10 IT Trends to Watch for This Year
From gel computing, AI PCs and AI twins to the more mundane banes of IT existence, here’s a quick look at the top 10 IT trends.
![electric car space, high speed electric car space, high speed](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt69509c9116440be8/blt314408a7124da326/658326862fc999040a91f184/00-trends-Panther_Media_GmbH_-alamy.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Panther Media GmbH via Alamy Stock
It’s no secret that public cloud costs are much higher than almost anyone expected. There are several reasons for the upsurge, some of which are the users’ fault. But that doesn’t make it any easier to justify the budget drain.
“In 2024, I predict a slowdown, or even a reversal of this trend,” says Karthik Ranganathan, Yugabyte founder & CTO. “Enterprises will become more principled in which workloads they move to the public clouds, and in some cases migrate workloads back to private cloud environments. This is because high-scale workloads which exhibit stable throughput and performance can be optimized to run more efficiently in private cloud environments.”
“In these cost-conscious times, enterprises that once flocked to the public cloud will revisit the rent versus buy economics of public and private cloud infrastructure when deciding where to run their applications,” he adds.
No doubt public cloud providers are scrambling to find ways to hold their market share by reducing entry and migration costs. AI is likely to play a major role in optimizing public cloud usage.
It feels like IT has been doing ‘more with less’ for an eternity. There’s simply not much left to squeeze from overworked, understaffed IT teams and the technologies they rely on. Even so, they’ll need to squeeze harder still.
“As economic uncertainties continue, and companies look to cut costs, CIOs and IT leaders must get creative in solving problems and expanding their organization’s capabilities,” says Nintex CIO Wayson Vannatta. “As a result, 2024 will be a defining moment for IT to adopt automation capabilities, to improve efficiency and handle routine tasks within their own teams, as well as within business teams like HR and finance.”
And what of those companies that try to skate by on the thinnest of automation efforts?
“Organizations that don’t deploy IT automation in 2024 will severely burn out their employees, leading to reduced worker engagement and increased resignation,” says Rajiv Nayan, VP, sales and client services at Digitate.
Nayan adds that “67% of companies already have plans to implement additional IT automation to address growing complexity in the next 12 months, and its highly likely many others will follow this trend.”
AI is fast but lots of things can slow it down -- like networks. In 2024, almost no company can tolerate an outage for very long and money will be spent to keep networks running.
“Artificial intelligence-driven network management is going to be the biggest change impacting managed services,” says Dan Rasmussen, SVP, enterprise division at Hughes Network Systems. “The capability to analyze large amounts of data and distill it into a few key actions that either reduce the impact of an outage or ideally even preempt it by self-correcting issues.”
IT departments may turn to managed services for AIOps and network management. Other companies may spin up their own AI models to tend to their networks.
“We will also see teams developing native generative AI products instead of relying on prebuilt applications,” says Sharad Varshney, CEO of OvalEdge, a data governance consultancy. “This is because technology companies are making it easier for customers to use their data to build generative AI models dedicated to specific business use cases.”
Either way, outage prevention and preemption is now a base expectation and not a brand differentiator.
Almost everything in IT costs more money than it used to, thanks to inflation and other factors. Something will have to be put on the backburner, at least for now.
“2024 will be a challenging year due to the macroeconomic climate,” says Hughes Network Systems’ Rasmussen. “Upgrading equipment will require capital or an increased expense budget that might be difficult to obtain. Companies will stretch the life and utilization of their current solutions as far as possible.”
Putting equipment investments on hold may actually be more beneficial than just stretching today’s IT budget. Very different and disruptive equipment and software are already emerging. It may be beneficial to plan to transition to some of these rather than invest in equipment that may be headed for obsolescence sooner than not.
For example, Lenovo demonstrated the future of AI-ready devices and AI-powered features, such as a future AI PC and a demo of Personal AI Twin recently at TechWorld in Austin.
“This is accomplished with AI interactions on the keyboard and natural language from the end-user as well as a new concept feature called AI NOW, which is a personal AI twin (an AI assistant) solution for AI PCs,” says Tom Butler, executive director of Lenovo’s global commercial portfolio and product management.
