Gartner Selects Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2024
These 10 trends are expected to factor into many business and technology decisions over the next 36 months.
October 20, 2023
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Gartner
Gartner states that generative AI (GenAI) is becoming democratized by the confluence of massively pretrained models, cloud computing and open source, making these models accessible to workers worldwide. By 2026, Gartner predicts that over 80% of enterprises will have used GenAI APIs and models and/or deployed GenAI-enabled applications in production environments, up from less than 5% in early 2023.
GenAI applications can make vast sources of information — internal and external — accessible and available to business users. This means the rapid adoption of GenAI will significantly democratize knowledge and skills in the enterprise. Large language models enable enterprises to connect their workers with knowledge in a conversational style with rich semantic understanding.
The democratization of access to AI has made the need for AI trust, risk and security management (AI TRiSM) even more urgent and clear. Without guardrails, AI models can rapidly generate compounding negative effects that spin out of control, overshadowing any positive performance and societal gains that AI enables. AI TRiSM provides tooling for ModelOps, proactive data protection, AI-specific security, model monitoring (including monitoring for data drift, model drift, and/or unintended outcomes) and risk controls for inputs and outputs to third-party models and applications.
Gartner predicts that by 2026, enterprises that apply AI TRiSM controls will increase the accuracy of their decision-making by eliminating up to 80% of faulty and illegitimate information.
AI-augmented development is the use of AI technologies, such as GenAI and machine learning, to aid software engineers in designing, coding and testing applications. AI-assisted software engineering improves developer productivity and enables development teams to address the increasing demand for software to run the business. These AI-infused development tools allow software engineers to spend less time writing code, so they can spend more time on more strategic activities such as the design and composition of compelling business applications.
Intelligent applications include intelligence — which Gartner defines as learned adaptation to respond appropriately and autonomously — as a capability. This intelligence can be utilized in many use cases to better augment or automate work. As a foundational capability, intelligence in applications comprises various AI-based services, such as machine learning, vector stores and connected data. Consequently, intelligent applications deliver experiences that dynamically adapt to the user.
The augmented-connected workforce (ACWF) is a strategy for optimizing the value derived from human workers. The need to accelerate and scale talent is driving the ACWF trend. The ACWF uses intelligent applications and workforce analytics to provide everyday context and guidance to support the workforce’s experience, well-being, and ability to develop its own skills. At the same time, the ACWF drives business results and positive impact for key stakeholders.
Through 2027, 25% of CIOs will use augmented-connected workforce initiatives to reduce time to competency by 50% for key roles, Gartner says.
Continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) is a pragmatic and systemic approach that allows organizations to evaluate the accessibility, exposure and exploitability of an enterprise’s digital and physical assets continually and consistently. Aligning CTEM assessment and remediation scopes with threat vectors or business projects, rather than an infrastructure component, surfaces not only the vulnerabilities, but also unpatchable threats.
By 2026, Gartner predicts that organizations prioritizing their security investments based on a CTEM program will realize a two-thirds reduction in breaches.
Machine customers (also called “custobots”) are nonhuman economic actors that can autonomously negotiate and purchase goods and services in exchange for payment. By 2028, 15 billion connected products will exist with the potential to behave as customers, with billions more to follow in the coming years. This growth trend will be the source of trillions of dollars in revenues by 2030 and eventually become more significant than the arrival of digital commerce. Strategic considerations should include opportunities to either facilitate these algorithms and devices, or even create new custobots.
Sustainable technology is a framework of digital solutions used to enable environmental, social and governance (ESG) outcomes that support long-term ecological balance and human rights. The use of technologies such as AI, cryptocurrency, the Internet of Things and cloud computing is driving concern about the related energy consumption and environmental impacts. This makes it more critical to ensure that the use of IT becomes more efficient, circular and sustainable. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2027, 25% of CIOs will see their personal compensation linked to their sustainable technology impact.
Platform engineering is the discipline of building and operating self-service internal development platforms. Each platform is a layer, created and maintained by a dedicated product team, designed to support the needs of its users by interfacing with tools and processes. The goal of platform engineering is to optimize productivity, the user experience and accelerate delivery of business value.
Gartner predicts that by 2027, more than 70% of enterprises will use industry cloud platforms (ICPs) to accelerate their business initiatives, up from less than 15% in 2023. ICPs address industry-relevant business outcomes by combining underlying SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services into a whole product offering with composable capabilities. These typically include an industry data fabric, a library of packaged business capabilities, composition tools and other platform innovations. ICPs are tailored cloud proposals specific to an industry and can further be tailored to an organization’s needs.
Gartner predicts that by 2027, more than 70% of enterprises will use industry cloud platforms (ICPs) to accelerate their business initiatives, up from less than 15% in 2023. ICPs address industry-relevant business outcomes by combining underlying SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services into a whole product offering with composable capabilities. These typically include an industry data fabric, a library of packaged business capabilities, composition tools and other platform innovations. ICPs are tailored cloud proposals specific to an industry and can further be tailored to an organization’s needs.
Pictured above: Chris Howard, Gartner’s chief of research, onstage at Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, presenting the top 10 technology trends.
At its IT Symposium/Xpo this week in Orlando, Florida, Gartner announced its list of 10 top strategic technology trends that organizations need to explore in 2024. These trends will drive significant disruption and opportunity for CIOs and other IT leaders within the next 36 months, according to Gartner.
Gartner’s Bart Willemsen
“Technology disruptions and socioeconomic uncertainties require willingness to act boldly and strategically enhance resilience over ad hoc responses,” said Bart Willemsen, VP analyst at Gartner. “IT leaders are in a unique position to strategically lay down a road map where technology investments help their business’s sustenance of success amidst these uncertainties and pressures.”
Gartner’s Chris Howard
“They and other executives must evaluate the impacts and benefits of strategic technology trends, but this is no small task given the increasing rate of technological innovation,” said Gartner’s Chris Howard. “For example, generative and other types of AI offer new opportunities and drive several trends. But deriving business value from the durable use of AI requires a disciplined approach to widespread adoption along with attention to the risks.”
Worldwide IT Spending Will Grow
Gartner forecasts that worldwide IT spending will grow 8% in 2024. That figure includes investment in artificial intelligence (AI), although Gartner says that the impact of spending on generative AI (GenAI) will not be felt until 2025.
Gartner’s John-David Lovelock
“In 2023 and 2024, very little IT spending will be tied to GenAI,” said John-David Lovelock, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner. “However, organizations are continuing to invest in AI and automation to increase operational efficiency and bridge IT talent gaps. The hype around GenAI is supporting this trend, as CIOs recognize that today’s AI projects will be instrumental in developing an AI strategy and story before GenAI becomes part of their IT budgets starting in 2025.”
Gartner says the largest growth in spending will come in software (13.8%) and IT services (10.4%), followed by data center systems (9.5%), devices (4.8%) and communications services (3.3%).
Cybersecurity spending is driving growth in the software segment. In the 2024 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey, 80% of CIOs reported that they plan to increase spending on cyber/information security in 2024, the top technology category for increased investment.
“AI has created a new security scare for organizations,” said Lovelock. “Gartner is projecting double-digit growth across all segments of enterprise security spending for 2024.”
Several of the top 10 technology trends involve AI, along with security, sustainability, platform engineering and more. The trends are examined in detail in the Gartner Special Report “Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2024.”
The gallery above provides a brief overview of Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends for 2023.
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