Technology Trends and Observations for 2024

• AI and machine learning will continue to transform various industries and domains, such as healthcare, education, manufacturing, entertainment, and more . AI will also enable new forms of creativity, collaboration, and innovation . However, AI will also pose challenges and risks, such as ethical, social, and security issues . Therefore, AI governance, regulation, and education will be crucial to ensure its responsible and beneficial use .
• Cloud computing will become more ubiquitous, scalable, and accessible, as more data and applications migrate to the cloud . Cloud will also enable new capabilities, such as edge computing, serverless computing, and hybrid cloud . Cloud will also facilitate the adoption of other technologies, such as AI, IoT, blockchain, and 5G .
• Internet of Things (IoT) will connect more devices, sensors, and systems, generating massive amounts of data and insights . IoT will also enable new applications and services, such as smart cities, smart homes, smart factories, and smart healthcare . IoT will also require new standards, protocols, and security measures to ensure interoperability, reliability, and safety .
• Cybersecurity will become more important and challenging, as more data and systems are exposed to cyber threats and attacks . Cybersecurity will also require new tools, techniques, and skills, such as AI, blockchain, quantum cryptography, and ethical hacking . Cybersecurity will also involve new stakeholders, such as governments, regulators, and consumers .
• Digital transformation will accelerate and expand, as more organizations and individuals adopt digital technologies and practices to enhance their performance, efficiency, and competitiveness . Digital transformation will also involve new strategies, models, and cultures, such as agile, lean, and customer-centric . Digital transformation will also create new opportunities and challenges, such as innovation, disruption, and inclusion .

Generative AI will transform content experiences, and disrupt commodity content

• Generative AI will become more accessible, scalable, and customizable for enterprises and individuals, as more pretrained models, cloud services, and open-source software become available . Generative AI will also enable new applications and services across various domains, such as healthcare, education, entertainment, and more .
• Generative AI will also pose new challenges and risks, such as ethical, social, and security issues, as well as the potential for misuse and abuse . Therefore, generative AI will require more governance, regulation, and education to ensure its responsible and beneficial use .
• Generative AI will also become more diverse, multimodal, and interactive, as it can combine different types of data and media, such as text, voice, and video, and respond to user feedback and queries . Generative AI will also leverage new techniques, such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which can connect data sources to generative models for more accurate and informed outputs .

Millennials and GenZ influence will rise in 2024 in B2B tech decision-making

This is a very interesting tech trend. Based on the web search results from my internal tools, it seems that Millennials and Gen Z are the new wave of B2B buyers, who have different preferences, behaviors, and expectations than older generations. According to a 2019 TrustRadius study, Millennials are the largest B2B tech buyer group, making up 59% of B2B buyers, and 30% of them are lead buyers for their B2B brand. Moreover, Gen Z is now entering the B2B workforce, and a recent Inc. article revealed that those born between 1997 and 2015 now make up around 25% of workers today.

Some of the implications of this trend are:

• B2B marketers and sellers need to adapt their strategies and tactics to appeal to these younger buyers, who are more online savvy, socially conscious, and collaborative than previous generations.
• B2B buyers will rely more on online sources, such as search engines, user reviews, and social media, to discover, research, and evaluate products, rather than traditional channels, such as vendor reps, analyst reports, and trade shows.
• B2B buyers will demand more transparency, flexibility, and personalization from vendors, as well as more customer support, clear and flexible pricing, and access to free trials.

SEO as marketers to embrace the Change,  “How do you use prompt injection to optimize zero-click SEO performance?

Zero-click SEO refers to the phenomenon of search queries that do not result in any clicks to the web pages in the search results. This happens when the search engine provides the answer directly on the search engine results page (SERP), such as through featured snippets, knowledge panels, or instant answers. Zero-click SEO poses a challenge for marketers who want to drive organic traffic to their websites.

Prompt injection is a novel technique of injecting the prompt into the parameters of a language model (LM) to be an efficient alternative to attaching fixed prompts to the input. A prompt is a piece of text that guides the LM to generate a desired output. Prompt injection can reduce the computational cost and improve the performance of LMs for various tasks, such as natural language understanding, natural language generation, and information retrieval.

To use prompt injection to optimize zero-click SEO performance, one possible approach is to use a generative LM to create informative and concise summaries of web pages that can be displayed as featured snippets on the SERP. By injecting the prompt into the parameters of the LM, the model can learn to generate summaries that are tailored to the specific search query and the domain of the web page. This way, the web page can increase its chances of being selected as the featured snippet by the search engine, and also attract more clicks from the users who want to learn more.