You can think of an AI twin as an AI version of yourself. An enterprise AI twin is also in the works -- that would be an AI assistant for employees that is uniquely suited to that employee’s work and benefits while using company data to perform.
With such massive changes afoot, IT will have to give a lot more thought to what to do next, rather than simply rely on earlier-made plans.
“Overall, IT would be moving from lots of doing with some thinking, towards more thinking and delegating the doing towards AI using the co-pilot model,” says Raju Seetharaman, CTO and SVP, IT and transformation, for Legal & General America, a multinational financial services company established in 1836.
So, what does IT need to focus their thinking on? Mostly watching their step.
“There are huge benefits from AI that companies can leverage and turn into market advantage,” Seetharaman says. “However, for the next two to three years this is going to be a constantly shifting ecosystem caused by new regulations, transformational use cases, new technological upgrades, new threats, and risks. CIOs and CTOs are best placed to offer an informed, measured, and balanced innovation journey and need to lead the discussion within the organization.”
There are personal dangers ahead for IT leaders and staff to consider, too. It is possible to work oneself right out of a job in 2024.
“Generative AI offers a lot of opportunities to improve efficiencies and automation leading to cost savings across IT and the wider organization,” says Legal & General America’s Seetharaman. “This will lead to new pressures on operating costs that in turn can lead to layoffs and role reduction for companies who are not able to scale and grow the business leveraging AI.”
Interestingly, IT can also protect their jobs through the use of AI.
“For companies who are using technology as a market differentiator and growth enabler, AI is going to help turbo-charge growth journeys creating new jobs around AI, ML, Data, Automation,” Seetharaman says.
Winning CIOs will be those who quickly step up to lead the company’s AI strategy for this and other reasons.
While much has been said about the future of work, namely hybrid, remote and on-premises work, there are more adaptations to work on the horizon. This will further test IT’s ability to support a diverse and distributed workforce in myriad models throughout the organization -- but within IT too.
“IT leaders will need to become fluent in creating adaptable work environments and using agile methodologies to evolve their HR practices for the need of the hour,” says Charman Hayes, EVP of people and capability for Mastercard’s technology division. “I predict that the desire for flexibility to grow not only in terms of ways of working but in terms of types of projects as well.”
“Technology teams who want to attract and retain the best talent will need a holistic way of engaging Gen Z beyond the work itself. The passion and purpose piece is really important to Gen Zers. We need to clearly engage them on why they’re doing their work and to what end,” Hayes adds. She also said that “IT talent today is also much more invested in DEI and sustainability than they previously were.”
The spotlight is aimed and remains on IT to lead the way in AI efforts. That means when things go right, AI looks like the hero. But if things go wrong, IT gets the blame.
“Unsurprisingly, the opportunities that exist around generative AI will continue to affect the IT industry,” says Alastair Pooley, CIO at Snow. “IT teams need to be well informed to best guide the business in the right direction, while still being mindful of the risk of leaking intellectual property or accidentally putting sensitive data into a generative AI.”
“With current economic conditions leading to uncertainty, IT teams will also need to carefully manage budget and review every item of spend to uncover savings and free up budget for new investments, like AI integration,” Pooley adds.
But there are some great moments to be a hero on a much bigger stage, too.
“In 2024, we expect AI to have a positive impact on sustainability efforts,” says Martin Barrett, sustainability lead and principal solutions consultant at Snow. “Businesses will be able to optimize products to have the least negative impact on the environment by identifying efficiencies or optimal materials to allow for reuse. In turn, renewable energy and water sources will need to be implemented to help mitigate the environmental impact of current energy and water use in powering datacenters and the cloud, which have seen a sharp increase in recent years as demand for AI has grown.”
It’s still all about the budget for IT. And now there’s more to strain the budget than ever without any slowdown in more traditional line items.
“In the ‘more of the same’ category, we will see increased pressure on IT spending budgets on security and compliance despite continued cyber-attacks and breaches such as Audi’s recent announcement,” says Doug Barbin, president and national managing principal at Schellman, a provider of attestation and compliance services. “Third-party and supply-chain risk will also continue to be a focus for compliance teams with recent and continued attacks aimed at getting at technology providers through third-parties.”
Apps will come under added scrutiny, too.
