We’ve collected industry expert predictions on tech trends that will shape 2024.
As we enter 2024, it’s hard not to reflect on the evolution of technology over the past year. From AI to cybersecurity, through to emerging sectors in the startup space, it has certainly been an eventful year.
We asked a panel of industry experts to give their predictions on what trends they think will shape this next year…
Our Experts
- Kelsey McGuire, Chief Growth Officer at Shardeum
- Beau Wysong, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Opus 2
- Sara Simeone CEO & Co-Founder at Niftyz.io
- Philip Letts, Chair at LettsGroup
- Susie Lee, Global GTM Client Innovation Officer at Degreed
- Peter Fealey, Founder at A2D2
- Lee Thatcher, Head of Cloud at CloudCoCo
- David Ruiz, Senior Privacy Advocate at Malwarebytes
- Fabio Galdi, Co-Founder and CEO at Vyvo Smart Chain (VSC)
- Jay Richards, Co-Founder at Imagen Insights
- Tim Benjamin, Ex-Olympian, Founder and Chief Product Officer of Audio-First Fitness App WithU
- Luke Trayfoot, Chief Revenue Officer at Mangopay
- Ben Wood, Chief Analyst at CCS Insight
- Harry Hanson-Smith Regional Vice President at Dynamic Yield by Mastercard
- Richard Osborne, CTO at Purple Transform
- David Morton, Chief Revenue and Customer Officer at HGS UK
- Darren Anstee, Chief Technology Officer For Security at NETSCOUT
- Omer Abdullah, Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Smart Cube
- Diane Gilpin, Founder and CEO at Smart Green Shipping
- Kunal Purohit, Chief Digital Services Officer at Tech Mahindra
- Amanda Christensen, Strategist at Cubaka
Kelsey McGuire, Chief Growth Officer at Shardeum
“2024 will see massive growth in Web3 gaming. This sector of the industry is already valued at about $4.6 billion and is projected to reach $65.7 billion by 2027. Despite a down market, VCs continue to pour money into the Web3 gaming vertical, with $600M invested in Q3 2023. The reason for the meteoric growth is multifold, but it really comes down to Web3 games becoming much more fun to play with the added bonus of enabling players to own in-game assets like skins, weapons, and characters.
“Web3 games initially gained global attention with the play-to-earn model with games like Axie Infinity, which essentially involved players pitting their NFT-characters in battles against each other for rewards. The game caught fire around the globe, garnering 2.7 million daily active players at its peak. The problem was that the game appealed little to traditional gamers who are accustomed to more sleek game experiences and complicated lore. The Web3 gaming user experience is catching up now that the focus of Web3 games has shifted away from playing to earn rewards and instead boasts great user experience supported by engaging narratives. This shift will take hold in 2024, and we will see an explosion of new Web3 games that begin to take some market share from the traditional gaming vertical.”
Beau Wysong, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Opus 2
“Sustainability will continue to be a priority in tech, as companies seek to substantiate their ESG promises and meet demands for increased climate action from shareholders and customers. In practical terms, this could mean more virtual meetings and conferences rather than business flights between offices, efforts to further digitise processes that still use paper documents, and CTOs scrutinising their existing policies far more carefully to see where technology can both improve profitability and ESG credentials.
“Cyber security, especially data breaches, have repeatedly made headlines in 2023: we expect this to continue in 2024. This problem will be exacerbated by the ever-growing cyber security skills shortage, meaning companies’ security concerns will struggle to be addressed. One likely result that may emerge from this is companies implementing more consistent, exhaustive security due diligence for their technology vendors, seeking partnerships with organisations that have a proven history of prioritising best-of-breed security as well as a customer-focused approach that proactively delivers protection beyond standard security certifications.
“Finally, as AI continues to become more present in business, and governments lead national and international efforts to regulate it, businesses must be agile, to both leverage the opportunities it offers, and quickly comply with likely new regulations. Technology companies that hastily added emerging AI as a flashy feature without thoughtful customisation to suit customer needs will need to reassess their approach to build long-term adoption and an underlying architecture that can adapt as needed to the rapidly shifting regulatory landscape.”
