Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
The Future of Software Development in 2024
By Casey Ciniello, Reveal and Slingshot Senior Product Manager, Infragistics
Software development is in the midst of a significant transformation. In the fast-paced world of technology and innovation, it is no longer just about tweaking the code and optimizing methodologies to be more agile. Driven by advancements in the technology industry, shifts in user expectations and behavior, changing digital work trends, and evolving business practices, 2024 will introduce an overhaul of how companies build new software.
But what game-changing factors redefine how digital solutions are approached, developed, and interacted with? To understand it, here are 4 exciting predictions shaping the future of software development.
1. Low-Code/No-Code Tools Will Dominate Software Development
As a Senior Product Manager at Infragistics, I’ve witnessed how turbulent our landscape can be. Over the years, the heavy influence of changing process trends, accumulating tech debt, new tools, and consumers’ needs pushed the industry to experiment and establish various approaches. But what’s expected to help solve these challenges and propel the technical world forward is low code.
Jason Beres, SVP of Developer Tools at Infragistics points out, “In 2024, low-code/no-code tools will dominate software development as they bring the power of app development to users across the business. The rise of “citizen developers” has proven that as we move toward a no-code future, people without coding experience are changing the working world. As tech companies adopt low-code/no-code tools, they’ll save time and money, rather than falling behind early adopters.”
And this is huge. Enterprise low-code platforms do indeed remodel traditional development norms, making code more accessible and helping businesses achieve faster advancements, scalability, and productivity at a never-seen-before level.
2. AI Technology Is Moving to the Forefront
The next big advancement that will continue to gain momentum in 2024 is Artificial Intelligence. More and more IT leaders leverage its capabilities to accelerate time-to-market, bring about novel solutions, and even tackle the tech talent shortage. According to the 2023 Reveal Annual Software Developer Survey, more than a third of the survey respondents (37.5%) indicated that their biggest challenge is finding developers with the right skills. So, it won’t be surprising when AI technologies augment developers rather than replace them, ensuring better-aligned testing processes, feature validation, and other optimizations.
3. More Businesses Will Rely on Predictive Analytics to Make Decisions
A new paradigm is underway: the increasing adoption of predictive analytics as part of various business strategies and operations. With industries becoming more data-centric, businesses are recognizing the potential of software platforms incorporating embedded analytics.
Empowering managers and teams to make better data-driven decisions, predictive analytics will be all-encompassing in 2024 – starting from everyday business research such as inventory and purchasing to using data for predicting the future and planning out bigger and more definite goals based on actionable insights. With predictive analytics organizations will experience improved productivity, increased sales/revenue, and more abilities to foresee, address, and mitigate risks before they materialize.
4. Decision Intelligence Will Be Transformative
What can make or break a company? It’s the decisions that people make about processes, product development, toolboxes usage, allocation of development resources, operational efficiency, and so forth. As data continues to shape the future, decision intelligence becomes essential for crafting successful technological solutions and fostering innovation.
We will see a gradual shift towards decision intelligence, shaping a new type of data-driven mindset in the next couple of months. This empowers the most data-matured organizations to make more effective and efficient decisions with the help of data, technology, and human expertise. Important decisions will be based on evidence rather than intuition alone, delivering maximum value.
These four trends will revamp how software solutions are developed in the fast-moving, digital-first world. Transforming data into actionable insights, using decision intelligence, and collaborating with AI and low-code tools will close the gap between software development and the evolving requirements of the digital era. And this will pave the way for more agile, responsive, and innovative solutions. And that’s the competitive advantage that businesses need.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Casey Ciniello holds a BA in mathematics and an MBA, bringing a data analytics and business perspective to Infragistics over the past decade. Casey is the Senior Product Manager for the Reveal embedded analytics product and the Slingshot digital workplace platform. She is instrumental in Infragistics product development, market analysis and product go-to-market strategy. She joined Infragistics in 2013.