Gen AI is a term that refers to the use of generative AI to power search engines. Generative AI is a branch of artificial intelligence that can create new content or data from scratch, such as text, images, audio, or video. Gen AI can enable search engines to provide more information and context to the users, and to answer more complex and diverse types of questions. Gen AI can also transform the way information is organized and presented on the SERP, to help users sort through and make sense of what’s out there.

Gen AI won’t be like Google Search, because it will offer a different way of searching with generative AI. For example, Google has launched Search Generative Experience (SGE), an experimental version of Search that integrates AI answers directly into the results^.. With SGE, users can get AI-powered overviews of topics, ask follow-up questions in a conversational mode, and access a range of perspectives and web content. SGE is built on Google’s Shopping Graph, which has more than 35 billion product listings, to help users shop with generative AI. SGE is currently only available in the US (English) and can be accessed through Search Labs.

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Building relationships with clients and customer loyalty is more prevalent than ever. Customer Service teams will be expected to be more consultative, bring more expertise to the table and present data in more imaginative ways, all more consistently. GenAI will help scale customer service teams in exactly this way; repetitive tasks will be automated, making room for personalization at scale.

Conversions: Hyper-personalization and Robotic Process Automation

• Robotic Process Automation, a software technology that uses automation tools to perform repetitive, manual, and rule-based tasks that humans usually do. RPA can help businesses reduce costs, errors, and time, while improving productivity, efficiency, and quality. RPA can also free up human resources for more creative and strategic work. RPA is expected to grow rapidly in the next few years, as more organizations adopt it to cope with the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation. RPA can also integrate with other technologies, such as AI and ML, to create more intelligent and adaptive automation solutions. RPA might be a “silent winner” because it can provide significant value and competitive advantage for businesses, without being very visible or disruptive to the end-users or customers.
• Hyper-personalization is a marketing strategy that uses data and technology to deliver highly customized and relevant experiences to each individual customer. Hyper-personalization can help businesses increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and conversion, by providing them with products, services, offers, and content that match their preferences, needs, and behaviors. Hyper-personalization can also help businesses differentiate themselves from their competitors, by creating a unique and memorable customer journey. Hyper-personalization might be the “new norm” because customers are becoming more demanding and expectant of personalized and seamless experiences across different channels and platforms. Hyper-personalization can also leverage technologies such as AI and ML, to analyze large amounts of data and generate real-time and predictive insights and recommendations.
• These to will explore new frontiers and winners will be those who rethink their strategy in 2024.

Partner Marketing, Corporate Marketing, Engagement tracking

Partner marketing and corporate marketing are two different but complementary approaches to promoting a brand, product, or service. Partner marketing involves collaborating with other businesses or individuals that share a common goal or audience, such as affiliates, influencers, loyalty programs, cross-promotions, joint product developments, and more. Corporate marketing focuses on building and maintaining the overall brand identity, reputation, and awareness, through strategies such as advertising, public relations, social media, content marketing, and more.

Both partner marketing and corporate marketing have their own benefits and challenges, and they can work together to create a holistic and effective marketing strategy. In 2024, partner marketing might become more popular and competitive, as more businesses seek to leverage the power and reach of other brands and influencers, especially in the digital and social media space. Corporate marketing might also evolve and adapt to the changing needs and preferences of customers, who expect more personalized, authentic, and engaging experiences from brands.

One of the key challenges for both partner marketing and corporate marketing is how to measure their impact and return on investment (ROI). Traditionally, marketing metrics such as impressions, clicks, conversions, and sales have been used to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of marketing campaigns. However, these metrics do not capture the full picture of how customers interact with and perceive a brand, product, or service. They also do not account for the long-term value and loyalty of customers, which can be influenced by factors such as trust, satisfaction, and advocacy.

Therefore, in 2024, accurate engagement tracking might become the new key performance indicator (KPI) for both partner marketing and corporate marketing. Engagement refers to the degree of involvement, interaction, and attention that customers have with a brand, product, or service, across different channels and platforms. Engagement metrics can include things such as time spent, page views, comments, likes, shares, ratings, reviews, feedback, referrals, and more.

Engagement tracking can help marketers to understand how customers relate to and value a brand, product, or service, beyond the initial purchase or transaction. Engagement tracking can also help marketers to optimize and improve their marketing strategies, by identifying what works and what doesn’t, and by testing and experimenting with different approaches and tactics. Engagement tracking can also help marketers to build and maintain long-term relationships with customers, by providing them with relevant, useful, and enjoyable content and experiences.

