Once again, it’s that time of the year when we look ahead at what technology has in store for us in 2024.

From the continued growth of AI to the resurrection of hybrid cloud and the rise of the Low Code Ecosystem approach, our experts Rob Cottrill, Technology Director at ANS, Chris Huntingford, Low Code Lead, and Janet Robb, Director of Customer Enablement, make their predictions for the upcoming year.

1. Continued AI growth into new models and services

2023 will forever be remembered as the year our lives changed with the introduction of Generative AI. ChatGPT became a household name and showed us what it’s capable of for improving our work productivity.

With the release of GPT 5 on the horizon, it’s expected to bring a more capable multi-modal AI system to the market in 2024, where we will see another boom in capability, accuracy, and advancement in Generative AI services.

2. Businesses will face challenges to deliver ROI on AI investments

Amidst the progress of AI lies a significant challenge, delivering ROI on AI projects. As AI has become a buzzword, most businesses jump on the bandwagon without considering its ‘cost to value’.

Everyone wants to use AI and adopt it quickly; this will lead to a huge disillusionment where the desired ROI or impact of AI fails to materialise. We believe this will be down to misaligned stakeholder expectations, selecting the wrong business case, improper data preparation, or inadequate people training to improve adoption.

With significant upfront costs in data preparation, technology adoption, and people enablement, it takes time and scale to generate significant returns. We will go through a few disillusionment cycles before organisations get this right.

Having said that, 2024 is the year when AI starts to become part of normal business practices, as long as organisations approach AI with realistic expectations. Projects can face delays due to a number of obstacles, such as not having access to the right data.

And you should remember that AI is as much about people as technology. Firms should understand the importance of working with the right partner and fostering collaboration across the enterprise to drive ROI. So there will be some ups and downs, as with any new technology, but ultimately, for those who do it right, we will see AI become more commonplace.

3. The rise of invisible AI

Generative AI is now seamlessly getting integrated into tools and applications we use daily. Major players like Microsoft, Google, and Adobe, to name a few, have an AI tool built into their products now.

Currently, AI is being driven by a prompt. In the near future, we expect this feature to work without a prompt, i.e., AI will be invisible and work for you without your knowledge. You just need to enable it, and it works in the background.  Imagine AI automatically replying or drafting email messages without being promoted to do so.

We may forget that the button we’re clicking, or the function we’re using, is “AI” at all. New users of the tools might have no idea that the features they’re using are connected to GenAI, and it will be seen as just another icon, pop-up or helpful assistant appearing in your work.

4. The resurrection of the hybrid cloud

We believe the pendulum that has swung towards public cloud for the past couple of years is starting to swing back towards a more hybrid approach.  We’ve heard a few stories where big companies and startups have moved out of the public cloud and back to their own hardware for monolithic applications while still using the cloud for Edge services.

This has mostly been driven by cost shock and data sovereignty. While public cloud services offer a sweet spot for consumable services, organisations, especially in the small and mid-market space, are realising that making all apps cloud-native is impractical. Most have realised that they just won’t be able to modernise a large proportion of their apps, and they’ll end up just sitting in costly IaaS.

Microsoft is now placing a big focus on Azure Arc and the hybrid approach. So, for us, it cements the belief that the hybrid cloud will be making a comeback in 2024.  Factors contributing to this include optional resource allocation, data sovereignty, security, privacy and compliance concerns, limitations with legacy systems that can’t move to the cloud, flexibility and the growing importance of accurate TCO planning.

5. Hype and adoption of “Industry Cloud Platforms’

Industry Cloud Platforms refer to cloud computing platforms specifically tailored to a particular industry’s needs and requirements. Unlike generic cloud platforms that offer a broad range of services applicable to various business sectors, industry cloud platforms are designed to address the unique challenges, regulations, and processes within a specific vertical. These platforms aim to provide industry-specific solutions, applications, and services that leverage the benefits of cloud computing.

With better vertical integration, compliance and regulation adherence, data security and privacy, domain-specific analytics, AI integration, cost efficiency and rapid deployment, we expect the adoption of Industry Cloud Platforms to pick up in 2024.

6. Unification of apps, vendors and partners

We’ll see an overall shift in unifying apps, vendors and partners with a desire to create a single ecosystem that facilitates wider adoption of technologies. Customers would want to manage fewer vendors and have multiple services with a unified license model, such as Microsoft 365, data services, and security.

7. Customer enablement and adoption are going to be critical

In 2024, we predict customer enablement and adoption will take centre stage. While companies invest a lot of time and resources in choosing and implementing the right technology, what often goes overlooked is perhaps the most crucial element – the people.

Without building user enablement and adoption strategy into project plans, businesses risk wasting time and money on new technology investments that users will ultimately fail to adopt. It isn’t about fancy tech but the people behind it that often determine the success of a technical project.

More businesses are starting to recognise this, and in 2024, we anticipate a shift towards prioritising people enablement as much as their technical investments.

8. The rise of the Low Code Ecosystem approach

Organisations are beginning to drive their own transformation rather than Microsoft and partners doing it for them. People within businesses welcome the idea of solving problems themselves.

This is where Low Code will play a huge part in 2024. Low code tools are essentially business productivity tools that enable people to create technical solutions to solve problems. Tools like Excel do this for us to an extent. Many years ago, we used to pay people to make Excel documents, but now we do it naturally. This will be the same for Low Code by the end of 2024.

Low code will enable a wide range of people, not just techies or developers, to use its simple modular building techniques to solve a wide range of problems. But it’s important not to fall into the trap of thinking low code is “just to make apps”.

We didn’t buy tools like Microsoft Office to make one Excel doc or send one email; we bought them because we knew we would need them to solve many problems. The same is true for Power Platform. We need to think of ‘many’ problems to solve and about enabling ‘many’ people, not just one app or one person.

Ultimately, vendors and partners will be responsible for ‘enabling’ organisations to solve their own problems in 2024.

So, in a nutshell, 2024 is an exciting time for tech. AI is here to stay, and we are here to help you tackle the challenges that come with AI delivery and adoption. New technology will inevitably present hurdles, but it’s all about how you navigate them with the right guidance and planning.

This will also be a year when businesses will look to be more self-sufficient by adopting low code and rightly prioritising people enablement and adoption, making 2024 a year to watch out for.