Navigating 2024 Tech Trends

2024 is set be an exciting year when it comes to the emerging technologies space. Having an understanding of the emerging tech trends this year will offer an advantage in successfully navigating this fast evolving digital landscape. As per Mckinsey, CEOs last year expected emerging and disruptive technologies to have the highest impact on their organizations, and I believe this trend will continue in 2024.

There will be lots happening, especially at the AI and Generative AI front. We can expect the evolution of AI agents to perform more complex tasks and handle multimedia, the growing role of cloud services in assisting enterprises with large language models, the introduction of generative AI powered shopping advisors in retail, the fusion of industrial digitalization with generative AI for enhanced efficiency and the list can go on. There will also be proliferation of deepfakes with advancements in multimodal models, concerns over GPU shortages due to increased AI demand, and focus on AI ethics and AI regulations.

Climate finance and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) initiatives have increasingly been in focus the past few years, both due to environmental concerns and governmental pressure as COP has been taking place in MENA these past 2 years (Egypt in 2022 and UAE in 2023). The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs report 2023 highlights that 80.6% of organizations surveyed state that ESG will have a significant impact within their organization within the next five years. Gartner goes on to predict that the performance metrics for 80% of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) by 2027 will be linked to the sustainability measures of their organizations. Coupled with the COP28 historic announcement of the UAE announcing a $30 billion investment in Climate finance, there will be major focus and increased acceleration on green finance in the fintech sector such as climate friendly policies, ESG measures, green bonds, carbon markets and for the Islamic finance economy, in exploring the potential of green sukuks. Frontier technologies such as blockchain, Web 3.0 and AI play an important role in climate finance innovation, such as carbon credits tokenization on blockchain, Regenerative Finance (ReFi) and newer models of innovation in climate finance will be actively explored.

In immersive tech, spatial computing will be taking centerstage, especially with the upcoming much awaited launch of Apple Vision Pro and VisionOS, the first spatial operating system in the XR market. Spatial computing will be poised for significant advancements, and we can expect improved hardware and wearables, dedicated software, evolving interaction options, AI integration, and applications in various fields like healthcare, remote work, and education.

Edge computing will also come into play, and along with 5g, enable more seamless and scalable spatial computing applications. These technologies provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity and move data processing closer to the source, improving the performance of VR/AR streaming, cloud gaming, and remote collaboration.

As we progress into 2024, we anticipate greater regulation in the emerging technologies sector. While virtual assets and blockchain will see a move towards clearer regulations, more focus will be on AI regulations, due to the many ethical and safety concerns enveloping AI. The European Union (EU) is already leading with the EU AI Act, while simultaneously working on the EU AI Liability Directive. USA is expected to double-down on AI regulations as well, especially as 2024 is an important year with the US presidential elections taking place. MENA region will also be actively looking to refine AI regulatory landscape and Africa is expected to release the African Union's AI Strategy this year.

Another reason for the emphasis on regulation is also due to AI’s exponential growth, as according to PwC’s “Global Artificial Intelligence Study”, just in the GCC region alone, Generative AI could have an economic impact of $23.5 billion per year by 2030 in the GCC area. Generative AI will continue to transform the fintech industry, in areas such as personalization of financial services, fraud prevention, risk management and customer services like chatbots. Regulators will also need to be ready for quantum computing, as more banks will seek to leverage the advantages of quantum computing in fintech, example for superfast processing of big data, risk management, fraud detection and financial services optimization. Edge computing, as mentioned earlier, will gain more focus in 2024, helping with real time data processing. There will be also a focus on coming up with clearer regulations for ESG and climate finance measures taken by banks and financial institutions. The tricky part will be coming up with regulations that ensure safety while also do not stifle innovation.

The global market potential for blockchain has been forecasted by Gartner to be US$96 billion by 2024, which includes$3.2 billion in the MENA region. The adoption of blockchain will continue in various applications of the financial industry, becoming more mainstream in 2024 as blockchain advantages ranging from transparency, security and automation via smart contracts are utilized in areas such as DeFi (decentralized finance), Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), cryptocurrences and stablecoins. Chainanalysis has already claimed the Middle East to be one of the fastest growing cryptocurrency markets in the world. There will be more incentives to use greener blockchains, due to the UAE’s and overall MENA region’s COP28 commitments, and blockchain will also be explored as a means to fight climate change such as via Regenerative finance, tokenization and carbon credit markets. As quantum computing becomes more powerful, focus will also be on research and security measures towards quantum resistant secure cryptography and blockchains.

As we embrace Industry 4.0 in a rapidly evolving world, the importance of education and upskilling cannot be understated. According to World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023, 44% of workers’ skills will be disrupted within the next five years alone. Similarly, 75% of companies surveyed were planning to adopt emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI, big data and cloud computing within the next five years. As multiple industry landscapes are transformed with these technological, economic and environmental trends, the concept of lifelong learning will be recognized and embraced on various levels, ranging from individual, organizational and even smart city incentives, example as in Singapore.

Summing the article up, 2024 is poised to be a transformative year in emerging technologies, driven by advancements in frontier tech, regulatory changes, and a strong emphasis on climate friendly initiatives. Given the exponential pace of development, its exciting to think about where we will be standing by the end of this year! That, along with the convergence of technologies, makes 2024 a year to look forward to as it will present exciting opportunities for both innovation and sustainable growth.