As someone familiar with time-series analysis, Selector’s Principal Developer Evangelist Thomas LaRock makes predictions by analyzing trends. Looking ahead to 2024, he sees trends involving AI, cybersecurity, and sustainable tech as having the most significant potential.
LaRock chose these sectors for two reasons. First, consumers continue to look to the tech industry to provide these solutions. And second, we need only to follow the money to see tech companies investing in each sector.
Look at each prediction and see where they might fit into your roadmap.
1. AI-Driven Operational Efficiency Improvements
Every company wants to “do more with less.” In today’s globally distributed enterprises, the need for operational efficiency grows exponentially as your infrastructure grows in complexity. For various reasons, the headcount on your operations teams never seems to keep pace with the increase in nodes managed.
Every business decision comes down to cost, benefit, and risk. As the responsibilities of your operations team grow, so does the risk of your team failing to spot an issue before it becomes a problem. In the coming year, look for companies to focus on next-generation vendors, like Selector, that can uplevel your operations and incident response and fill the void left by legacy observability and monitoring tools.
2. Generative AI Goes Mainstream
Generative AI is the branch of artificial intelligence that creates text, video, images, code, and audio content from an input prompt. Gaining steady popularity throughout 2023, Generative AI became well-known through such models as GPT, DALL-E, and CLIP from OpenAI, as well as Adobe Photoshop’s Neural Filters.
Generative AI has proven helpful with everyday tasks, such as obtaining information and data, scheduling, managing compliance, and organizing and structuring projects. It also enhances creativity and productivity by providing novel ideas, designs, and solutions. Generative AI can also help us personalize our experiences and interactions with digital platforms and services. It includes accessibility features and allows people with disabilities to find and excel in jobs.
However, Generative AI is far from a perfect technology. For example, you don’t want to have Generative AI suggest subtle changes to your security measures. It could return an inaccurate response that might make your environment less secure and expose your architecture to a security breach. Remember that you still need a subject matter expert to review the information the model returns to check for validity.In 2024, look for Generative AI-powered tools, such as Selector Copilot, to become more accessible and widely used in various domains and industries, such as FinTech, telecommunications, service providers, and healthcare. Generative AI in these areas has the potential for transformative effects across their operations.
3. Cybersecurity Becomes More Crucial
The Verizon 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) analyzed 16,312 security incidents across more than 20 industries worldwide. Ransomware remains a top concern, as external actors and organized crime seek financial gains using common tactics, such as stolen credentials, phishing, and exploitation of vulnerabilities. Cyber threats continue to be more sophisticated and prevalent, forcing companies to invest more in cyber defense and security risk mitigation.
Cybersecurity is essential for ensuring the safety and privacy of individuals, organizations, and governments in the digital age. Functionality like endpoint protection is no longer considered a luxury for any size enterprise. It is a critical piece of architecture, especially considering the global shift to working from home. In 2024, we will witness businesses extending their security perimeter outside their physical corporate walls by rethinking how to approach security.
For example, organizations will embrace some form of passwordless or hardware authentication. Or, as described in trend #1 in this post, they will apply AI to user behavior analytics. And they’ll see a greater need for cybersecurity awareness training among employees to spot phishing emails or other potential threats by deploying internal red teams. The result will be a continued investment in security, a broad establishment of CISO as a core function, and network observability tools that give them greater visibility into their entire architecture to troubleshoot possible threats faster.
4. Sustainable Tech Surges
In previous decades, the technology industry avoided sustainable or “green” initiatives while they sold more hardware devices and built large data centers. The rise of technologies, such as the Internet of Things, cryptocurrency, and cloud computing, raised awareness of energy consumption and the related environmental impact. Recognizing that sustainability is a significant global challenge and goal, the technology industry is now actively looking to address its environmental impact.
The number of companies focusing on sustainable tech solutions is increasing. In the past decade, we have seen more examples of developing technologies consuming less energy, containing more renewable materials, and including tracking of sustainability metrics. The technology industry embraces the opportunity to play a vital role in solving environmental and social issues, such as pollution, waste management, energy efficiency, and social justice.
In 2024, look for a surge of sustainable tech solutions, including green data centers, energy-efficient hardware, and initiatives to reduce e-waste. Looking further out, expect to see executive compensation linked to sustainability metrics. In time, companies will rip and replace existing network technology with more sustainable solutions, phasing out existing infrastructure hardware and software.
Grab onto the Future of Network Operations with Selector Copilot
Based on current trends, it’s clear that operational efficiency, Generative AI, cybersecurity, and sustainable tech will see more investment in 2024. The overlap of Generative AI with the other technologies will fuel spending in all four areas. For example, companies will partner with vendors that provide features, such as Selector Copilot, to improve their overall efficiency in operations and cybersecurity.
For Selector, these trends aren’t just predictions. They are all wrapped up into Selector Copilot. This tool saves your operations team from sifting through a mountain of monitoring data looking for insights. It enables them to ask natural language questions about their data. In return, you reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR), improve root cause analysis, and allow your team to finally “do more with less.”Discover how Selector Copilot gives you instant, actionable insights using the power of conversational AI. See Selector Copilot in action for yourself. Request a demo.