It would be an understatement to imply that 2023 was a big year in mainstream tech. It will be forever remembered as the year when LLMs and other forms of generative AI made their disruptive entry onto the world stage.
It was also a year of many smaller, but no less pivotal, developments from the announcement of Apple’s upcoming entry into the VR space, to Twitter rebranding to X under Elon Musk’s increasingly unpredictable purview.
In light of this, you may suppose that 2024 will have a hard time topping all of that, but you should think again as coming as the 12 months looks set to continue the gathering pace of innovation we’ve been witnessing in a number of prominent sectors from AI to decentralized finance, automated driving and renewable energy.
But what are the key trends you need to get your head around if you’re hoping to track what looks set to be the most exciting year in the history of big tech? Let’s unpack this below.
The AI Revolution
If 2023 was the year of AI, 2024 will most likely simply be more of the same. This is because the pace of innovation in this sector is so rapid, and its implications so disruptive that AI is the single greatest battle ground for big tech in the 2020s so far.
Everyone, from Google to X, are actively building out their AI models, hoping against hope to catch up to OpenAI – and their majority investor Microsoft’s – impressive lead in the sector. We’ll also see AI filter down into just about every app and service one can imagine, offering to write your emails, recommend you products and beautify your photos.
Increasingly Decentralized Discoverability Features
Every single day an extra 328.77 million terabytes of data are produced, laying bare the realities of our nominal information age. To sift through this phenomenal amount of information we’ve witnessed the rise of algorithms and other smart filtering protocols over the past decade to the point at which now they seem almost inescapable. Whenever you’re browsing on Instagram, choosing a song on Spotify or shopping for cat litter on Amazon, you’re undoubtedly engaging with algorithms to get the job done. And while this comes with its own challenges, there’s no denying the fact that it makes the task of sifting through all your options easier.
In 2024 we can expect to see more decentralized and localized discoverability features crop up at all levels and across diverse industries, further streamlining our ability to make decisions and arrive at desired outcomes. For example, in the iGaming industry – the digital wing of the world’s casino and sports betting market – dedicated review and recommendation platforms have increasingly come to be the standard way browsing gamers figure out what the best online casinos in the UK and other regions are. This not only saves time, but also money – as such platforms have become the best place to shop for competitive welcome bonuses and sign-up offers for gaming providers.
The Dawn of the Metaverse?
Before the world was abuzz with LLMs, there was a similar pitch of excitement around the so-called Metaverse. This term, little more than a rebrand of the 90s concept of cyberspace, has taken a back seat of late following Meta’s botched launch of Horizon Worlds, and the slow pace of uptake for proprietary VR hardware.
Though it should be stated, VR and the metaverse are still coming – and with Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro headset set for an early 2024 launch, more and more developers and investors will once again be eager to build out the VR iteration of the internet to come.
Crypto’s Biggest Year Ever
Cryptocurrencies have had a bit of a rough time recently, with numerous scandals breaking implicating the two world’s largest crypto exchanges within a year of each other. And while these events undoubtedly set back the price of Bitcoin and its ilk, the sector has weathered this fallout and continued to enjoy steady growth over all.
There are several major factors holding crypto back from going full mainstream, from its questionable environmental credentials, to its price volatility. But all of these are quietly being worked out, and we are increasingly now beginning to see e-commerce platforms toy with the idea of offering popular coins as payment processing options. In 2024 we can expect to see this trend continue to accelerate, as the will and desire to make payments in crypto is clearly there on the consumer end.
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