2023 was undoubtedly an incredible year for technology. Perhaps the most visible was artificial intelligence, which burst into the mainstream, prompting transformational shifts for both consumers and small and large businesses worldwide. Now, it’s time to look ahead. What will 2024 hold for technology? Will the developments of 2024 blow 2023 out of the water? In this article, we explore the top trends to watch this year.
AI TriSM
This year, AI trust, risk and security management (AI TRiSM) will be thrust into the spotlight, and rightly so. With the number of available AI solutions proliferating, organisations must have robust governance and data protection measures in place. AI applications are not innately reliable, trustworthy, fair or secure. In recognition of this, the AI TRiSM framework came into being, which is comprised of four pillars: explainability and model monitoring, ModelOps, AI application security and privacy.
AI TRiSM will feature more prominently in AI decision-making this year because AI risks are only growing. For example, at present, most people cannot explain what AI is and what it does to managers, users and consumers of AI models. Consequently, how models function, their strengths and weaknesses, likely behaviour and potential biases are still being discovered.
Additionally, due to the democratisation of AI, primarily in the form of ChatGPT and Bard, anyone can access generative AI tools. While these tools can make positive changes, they also pose risks that cannot be addressed with traditional controls. AI TRISM emphasises proactive governance based on continuous monitoring and control of risks that may undermine these objectives. Policies and checks are enforced throughout the AI's learning lifecycle before it's released to the wider public. We’ll leave you with a statistic to demonstrate the power of AI TRiSM: Gartner found that by 2026, enterprises that apply TRiSM controls to AI applications will increase the accuracy of their decision-making by eliminating 80% of faulty or illegitimate information.
Sustainable/Green Technology
You’ve probably been exposed to plenty of content exploring environmental, social and governance (ESG) outcomes in recent years. These standards measure a business's impact on the environment and wider society, as well as how transparent and accountable they are. With two-thirds of investors taking ESG factors into account when they invest in a new company, it’s clear these standards are making an impact and will continue to drive meaningful change in 2024.
So, where does technology come into all of this? Firms across all industries are keen to use sustainable technology frameworks to enable ESG outcomes that support long-term environmental conservation and human rights. Environmental technologies prevent and mitigate natural world risks, social technologies improve human rights and well-being, and sustainable technologies offer insights essential for improving performance. In 2024, sustainable technologies will continue to gain traction, with more companies investing in green data centres, renewable energy and sustainable manufacturing processes.
Platform Engineering
Another concept that will be big in 2024 is platform engineering. Based on DevOps principles that seek to improve the security, compliance, costs and time-to-business value for development teams, platform engineering aims to improve developer experiences within a secure framework. There is a lot of excitement around platform engineering, and it’s no wonder why. The emerging product-based mindset will accelerate application delivery, allowing enterprises to create value much faster.
However, it must provide a frictionless self-service environment to deliver true value. The system is easy to use, requiring minimal time to learn its functionalities. Comprehensive user guides, up-to-date FAQs and well-documented solutions to common problems must be created to ensure developers aren’t faced with an unnecessarily steep learning curve.
Designing and building workflows and toolchains that allow self-service capabilities for software engineering organisations is an increasingly necessary process in the cloud-native era. By 2026, 80% of large software engineering organisations will create platform engineering teams as providers of reusable services, tools and components for application delivery.
Zero-Trust
The cybersecurity field has not yet experienced a dull year. With each new and exciting technology that springs up, new cybersecurity threats emerge, keeping IT professionals busy. One area of cybersecurity that is set to accelerate in 2024 is the zero-trust model.
The zero-trust approach requires all users, human or machine, to be authenticated, authorised and continually validated to be able to access resources. The model operates under the principle of “never trust, always verify”—a significant shift away from traditional network security practices. The continued rise of cloud-based services in 2024 will mean the implementation of zero-trust architectures becomes even more widespread as organisations double down on security measures.
DevSecOps
DevSecOps will also be supported by the AI revolution, which is expected to play a key role in strengthening security protocols. This will likely come in the form of pattern analysis and security vulnerability prediction capabilities, with AI tools proactively providing solutions to adapt to emerging security challenges.
Final Thoughts: 2024 Technology Trends
2023 has presented IT teams with a range of opportunities and challenges, and 2024 is sure to offer new and exciting developments for the sector to get to grips with. This year, we predict that AI will continue its rapid ascent to technology superstardom while platform engineering sets new standards in the software development process. There is plenty to look forward to, and we’re keen to see what 2024 has in store.
Interested in learning more about the topics we’ve touched on in this article? There is more where that came from! Visit our blog for articles exploring AI and network automation, DevOps and zero-trust, and 2023 infrastructure trends.