Sara Simeone CEO & Co-Founder at Niftyz.io
“2024 is poised to be a year of consolidation for blockchain and Web3. After a period of rapid innovation and experimentation, we will see more real-world use cases emerge, as well as a shift from blockchain-based products to Web3-embedded processes.
“One of the most exciting trends in blockchain is the tokenization of assets, both physical and digital. This has the potential to revolutionize a wide range of industries, from finance to real estate to art.
“For example, tokenized real estate could make it easier and more affordable for people to invest in property. Or tokenized securities could make it easier for companies to raise capital and for investors to access new investment opportunities.
“Another trend to watch in 2024 is the increasing integration of Web3 into existing processes and systems. Rather than being seen as a separate product or service, Web3 will start to become embedded in the background of many of the things we do every day.
“We will see Web3 used to manage supply chains, support legal proceedings, or transform the way we issue education certificates. We may also see Web3 used to create new forms of decentralized governance and social organization.
“Overall, 2024 is likely to be a year of significant progress for blockchain and Web3. As the technology continues to mature and become more widely adopted, we can expect to see a wide range of new and innovative use cases emerge.”
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Philip Letts, Chair at LettsGroup
“‘The world is becoming ever more reliant on technology to solve its most pressing challenges. In 2024 we will see British tech innovation propelled forward at a rate not seen since the Dot Com boom.
“Government policy and investment will work more closely with the tech sector to help British entrepreneurs deliver initiatives to solve society’s urgent dilemmas. For instance, we will start to see what a week of discussion at the AI Safety Summit really means for the tech sector as policies and initiatives start to become a reality. Technology innovation will begin to offer the answers to issues like how to crack the problem of scalable content verification to tackle disinformation and fake news.
“I also believe that 2024 will be the year that real innovation is unleashed in green-tech. I’m not just talking about wind turbines and electric vehicles, I’m referring to a surge in digital platforms to tackle biodiversity and climate change.
“Underpinning this is a need for a change in attitude to investing early and for the long-term in innovative businesses, as is done in the US, that can stay part of UK Plc and our reinvigorate our innovation legacy.”
Susie Lee, Global GTM Client Innovation Officer at Degreed
“2024 will see the personal skills profile become core to the overall employee experience. Populated with key information on someone’s existing skills, past experiences, current learning, interests and career goals, it will be a single place for employees and organizations to know what skills they currently have and what they need, helping individuals make more informed career decisions and their employers to effectively plan for their business strategies and transformations.
“Focusing on someone’s skills profile will enable employers to finally understand exactly what motivates their employees, and how to best cater to their aspirations and learning styles. It will vastly benefit employees with greater, more equitable access to opportunities as decisions will be made based on someone’s skills and not connections to the right people, biased ‘gut’ feelings, or other excluding processes.
“The skills profile will become commonplace in learning systems, HR systems, talent marketplaces and more — and it will move with each individual from role to role, project to project, organization to organization. Giving a more detailed view of someone’s capabilities and potential compared to the simple overview of a resume.”
Peter Fealey, Founder at A2D2
“In 2024, I see some of the challenges artists are facing around streaming revenue coming to a head. With the biggest players in the market making billions in revenue, and smaller independent artists being largely left in the cold there’s space for a direct-to-artist platform to enter the market if Bandcamp can’t retain their goodwill amongst the controversy around their recent divestment by Epic; or stand out as a real challenger to the bigger streaming services.
“AI will continue to dominate the discourse, and artists will be very clear on their stances around their work being seen as ‘ripped off’ by the multitude of new players in the AI space.
“The rise of Vinyl continues unabashed, and as Gen Z and Gen A discover physical media to seek delight and a change from the overwhelm of endless content in 10 second bites I see that trend continuing.
“NFT-based content feels like it’s taken a back seat in 2023, but initiatives such as Centree could enter popularity as innovators seek to make the non-fungible a little more tangible, and find some purpose in a market traditionally seen as dominated with vanity projects.”
