Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2024. Read them in this 16th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Three Business Technologies Transforming 2024 Already
By Agustin Huerta, SVP of Digital Innovation and VP of Technology IoT at Globant
This year has brought a lot of advancements in tech – and AI was only the start. Robotics, quantum computing, clean energy, and autonomous vehicles all saw major strides in innovations and mass adoption. In fact, the autonomous vehicle market is projected to grow by $320 billion, a 39% CAGR increase, from 2022 to 2027. Similarly, solar investments grew by 22% globally over the past year, totaling $358 billion. Within the next year, businesses and leaders will be educating the public about the benefits and risks of these technologies as they become a part of our daily lives.
Additionally, AI, quantum computing, and robotics are going to see even more improvements in the technology, and in how humans interact with these technologies. Here’s what we’ll see in 2024:
1. Action-enabled AI products coming to the forefront.
In 2024, we will seed a breakthrough in products and solutions coming to the market focused on action-enabled AI with potential first movers coming from the hospitality, entertainment, healthcare and retail industries.
Current mainstream generative AI applications can “generate” but cannot “act.” As seen with generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, AlphaCode, and Bard, these applications are able to create new content or help edit it when prompted by a user, but don’t go any further. For example, if a customer support agent is looking for the proper procedure to respond to a customer need, they can use a genAI-enabled chatbot to navigate an internal knowledge base and improve resolution time.
AI of the future will both create and act. In such instances, genAI-enabled chatbots will be able to not only create a response based on their knowledge, but also interact with other systems. For example, if a customer wants to do their groceries, the customer can upload a picture of a handwritten list of items they are missing and get a genAI-enabled assistant to automatically add all the items to the cart by interacting with the e-commerce backend. The assistant can also take into account the customer’s purchase history to add the brands they like the most. Then, the customer would just need to confirm the operation through the same conversational flow, and the assistant can execute the payment and use the shipping preferences to finish the process.
With its Ai Pin, Humane has showcased a great example of a rich, AI-enabled solution that can recognize the food, check for your dietary recommendations, and even add the calculated calories to any tracking system you may use to monitor caloric ingestion, among many other use cases.
2. Quantum computing will take several steps forward to becoming a reality (but it will come with risks).
While quantum computing remains in an academic state today, in 2024 we’ll see many organizations investing in education and planning around how quantum can benefit their businesses. Applications in data and computing-rich fields, such as finance and pharmaceutical research, will likely be the first to take interest and invest. Organizations will also need to prepare for the challenges from quantum technology. For example, short computational power will be available, as only a few machines will be made available through cloud providers, and the lack of real-time computation will limit its use cases.
3. Robotics will usher in a new wave: multimodal robots.
Robotics has evolved for over two decades, and in 2024, the robotics market will reach a pivotal point with emerging multi-purpose robots, thanks to AI developments. We’ll see robotics move further into the “non-manufacturing” space, where it has traditionally been used for automation and efficiencies, and into areas like food service and healthcare, where the use of robots, drones and task-optimized design is growing. Businesses will adopt robots-as-a-service (RaaS), with many not taking a humanoid form but rather focusing on an optimized task, like rolling delivery bots. The blend of robotics with human ingenuity will result in innovative solutions and enhanced capabilities across multiple sectors. As robotics will reshape industries and jobs, it will be necessary to demand legal frameworks addressing safety, privacy, and potential hacking vulnerabilities.
Tech is changing faster than we can process. It is our responsibility, as business executives and tech developers, to be stewards for how these new technologies are used and improve them for humanity, which starts with understanding how the technology works and its best uses. By consolidating essential tech services and strategically investing in the high-impact projects, business leaders will cut back on costs and improve areas core to business function – leveraging the technologies to create key business differentiators.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Agustín Huerta is SVP of Studios at Globant (NYSE:GLOB), a digitally native company that helps organizations reinvent themselves and unleash their potential. In this role, he oversees the structure and value offering of Globant’s Studios model. Each Studio represents deep pockets of expertise on industries, the latest technologies and trends, and delivers tailored solutions focused on specific challenges. With more than 17 years of experience working in the software industry, Agustín joined Globant in 2009, where he has since helped some of the world’s biggest companies to digitally transform and launch revolutionary platforms.