“No more AI for AI’s sake. Complicated SaaS with an AI sticker on top will get snipped out of budgets once productivity falters,” says Freshworks CIO Prasad Ramakrishnan.
“App rationalization will go mainstream. IT is dealing with 71% more software than last year. CIOs can’t go much longer without relentlessly cutting what isn’t driving efficiency,” Hughes Network Systems’ Ramakrishnan adds.
SLAs and other assurances will require changes and additional monitoring by IT, too.
“As president of the accounting firm, I just signed the first client agreement prohibiting us from using their data to train third-party AI models,” Barbin says. “Of course, we wouldn’t and while one would argue conventional confidentiality clauses would prohibit this activity, the fact that it is called out is an acknowledgement that companies are using AI without the necessary precautions or even awareness in place,” he says.
If anything, compliance and security will require even more budget dollars as regulations change and possibly even merge. IT will have to watch developments carefully and adapt quickly.
“Internalization of privacy regulations such as those for AI will become more prevalent,” says Schellman’s Barbin. “In addition, companies serving the public sector / US government in the US are expanding their capabilities to service governments in other countries further multiplying their compliance needs.”
“Last, ESG will also hit mainstream awareness as a component of an overall compliance program. Will GRC and ESG merge to become ESG-R ESG-C? They could as companies look to manage risk in a consistent manner across a broader set of business needs,” Barbin adds.
Shadow AI will make compliance even more challenging.
“CIOs wrestle daily with how much or how little to embrace generative AI, and what guardrails should be in place to safeguard the enterprise,” says Jay Upchurch, EVP & CIO at SAS. “But ChatGPT and Bard have swung the door open for shadow AI in our organizations.”
“Each organization’s risk tolerance is different, but well-intentioned employees will turn to the new technology to increase efficiency,” Upchurch adds.
Check Out Other InformationWeek Slideshows
If anything, compliance and security will require even more budget dollars as regulations change and possibly even merge. IT will have to watch developments carefully and adapt quickly.
“Internalization of privacy regulations such as those for AI will become more prevalent,” says Schellman’s Barbin. “In addition, companies serving the public sector / US government in the US are expanding their capabilities to service governments in other countries further multiplying their compliance needs.”
“Last, ESG will also hit mainstream awareness as a component of an overall compliance program. Will GRC and ESG merge to become ESG-R ESG-C? They could as companies look to manage risk in a consistent manner across a broader set of business needs,” Barbin adds.
Shadow AI will make compliance even more challenging.
“CIOs wrestle daily with how much or how little to embrace generative AI, and what guardrails should be in place to safeguard the enterprise,” says Jay Upchurch, EVP & CIO at SAS. “But ChatGPT and Bard have swung the door open for shadow AI in our organizations.”
“Each organization’s risk tolerance is different, but well-intentioned employees will turn to the new technology to increase efficiency,” Upchurch adds.
Check Out Other InformationWeek Slideshows
AI will dominate in 2024. But you knew that already, didn’t you? It’s the details that are bedeviling. Will AI rule the world? Obliterate IT jobs, apps, or stacks? Disrupt hardware replacement cycles? Produce an alien IT techscape? Add new threats to the hellishness of cybersecurity?
Yes, and yes, would be the answer to most of that. With more in store to shock, amaze and disrupt most of your company’s previous thinking and plans. You can expect the havoc to begin with C-suite chaos.
“Generative AI will cause a clash between executives as they vie for control over its agenda within the enterprise,” says Alon Goren, CEO of AnswerRocket, an augmented analytics platform.
The struggles within companies and industries won’t be contained to which applications to launch. There’s far more at stake than that. As the stakes grow, so does IT’s power and influence.
“2024 won’t just be about integrating AI into business operations. On the contrary, it’ll be a race to build an IT-first workforce that can capture the most value from AI tools,” says Charles Chow, Head of Marketing at Lumen Technologies Asia Pacific.
But that’s not to say that IT’s rise to increased prominence will be easy. There’s a minefield of technologies, tactics, and techniques to sort out and a misstep can prove harmful or even disastrous.
From gel computing, AI PCs and AI twins to the more mundane banes of IT existence, here’s a quick look at the top 10 IT trends to watch in 2024.
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like