| | | | | | Life moves pretty fast, especially if you’re trying to make sense of today’s technology landscape. The case for tech’s business value continues to grow, alongside ongoing buzz about generative AI (gen AI), electrification, and a range of other quickly advancing technologies. But even tech leaders and experts can struggle to help their companies make sense of which technologies are most relevant and potentially transformative for their businesses. This week, we review the most important technology trends of 2024 (and beyond) and how companies can invest in tech to win. | | |
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| | | Given the current, mind-bending pace of technological advances—and of tech-related disruptions that companies must manage—planning for tech’s longer-term future may seem more theoretical than realistic. But that’s exactly what leaders and their companies must do, according to McKinsey’s Lareina Yee, Michael Chui, Roger Roberts, and Mena Issler. In their Technology Trends Outlook 2024 report, they analyze the 15 most important technologies for business and the levels of interest, innovation, and investment in each one. New to this year’s list are digital trust and cybersecurity and the future of robotics. While it’s important to understand the nuances of each trend, it’s clear that tech’s overall long-term outlook is strong. The report also sheds light on the notable dependencies between more mature technologies (advanced connectivity, for example) and those that are still emerging. As more companies start to move beyond experimentation and toward piloting and scaling, making meaningful, long-term investments in tech is the only way forward. | | |
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| Technology isn’t always the most approachable business topic, even for savvy corporate leaders. But Dr. Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science at Stanford University and founding director of Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, posits that AI’s future is more closely intertwined with people, and society at large, than we may think. “We recognize that the most important use of a tool as powerful as AI is to augment humanity, not replace it,” Dr. Li says of the “human-centered AI” framework she describes in her book. “When we think about this technology, we need to put human dignity, human well-being—human jobs—in the center of consideration.” In the business context, though, she still notes AI’s ability to shock and awe. “From the mundane, like digitizing documents, all the way to the incredible, like saving lives and discovering new drugs—the surprise is the breadth and depth that this technology can bring us.”
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| | | Lead by investing in the future of tech. | | | | | — Edited by Daniella Seiler, executive editor, Washington, DC
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