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Lee Thatcher, Head of Cloud at CloudCoCo
“In 2024, the cloud computing industry will continue to focus on security and modernisation. Many organisations have moved their infrastructure to hyperscale cloud providers but have yet to fully embrace Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings. Addressing this educational gap and emphasising the value of multiple vendor offerings will be critical. These trends build upon the need for secure and modernised cloud environments, aligning with the changes observed over the past year.
“The surge in AI adoption has so far had a limited impact on the cloud computing market. However, it is expected to have a more noticeable influence once the offerings from major hyperscale cloud providers become more widely available and commercialised. As these providers continue to invest in AI capabilities, businesses will increasingly leverage cloud platforms for AI-related workloads, driving the growth of cloud-based AI applications and services.
“Therefore, it’ll continue to be about AI for the foreseeable future. The widespread adoption of AI applications and services will continue to gain momentum, enhancing the capabilities of cloud platforms. While it may not see massive uptake until major hyperscale cloud providers fully commercialise their AI offerings, AI’s significance in the cloud computing landscape will continue to grow, driving innovation and transformation across various industries.”
David Ruiz, Senior Privacy Advocate at Malwarebytes
“As the UK moves forward with its Online Safety Bill—it’s gone through three readings in the House of Lords and I believe the government is trying to pass it this year—we may actually see major secure messengers leave the country. WhatsApp and Signal have already said as much, their opposition being that the current requirements laid out in the bill to catch child sexual abuse material would require tech companies to scan images and content of users, but end-to-end encryption is built specifically so that companies—or any unintended third party—cannot scan or read images and content.
“And while that is happening in the UK, there are efforts in the US to introduce Age Verification tech to many swaths of the internet to stop children from accessing porn. In fact, it’s already happened in Utah, which led the site PornHub to shut down for anyone visiting from an IP address originating in Utah. The site did the same in Mississippi and Virginia earlier this year. We’re at risk of creating different internets for different people. That’s somewhat been true for decades, but typically there’s alignment between the US, the UK, and Australia. That’s now changing, even for people within the US, who just live across state lines.”
Fabio Galdi, Co-Founder and CEO at Vyvo Smart Chain (VSC)
“We are on the cusp of a profound change in how we expect our data to be treated. For decades, the internet has been powered by ad dollars from companies that in turn rely on user information for targeting. And now our devices—our phones and watches and cars—operate the same way except they have access to even more personal information about us, such as our health, wellness, and lifestyle choices. The advent of blockchain technology makes it possible to think about our personal data differently—to truly see it as belonging to us.
“In 2024, we should see more user control over personal data, made possible by blockchain technology and tokenization. This means that the health data collected automatically by your phone, which is being sold to pharmaceutical companies, insurance providers, and other third parties without your permission, can instead be encrypted and monetized, so that YOU are the one who benefits from YOUR data. There are many potential use cases for this type of application of blockchain tech, and we will see these come to the forefront of consumer technology in 2024.”
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Jay Richards, Co-Founder at Imagen Insights
“It goes without saying the adoption of AI amongst those aged 28 and younger, Gen Z and Alpha, will be extensive, they are digital natives and already very accepting of change, developments in technology and software updates.
“What stands out to me however for the future of tech and predictions for 2024, is that brands will fall behind because they are already playing catch up. Gen Z and Alpha are adopting technology at a much faster rate than previous generations and it’s already becoming ingrained in archaic institutions such as our education system. Using education evolutions as a barometer of change this proves young people will drive the advancement of AI as we know it.
“Brands are starting now to talk about the metaverse and AI technology at conferences and such but it’s always how we plan to, not what we are currently doing, and let’s be honest Gen Z have already moved on from that stage – adopting it at pace. Ironically for brand retail and FMCG industries to keep up, they are going to need to seek inspiration from the older institutions that they were once very much ahead of. “
Tim Benjamin, Ex-Olympian, Founder and Chief Product Officer of Audio-First Fitness App WithU
“In 2024, I predict that we’re set to see real advancements in AI-driven personalisation in the fitness tech space.
