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OneSpan 2024 Predictions: The Digital Revolution: Embracing E-Signatures, AI, Blockchain & Beyond in 2024

vmblog-predictions-2024 

Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024.  Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

The Digital Revolution: Embracing E-Signatures, AI, Blockchain & Beyond in 2024

By Sameer Hajarnis, Senior VP and GM of Digital Agreements, OneSpan

With the rise of technological advancements in 2023, it was undoubtedly a year of growth and learning for companies. With breakthroughs like Generative AI emerging, following digitization stemming from the pandemic, businesses around the globe were forced to take a hard look at their digital processes and technology stacks. This march towards digital business is relentless and showing no signs of a slowdown in 2024. It's becoming clear that embracing the digital landscape - and adopting the technology that supports it - is now a means for business survival, not just a choice.

Despite the rapid digital transformation many organizations experienced during the pandemic, many still lag behind in regards to the adoption of digital processes, particularly around e-signatures. I predict that, in 2024, e-signatures will shift from a nice to have to a must have, symbolizing a widespread shift towards efficiency and convenience.

While teams like procurement and finance are utilizing this technology day in and day out, broader democratization of e-signatures hasn't happened across most industries. That will change in 2024. Those organizations lagging behind in the adoption of digitized processes will join the ranks of progress, ensuring that the digital revolution becomes an integral part of their operation.

In 2024, we'll also see the evolution of e-signature methods redefine the landscape of digital agreements and play an important role in establishing digital identities. The shift from physical documents to digitized formats represents just the initial phase of this transformation. With this evolution, we'll see wider adoption of alternative e-signature methods, potentially leveraging technologies like facial recognition or even audio-based authentication. This rapid pace of innovation will however contrast with the relatively slow progress in regulatory frameworks and compliance standards, so organizations need to be certain of the security of their e-signature solutions.

My colleagues in the technology sector have complimentary thoughts about where we are headed in 2024, and there's a clear underlying theme: leading with a trust-first mindset for business while adopting new critical technologies, such as e-signatures, quantum encryption, security, and blockchain tools will prove paramount to business success.

Here are four additional outlooks centered around the rapid shift towards digitization and technology adoption.

Frederik Mennes, Director Product Management & Business Strategy, OneSpan

The rise of security and digitization tools in 2024:

As we look to 2024, there will be an uptick in new industries investing in security and digitization tools. Industries that have been slower to digitize, such as the energy, mortgage, and transportation sectors are being hit with new regulations, forcing investment in security measures like mobile and cloud authentication along with the adoption of secure e-signatures.

With so much business now conducted online, there's a renewed focus on protecting the transaction, forcing both companies and consumers to take a closer look at their security posture. As new regulations are adopted, such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) in the EU, more organizations will adopt FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) and phishing-resistant solutions in the financial sector. Our world of connection is changing, and to compete in 2024, security and digitization must be at the forefront - across all industries.

Will LaSala, Field CTO, OneSpan

Reestablishing trust within the digital world in 2024:

In 2023, we saw generative AI take off and many companies jumped on implementing and using genAI-powered technologies and they are now realizing the implications of this rapid adoption both internally and externally, namely in regards to trust and security. To account for this, in 2024, the market will need to create and adopt new solutions focused on reestablishing trust within today's digital world. We can expect to see an uptick in solutions that focus on verifying digital assets online, as well, digital agreements. With digital transactions at the core of every business, we need to prepare ourselves for an upgrade in innovation and bleed confidence into every interaction we have with customers.

Guy Harrison, Enterprise Architect, OneSpan

Blockchain is a slow burn and will continue to gradually evolve in 2024:

This past year, we've seen organizations incorporate blockchain technology into their offerings and platforms. The NFT craze was a bubble of activity, but now that the bubble has burst, we are left with a mature mechanism for tokenizing assets, and I'd expect to see more serious use of NFTs to represent real-world assets in 2024. 2024 will likely be a quieter period for blockchain technology; however, it will play an important role when it comes to immutable storage, and organizations should keep that in mind.

Blockchain also has an important role to play in combating deep fakes generated by AI.  Within a few years, we'll be seeing digital photographs and videos generated by AI, which are indistinguishable from the real thing. Trust in a digital artifact will depend on the artifact having a watermark or other certification from a trusted provider such as Reuters.  Only blockchain technology can provide an irrefutable timestamp for these certifications, so companies like Reuters are experimenting with the use of blockchain to prove digital integrity. I think those proof of concepts will progress rapidly in 2024.

Digital agreements are primed for quantum encryption in 2024:

In 2024, the National Institute of Technologies (NIST) will release the official quantum secure algorithms, firing the starting gun for the transition of the web to quantum-safe cryptography. This is a huge effort - every PDF reader, web server, Linux server, and essentially everything everywhere on the web needs to transition to quantum-safe private keys and many organizations will need to re-encrypt important assets. This will be the biggest global infrastructure conversion in terms of absolute engineering since Y2K. But unlike Y2K, we don't know when Q Day is going to come...

Once the NIST-certified quantum safe algorithms are released, we will see a fairly rapid transition to these new algorithms across industries because there is a huge amount of uncertainty as to how rapidly quantum computers will advance. The digital agreement industry is particularly motivated to adopt these new algorithms, as new threats potentially place long-term artifacts at risk. For example, if you sign a long-term digital agreement now, you will need that agreement to stand up in court 10 or even 20 years from now - and Q-day will most probably occur before then. Because of this, I predict all digital agreement providers will be racing to provide quantum-safe documents and signatures, as they are facing the most immediate threat from Quantum computing. 

In the fast-evolving landscape of 2024, as businesses navigate the digital revolution, one thing is certain - those who embrace cutting-edge technologies like e-signatures, AI, blockchain, and quantum encryption are not just adapting; they're pioneering the future of business success.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sameer Hajarnis 

Sameer Hajarnis is OneSpan's Senior Vice President & GM of Digital Agreements. Sameer has more than two decades of experience in enterprise software and SaaS companies leading cross-functional teams, including managing business development, sales, strategic alliances, and customer success to improve the customer product and service experience.

Published Wednesday, December 27, 2023 7:34 AM by David Marshall
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