Cloudbrink delivers High-Performance ZTNA – known as Hybrid Access-as-a-Service and like an ultra-secure personal SD-WAN.
In January 1984, the world was introduced to the Apple Macintosh during a Super Bowl commercial. Twenty years ago, in 2004, increasingly faster browsing speeds allowed users to take advantage of the so-called Web 2.0. Now, in 2024, anticipate a glimpse into the future as we explore the top three tech predictions. Brace yourself for the transformative impact of AI, the continued evolution of remote work, and the ongoing development of 6G, shaping the ever-evolving tech world.
Prediction #1: Further Artificial Intelligence (AI) Impacts
Despite chatbots going viral and 2023 being the first time the public gained access to powerful multimodal AI models, AI did not have as much impact on the wider world, especially on business, as initially anticipated. This year is likely to see a shift from individual and abstract AI use to broad and more direct implementation. AI is already maturing at leaps and bounds, and 2024 may be the year its use is scaled and applied more to real-world scenarios.
AI will have growing impacts on business and tech and will likely speed up the development of edge computing.
AI is already pushing the network bandwidth and performance, even putting strain on the mid- and last-mile of the network where traffic builds up. Demand for network capacity has been growing, and this trend will escalate further in the coming years.
However, AI is only one part of the equation. Video streaming providers are growing too, and the gaming industry is seeing massive growth as well. With the booming demands of data generation and processing, edge computing becomes critical. 2024 will likely see a shift toward edge computing, emphasizing data processing in proximity to where it is needed to minimize latency. This will be especially important for real-time processing applications, such as autonomous vehicle communication, for example.
Research is already being done on applications for these tech advancements. For instance, AI is already increasingly being applied in healthcare in providing diagnosis and treatment recommendations, patient engagement, and more. AI may be used in educational settings to compile data about grading, provide immediate student feedback, assist in lesson planning, and a variety of other avenues.
Prediction #2: Remote and Hybrid Work Will Transform IT
As of 2023, 12.7% of full-time U.S. employees worked from home, and 28.2% worked a hybrid model. This, of course, is a significantly lower number than in peak work-from-home months during the height of the pandemic. But, critically, most of those working from home now, full-time or otherwise, are doing so by choice. Data from Forbes shows that 98% of workers want to work remotely at least some of the time. Indeed, many are working from cafes or even abroad, not just from home—and this transformation of work culture will have significant effects on internet technology architecture, investment, and organization.
Hybrid working will transform IT architecture and investment. Hybrid working, is only becoming more mainstream, particularly as millennials and GenZs—the first fully digital generation—climb corporate ladders into more influential roles. This shift will have a significant effect on IT, moving many areas of investment from the office to the user. In 2024, anticipate spending on data centers and offices to plateau before lessening as network and security architecture shifts to the edge.
The transformation brought on by hybrid working will extend to the structure of service provision. Increasingly, enterprise services will transition from independent PoP-based architecture to cloud-native and edge-native solutions, resulting in a substantial reduction of end-user latencies. Services addressing last-mile challenges are likely to drive growth for telecommunication companies and managed service providers.
Remote work is likely to continue to become more common, and work-from-anywhere will change the way IT is organized. Although offices aren’t ready to become a thing of the past, the future of work is definitively hybrid. Work-from-anywhere is becoming the norm and may even become a requirement. Enterprise CXOs will no longer tolerate heightened security risks and diminished productivity from remote or mobile workers but will instead insist on improved productivity and fewer breaches across the entire workforce. Previously segregated services within IT—like networking, security, etc.—will merge or fade as businesses universally prioritize user experience.
Prediction #3: Continuing 6G Development Acceleration Means Immersive Media Advances
The latest wireless networking technology, 5G, is now available in many countries around the globe—but its full implementation has taken several years, and the journey continues. Still, global 5G wireless connections reached more than 1.05 billion in 2022 and are expected to reach nearly 6 billion by the end of 2027.
This continued push toward 5G deployment means 6G development will accelerate in 2024. 6G will bring even faster speeds, lower latency, and the power to better enable immersive media experiences like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) on a previously unheard-of scale.
Conclusion
As AI continues to mature and its implementation becomes more common, its influence on business, technology, and edge computing will escalate and it may have wide-reaching real-world applications. The increased desire for and normalization of hybrid and fully remote work will transform the IT landscape, especially investment and organization. Finally, 5G will continue to roll out and make space for 6G research and development, which in turn will make space for more immersive media. Tech is evolving at a staggering pace, but these 2024 predictions are a good place to start.