“This year, we’ve already seen impressive developments in AI-generated computer vision products, with more accurate BMI, body composition and form tracking via mobile devices. However, as AI technology advances rapidly, next year I predict that we’ll see the introduction of AI-driven personalisation within fitness tech.
“Thanks to widespread usage of wearable technology, more than ever, consumers are tracking their health and fitness metrics and are looking for guidance on how to optimise their lifestyles to improve their health and wellbeing.
“The role of fitness technology is to equip people with the knowledge that allows them to lead a healthier life, no matter what that looks like from person to person. There’s no one size fits all approach, therefore fitness technology needs to evolve and push the boundaries when it comes to offering users a more personalised experience.
With rapid advances in AI, next year, I predict that we’ll see leading fitness tech brands harnessing the power of AI to provide their users with far more personalised, data-informed, and effective recommendations than we’ve ever seen before.”
Luke Trayfoot, Chief Revenue Officer at Mangopay
“With developments in AI dominating many industries this year, I don’t expect its trajectory to slow in 2024. Next year promises significant strides for its integration, particularly within the fintech landscape. We’ll witness a remarkable surge in AI adoption, not only for expediting financial operations, optimising onboarding processes and enhancing payment acceptance, but for driving efficiencies across the board.
“Fintechs are poised to leverage AI to supercharge their productivity, enabling them to deliver innovative solutions at an accelerated pace and conquer the operational challenges that have been impeding their growth and cost management.
“Linked to this will be the continued rise of social and contextual commerce. Picture the ability to purchase items seamlessly and instantly in the precise context where you discover them. It’s now a tangible reality, all thanks to the integration of cutting-edge payment technologies into the checkout ecosystem. This trend is ushering in an era where you can buy what you see with unparalleled convenience.”
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Ben Wood, Chief Analyst at CCS Insight
“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is arguably the hottest topic in tech right now and although we believe it will have a significant impact on the global economy, productivity and society at large, we predict that generative AI will have a cold shower in 2024. The hype of 2023 has ignored several obstacles that will slow progress in the short term. Intense computing requirements mean the cost of deployment is a prohibitive factor for many organizations and developers. Furthermore, the social and commercial risks of deploying generative AI in certain scenarios will result in a period of evaluation before roll-out. Unfortunately, these hurdles will be exacerbated by ongoing uncertainty about future regulation.
“Turning to the mobile industry, a hot topic will be second-hand mobile phones. By the start of 2024, we predict more than half of iPhones in use are second-hand devices and that Apple will move to take greater control of the second-hand market for iPhones as they start eating into the sales of new iPhones.
“For devices, we expect the introduction of self-healing displays on smartphones by 2028, and by 2030 you’ll see the first smartphones with biodegradable batteries as the environmental efforts in consumer electronics continue to gather momentum.
“For networks, by 2025, we believe a connectivity performance rating will be mandated as part of the sale of any property in a major European market and that by 2029, all new cellular connections in at least one leading telecom market will be made through e-SIM.”
Harry Hanson-Smith, Regional Vice President at Dynamic Yield by Mastercard
“Recent advancements in generative AI are enabling a whole new interactive commerce experience which we’ll see more brands taking advantage of in 2024. Consider the scenario of a shopper looking to close a gap in their wardrobe – they may not know the exact items they’re after, which is why being presented with a huge range of products on a website can be so overwhelming. Now this be transformed through conversational product discovery. This involves natural language processing, along with affinity profiling and recommendation models to create a personal shopping assistant that finds the most relevant results in real-time based on direct user input like “show me casual chic wedding outfits.”
“We’re also seeing the personalisation field shift its priority to deliver experiences that don’t merely capture conversions, but anticipate and respond to actual wants and needs, achieving empathy. In 2024, brands will look to gain an earthly understanding of the situations, perceptions and expectations that shape their consumer’s everyday life to create an empathy-driven experience – one not measured by cost or speed, but loyalty.
