GenAI: 10 predictions for 2024

The decade of the 2020s mirrors the era when the internet emerged in the early 2000s—a landscape ripe with opportunities and a level playing field. With transformative changes comes a surge of new possibilities. No one could have predicted what happened in 2023 in the field. So making predictions for a full year is hazardous, but definitely less than it was a year ago. So I’ll try and highlights a few of the trends that are visible on the horizon…

1. The persistent rise of AI

Without a doubt, 2023 marked the pinnacle for AI (just ask Google), and so will 2024, and so will 2025… I compare it to 2010 being “the year of mobile”, or was is 2007 or 2014 or any year in between? Like all breakthroughs change doesn’t happen overnight but is fast, and profound. It takes time before any change fully takes stronghold and becomes mainstream. AI's ascent isn't confined to a single year. It's an ongoing, rapid evolution gradually metamorphosing into a revolution.

Too many research and links to display, so start here.

2. AI goes offline

IPU (Intelligence Processing Unit) or APU (AI Processing Unit) will become available on many consumer products starting with the fastest industries to rollout new tech namely smartphones and PCs. You can argue many AI features already exist in a smartphone today and this is true, the whole difference will be about speed as AI will be hardware-accelerated and a lot of the heavy-lifting will happen on the device itself, also paving the way for more privacy-friendly and sensitive applications. Literally accelerated processing units dedicated to AI will travel with you in the palm of your hand and with your laptop, whether you train, deploy or use applications.

Here's an example of IPU vs. GPU.

3. AI everywhere

As the technology becomes readily available for anyone to build apps and tech mashups in a matter of days expect to see AI-enhanced products everywhere, even in the most unexpected environments. There’s no limit to human imagination and that’s something AI cannot beat, more than artificial intelligence here it’s about augmented intelligence.

A couple of examples of creative use cases in healthcare or agriculture.

4. AI anywhere

Marketing gimmicks vs. real useful features, over-shouting solutions to non-existing problems, or promising miracles, as long as AI is yet another features vs. THE product, there’s a high risk of confusing consumers. Your bread toaster or lownmoaner might have AI inside, but does it redefine the category? It’s not technology, it’s what you do with it that matters.

Not kidding, AI-enhanced toaster is a thing…

5. Personal assistants redefined

Forget about Cortana, Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa or anything that’s on the market today. They can be deceptive and they have one thing in common: you need to learn how to use them. They’re goofy at best, limited in scope with preset features. As your AI companion learns from your habits (your phone already does this whether your like it or not, you’ve accepted the T&Cs as you opened the box and turned it on) it can tailor its recommendations and answers based on your needs. The quantity and consistency and output quality of just analyzing everything can’t be matched humanly.

ClickUp has one of the most interesting closed garden personal assistant product.

6. Deepfakes?

Near real-time high quality deepfakes become available for anyone, or their generation can take a little bit longer get really deep. It’s going to be harder and harder for humans to make the difference between real and generated content, whether it’s photo or video. Copying a voice or a photo was something that required skills and time. Both limitations have been blown away with tech dedicated to this. It’s not all gloom and doom however, as long as it’s used for creativity.

Checkout 2 very different use cases here: Storyfile and David Guetta.?

7. (Voice) Assistants become omnipresent

If you don’t chose to use voice assistants through a personal device, the companies you buy from or work with will chose to do so for you. Customer support, automated sales calls, anything that follows a standardized process, IVR finally has its days counted as speech-to-text and text-to-speech technology become better by the day, and easy for anyone to deploy. For disclosure I was never a voice assistant adopter, mainly because of the language barrier: as a multi-language speaker I never was comfortable even pronouncing names for simple tasks as calling people - that is about to disappear.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT in-app voice chat blew my mind.

8. Content creation speeds up vs 10x

If you have a database, you have a blog. Already today you can use some readily available tech to create really affordable, high quality content (articles, pictures, graphs, videos…) at a very affordable price at a pace which is humanly impossible, in virtually any language. Take this and make it tailored to the reader. It’s ok to read the same article as everyone else, but what if this could only give me new information, or a different angle, or mainly focus on my preferences. You thought social media algorithms were harmful? You haven’t seen anything yet…

Checkout my own example at 6sicuro.it this year about automating from data to storytelling:

9. Digital garbage

The more content creation accelerate, the more content we create, the more bad quality content we create. AI models feed themselves from content that already exists. As existing content becomes 100% or partially AI-generated, who or what makes the difference between quality content and garbage? Fake news have existed long before social media, which only helped the practice spread at speed and scale never seen before, AI can only accelerate this. Expect to see some digital garbage cleanup initiatives in the future.

Advertising Week's view on how and why digital waste creation is only going to get worse.

10. AI redefines commerce

Virtual shopping assistants as you know, through preset fixed journeys, are about to be blown away by intelligent chatbots (voice or text) that fully understand context, process and restitute natural language. How do I find the right product for me? Would this product be better than this other one for my needs? Cross-border commerce is also going to be boosted by high quality automated translations of web sites, helping local customers fully understand your website rather than themselves adapting to the language(s) you chose to publish. Website translations is nothing new consumer-side but making it native server-side could be a game changer in that field.

A simple example of Shopify App, available to any shop willing to pay for it.

The transformative power of AI transcends mere technological advancements; it reshapes industries, redefines user experiences, and challenges our perceptions. As we navigate this landscape, understanding its potential and pitfalls will be pivotal for shaping a responsible AI-driven future.