Cybersecurity and CISO Corporate role

According to industry experts, 2024 will be a challenging year for CISOs (chief information security officers), who are the executives responsible for an organization’s information and data security. Some of the reasons for this are:

• Legal concerns, compliance requirements, board-level scrutiny, and continual job stress
• The spread of IoT devices, AI attacks and defenses, and ransomware threats
• The need for transformational leadership, proactive security strategy, and effective risk management

If you want to learn more about the CISO role and its evolution, you can check out these links:

• Why 2024 will be the year of the CISO
• Bracing For 2024: CISOs Most Challenging Year Yet
• Expert Cybersecurity Predictions for 2024: What Does the Next Year Hold?
• 2021: The Year Of The Transformational CISO
• How the CISO role is evolving

Economy: Prevailing Inflation and its impact on tech industry

The prevailing world inflation is a result of various factors, such as supply chain disruptions, rising commodity prices, fiscal stimulus, and pent-up demand. It has different impacts on technology growth depending on the sector, region, and policy response.

According to the Gartner report, worldwide IT spending is projected to grow 8% in 2024, supported by investment in AI and automation. However, cloud price increases and cybersecurity spending are also driving up the costs of software and IT services. The report also warns that generative AI (GenAI) will not have a material impact on IT spending until 2025.

According to the IMF report, global growth will slow from 3.5% in 2022 to 3.0% in 2023 and 2.9% in 2024, well below the historical average of 3.8%. Advanced economies are expected to see an especially pronounced growth slowdown, from 2.6% in 2022 to 1.5% in 2023 and 1.4% in 2024, as policy tightening starts to bite. The report also highlights the risks of further financial sector stress, geopolitical tensions, and climate change.

According to the OECD report, international growth will slow to 2.7% in 2024 from an expected 2.9% pace this year. That would amount to the slowest calendar-year growth since the pandemic year of 2020. The report also cites the challenges of inflation, high interest rates, supply bottlenecks, and uneven vaccination rates.

In summary, the prevailing world inflation is likely to have a negative impact on technology growth in 2024, as it will reduce consumer and business confidence, increase production and operational costs, and constrain monetary and fiscal policy space. However, some sectors and regions may benefit from innovation, adaptation, and resilience.

Regional Technology Observations for 2024

The tech industry growth trends in 2024 vary by region, depending on the level of innovation, investment, and adoption of emerging technologies. Based on the web search results, here are some possible trends for each region:

• APAC: The Asia-Pacific region is expected to lead the global tech industry growth, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.3% from 2020 to 2024. The region is driven by the rapid development and adoption of technologies such as AI, cloud, 5G, IoT, and blockchain, especially in China, India, Japan, and South Korea. The region also benefits from the increasing demand for digital transformation, e-commerce, fintech, and smart city solutions.
• USNA: The United States and North America region is expected to grow at a moderate pace, with a projected CAGR of 6.4% from 2020 to 2024. The region is dominated by the US, which accounts for more than 80% of the regional tech industry revenue. The region is influenced by the trends of AI, cloud, cybersecurity, automation, and edge computing, as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the geopolitical tensions with China.
• EU: The European Union region is expected to grow at a slow pace, with a projected CAGR of 4.7% from 2020 to 2024. The region is challenged by the fragmentation of the digital single market, the lack of a common data strategy, the regulatory barriers, and the Brexit uncertainty. The region is focusing on the trends of green tech, digital sovereignty, data privacy, and digital skills, as well as the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
• GCC: The Gulf Cooperation Council region is expected to grow at a fast pace, with a projected CAGR of 8.7% from 2020 to 2024. The region is driven by the diversification of the oil-dependent economies, the investment in digital infrastructure, the adoption of cloud and AI solutions, and the promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship¹ . The region is also influenced by the trends of smart cities, e-government, digital health, and fintech.
• MENA: The Middle East and North Africa region is expected to grow at a moderate pace, with a projected CAGR of 6.7% from 2020 to 2024. The region is driven by the demand for digital transformation, e-commerce, social media, and online education, as well as the development of 5G, IoT, and cloud technologies. The region is also affected by the political instability, the security threats, and the social and economic challenges.

Pakistan, Opportunities in 2024, Technology Observations

• Pakistan’s tech startups and IT services sector are expected to witness unprecedented growth during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, with a target of earning over $3 billion from this sector by 2024.
• Pakistan’s tech ecosystem is driven by the demand for digital transformation, e-commerce, fintech, social media, online education, and smart city solutions, as well as the development and adoption of technologies such as AI, cloud, 5G, IoT, and blockchain.
• Pakistan’s tech sector is also influenced by the challenges and opportunities of the global and domestic macro environment, such as the tightening of monetary and fiscal policies, the geopolitical tensions with China and the US, the political instability and security threats, and the diversification of the oil-dependent economies.
• Pakistan’s tech sector is also fostering a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, with the support of the government, the private sector, the academia, and the international community, to create solutions that address the social and economic needs of the country and the region.