Affinity profiling recently emerged to turn historical and real-time digital user engagement data into actionable targeting conditions, enabling the delivery of relevant experiences based on visitors’ preferences to brands and other attributes from the product catalogue. Deep learning models have also become popular, able to predict the next best products to recommend an individual using self-training capabilities that analyse significantly larger volumes of data. Next year, we’ll see the two technologies combine to bring a greater understanding of user nuance and predictive prowess to affinity profiling and experience creation.
“In 2024, the era of one-size-fits-all algorithms will begin to disappear. More control will sit with the marketer, allowing them to tinker with the algorithmic framework of a recommendation strategy. This will enable them to promote products with high margins and low return rates to retain profitability while recommending top performers to customers during important sales events, for example.”
Richard Osborne, CTO at Purple Transform
“Since ChatGPT was released in November 2022, there has been an explosion of new AI applications and use cases. A year on, there is increasing focus on AI for positive societal impact. At the same time, there are also increasing concerns about trust and ethics.
“In 2024, we will see an influx of AI initiatives to improve human outcomes. AI is a hugely powerful tool, holding endless potential to be harnessed for progress. However, it is imperative that we use AI ethically, keeping a human in the chain for critical decisions.
“Project SAIVE is a fantastic example, reducing suicides on the railway by ethically combining AI and human intelligence. Purple Transform’s SiYtE platform interprets live camera footage, combining this with behavioural analysis, to identify people at risk in real time. But a human always makes the final decision, with alerts to British Transport Police including not just the event but video evidence.
“AI’s potential is expanding daily, especially with the ever-increasing capability of machine vision and generative AI. 2024 will be the year for Ethical AI to make a real difference to our society.”
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David Morton, Chief Revenue and Customer Officer at HGS UK
“As is the case with many industries, AI is also set to have a significant impact on the B2B tech market in 2024. Firstly, every organisation in the industry will need to implement an AI strategy. This will necessitate every CIO and CTO asking themselves what AI means to their business and how best they can capitalise on it.
“Secondly, most vendors in the market will have one of two things: their own AI tool, or a partnership with a software provider who can implement an aspect of AI which supports the vendors offering.
“Before implementing an AI solution, tech businesses must take a step back and engage with experts who understand the current technology environment and how best to use AI to strengthen the B2B tech market. Subsequently, they’ll need to establish what this means for their organisation, ensuring they deploy AI in the most effective manner for their specific business.
“Overall, the expectation is for there to be a furore amongst B2B technology vendors regarding AI, with the majority of enterprises in the industry having an AI offering in one form or another. This includes tools like generative AI and large language models which deliver better business outcomes.”
Darren Anstee, Chief Technology Officer For Security at NETSCOUT
“Despite the ever-increasing focus on cyber risks, there are early warnings of slowdowns in cyber projects across the board in 2024. Both service providers and enterprises are seeing budget cuts due to a variety of factors, including higher interest payment on debt.
“From a service provider perspective, the more dynamic and less predictable nature of direct-path DDoS attacks, following more than a decade of reflection/amplification pre-eminence, has the potential to drive up operational overhead. Attackers are using AI and automation to try and achieve their goals – this must be countered by adapting defences to be more intelligent, accelerating response and reducing operational overhead.
“When budgets are tight, history reveals that organisations can look to consolidate purchasing of cybersecurity solutions with other technologies. Although integration and a skilled team are both crucial in defending organisations from today’s threats, poor visibility, a lack of threat intelligence and sub-optimal workflows can be a huge hindrance.
“Given continuing high energy costs and budget cuts in many organisations, there is an increased focus on tool and dataset consolidation. If organisations can derive visibility capable of fuelling multiple security use-cases, then they can reduce the complexity of their security stack and improve velocity within their threat management processes, all whilst reducing power, space – and cost.”
Omer Abdullah, Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Smart Cube
“Across the technology industry, there is likely to be an increased focus on providers helping their clients optimise not only the use of their tech but also bring their clients’ people along.
“In the past, businesses have predominantly hired individuals based on their ‘hard’ skills, which includes technical qualifications and capabilities – rarely prioritising recruiting people with expertise in relationship management and strong communication abilities. This is because soft skills were often seen as something people either had or could learn on the job. But in actual fact, they are more challenging to learn than technical skills.
