and society.

Admittedly, there's always a level of hype accompanying any new disruptive technology.

But I'm constantly struck by technology's capacity to open up new business opportunities, as well as its potential to make the world work that bit better.

The great news is technology never stands still.

I have extensive experience of the positive disruptive impact that technology can bring, based on being part of EY's own transformation and working with many of our largest technology clients and ecosystem partners.

As a result, I believe that we will see developments in AI unfold at greater pace and intensity this year than in 2023.

With this in mind, here are my top 5 predictions for technology in 2024:

1. GenAI moves from proof of concept into enterprise deployment

The overarching tech trend of the past 12 months has undoubtedly been the worldwide explosion of interest in GenAI. Yet while businesses have widely experimented with technologies we have seen comparatively few examples of them using GenAI at scale.

2024 will change that. This year we should see companies start to apply the technologies to real-world use cases as they explore opportunities to disrupt their business models.

The October 2023 EY CEO Outlook Pulse revealed an overwhelming majority of CEOs (99%) are planning to invest in GenAI.

Expect to see businesses make targeted GenAI investments in a slew of use cases that can help to accelerate profitable growth, from customer service and software coding through to content generation and recruitment.

What’s more, this GenAI transformation will happen at pace.

Within the EY organisation, we have already witnessed the rapid transformative impact of GenAI technologies. Our in-house, large language model (LLM) – known as EYQ – has had over 1.5 million visits from EY people since its rollout in September 2023.?

Business will increasingly need to future-proof their AI adoption, as governments around the world look to regulate AI.

The European Union’s AI Act should come into force this year, laying down a marker for policymakers and regulators worldwide.

We can expect other major economies, including the US, to accelerate efforts to establish their own regulatory frameworks.

2. Focus on sustainable AI infrastructure

Sticking with the topic of AI, another major focus for businesses this year will be addressing the energy, resource and infrastructure dimensions of the AI boom .

If they intend to use AI at scale, businesses will have to reconcile their technology ambitions with their net-zero targets – and fast.

AI models consume huge amounts of electricity and water, and generate significant greenhouse gas emissions, so businesses will need to invest in efficient semiconductor architectures and cooling methods for their AI systems.

At the same time, businesses have a huge opportunity to deploy AI tools that accelerate their progress towards their sustainability goals. For example, they could use AI technologies to optimise and reduce their supply chain emissions, drive innovation in sustainable products and services, and identify climate-related risks.

At EY, we have been working with our ecosystem partners to ensure that our AI tools and foundational technology platform, EY Fabric (which supports our LLM rollout), are contributing towards our commitment to be net zero by 2025.

3. Increase cyber resilience through automation

Organisations are rushing to respond to the threat of disruptive technologies breaching current cyber defenses around core data and applications.

Cyber threats are already growing at an exponential rate and will undoubtedly proliferate even further during 2024. This is down to attackers harnessing the power of disruptive technologies, such as GenAI, the Internet of Things and future quantum computing.

To respond to this challenge, businesses will need to increase their investment in cybersecurity tools over the coming 12 months.

The EY 2023 Global Cybersecurity Leadership Insights Study revealed that 84% of organisations are in the early stages of adding two or more new technologies to their existing suite of cybersecurity solutions.

One way they are boosting their cyber resilience is through automated cyber defence tools that are powered by AI and machine learning.

4. Move to flexible, scalable infrastructure to optimize hybrid cloud consumption

Adoption of cloud computing continues to accelerate due to businesses viewing cloud technologies as a strategic platform for deploying emerging technologies such as GenAI and Web3.?

However, managing cloud costs and embedding the costs into product pricing is becoming more important.?

We will see a pronounced trend towards the adoption of hybrid cloud models that combine the flexibility and scalability of public cloud services with the security and control of private cloud or on-premise infrastructure.

With a modern and flexible infrastructure platform, businesses will be better able to manage workloads across their cloud infrastructure based on demand, to maximize performance and optimise their overall cloud consumption costs.

5. Reskilling and upskilling to address talent shortages

Today there is a huge shortage of tech talent, with IT and data experts the most sought-after professions globally.

Particularly acute skills shortages exist in highly specialised areas such as cybersecurity, where the gap between the number of workers needed and the number available continues to widen.

Given the fierce competition that exists for tech skills, it’s no surprise that skills building and training were top priorities for employers, according to the EY 2023 Work Reimagined Survey .

In 2024, businesses are likely to invest further in skills building, particularly to boost their supply of tech and data skills.

This will not only enable them to future-proof their strategies; it will also help them to attract and retain talent since employees prize development opportunities in this era of economic uncertainty and rapid technological change.

A focus on talent will also enable businesses to attract investment during 2024.

The latest EY Europe Attractiveness Survey , a study of foreign direct investment trends, shows that talent is a major priority for investors.

In fact, 37% of investors identify a reduction in the talent pool as a major risk factor for Europe, especially as new and high-level skills in areas like AI become a necessity in the marketplace.

The year ahead

We are only at the start of 2024 and while I, and others, might make predictions, no one knows exactly how the year will pan out.

If recent years have been anything to go by, we can probably expect to see more financial and geopolitical turmoil, ever-spiralling concerns about global warming, and further evolving social norms.

Against this backdrop of change and uncertainty, the pace of technological transformation will only pick up further as businesses invest in the tools and the talent that will enable them to grow, innovate and build trust with their stakeholders.

Whatever happens, there is one thing we can be certain of - in 12 months’ time, the global technology landscape will be even more complex, dynamic, and sophisticated than it is today.