“However, with the recent explosion of AI use, technology can now carry out many of those more technical tasks. As such, organisations must ensure their employees are able to provide value over and above AI’s capabilities so they can truly capitalise on its benefits.
“Tech buyers, therefore, must bear these developments in mind: not only buying tech that allows them to do more work efficiently and effectively, but also ensure they support their existing workforce by providing them with the necessary training to develop and enhance the needed soft skills that allow them to focus on value added outcomes.”
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Diane Gilpin, Founder and CEO at Smart Green Shipping
“The world will wake up (far too) slowly to the impacts of the climate emergency. I expect to see investment into innovation that addresses these enormous challenges we face as a global society.
“The urgent need for new climate infrastructure is evident, yet investments into this sector are still insufficient and inconsistent. Of course, there are logical reasons for this – big infrastructure projects are capital intensive, usually with long payback periods and a high degree of uncertainty. Short term political gains contribute in part to the woeful lack of consistent government commitment. But investors live on this planet too and they are beginning to feel the very painful economic shocks from a lack of climate action.
“In my world – shipping – a range of alternative fuels are being discussed and developed to power a zero emission world, but most are decades away from being available at scale, and all of them have an extremely high cost burden for ship operators. Solutions such as Smart Green Shipping’s wingsail technology can make an immediate impact, reducing emissions and cutting fuel costs and these benefits resonate deeply with the market. This in turn is piquing the appetites of investors for green innovations which I expect, and hope, to see continue throughout 2024.”
Kunal Purohit, Chief Digital Services Officer at Tech Mahindra
“In 2023, generative AI took centre stage as a mainstream trend. In 2024, we will realize its true potential and value. It will continue to be a game-changing agent for all business functions and industries. While B2B enterprises will use it to bring efficiency in their processes, products and performance, creative businesses will use it to unlock creativity at scale and contact centres will bring better business outcomes with enhanced customer experience.
“Sustainable technology will continue to be a powerful trend next year too, as different countries and organizations continue to work on their net-zero commitments, and individuals will progressively leverage technology to contribute towards a better environment. At Tech Mahindra, we have integrated sustainability into our core strategy. Our sustainability practices, initiatives, and investment in green technology solutions are helping us move towards a low-carbon economy, where we aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 and net zero by 2023.
“With the advancement of technology, cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated. Cyber resilience will also become a prominent trend in 2024. At Tech Mahindra, we believe in making effective security monitoring and threat detection mechanisms critically important. Besides, quantum computing will get more momentum across various computer-heavy fields, including drug discovery, cryptography, meteorology, material science, optimization of complex systems etc.
“Another important trend that we will continue to see in 2024 is the shrinking distinction between the real world and the virtual world. Technologies like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and the immersive internet are removing the blockades between the physical and the digital world, which means digital is becoming increasingly realistic. With the infusion of generative AI, we can witness this concept rising in the form of the digital twin – a virtual representation of a real-world object, system or process, across industries”.
Amanda Christensen, Strategist at Cubaka
“With the dissemination of a plethora of AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Midjourney and digital-twin technology, 2023 saw an initial surge of interest, coupled with rumours of job insecurity. This led some agencies to integrate, and some to ignore, AI as media attention started to wane.
“2024 will be the year in which we deal with the actual implications of AI. Those organisations which have already integrated these technologies will need governance in place to help a range of challenges, from data privacy to demand for specialist talent, and knock-on implications such as energy consumption, potential redundancies, and an expanding gap between junior and senior roles.
“As media buying platforms integrate more AI automation, too, we’ll see a shift in media buying to strategic oversight and intervention – ensuring the platforms aren’t left to their own devices and are still serving clients effectively. The challenge then becomes how juniors progress to this level – while the same goes for copywriters and designers with generative AI in mind.
“Meanwhile, companies that haven’t yet integrated AI into their processes risk business inefficiencies, dissonance when it comes client expectations and fees, and a widening gap in offering and expertise versus their competitors.”
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