The world’s leading technical professional organization, IEEE, recently conducted a global study of chief technology officers and IT directors, and the results showed that artificial intelligence (AI), in all of its growing forms, will be the most significant field of technology in 2024.
350 chief information officers, chief technology officers, IT directors, and other technology leaders in the United States, China, the United Kingdom, India, and Brazil were surveyed for a new study titled “The Impact of Technology in 2024 and Beyond An IEEE Global Study” regarding the technologies that will spur growth in the upcoming year.
The technology outlook was dominated by artificial intelligence (AI) and its subsets, such as machine learning (ML) and natural language processing, which 65% of technology executives ranked as one of the top three most important tech disciplines for 2024.
In a special interview with VentureBeat, IEEE Fellow Karen Panetta stated, “Generative AI has become so prolific across all business sectors to assist in gathering data, creating reports, analyzing trends, and developing new products.” “There are countless applications, such as marketing, cybersecurity, healthcare, and manufacturing process optimization.”
Experts predict that as AI spreads throughout businesses, software development, supply chain management, and cybersecurity will all see significant advances. The other four technologies listed by poll participants were electric vehicles, cloud computing, 5G networks, and extended reality.
Use Cases For AI Are Expanding Across Industries
The growing applications of AI in sectors including industry, financial services, transportation, energy, and telecommunications are highlighted in the IEEE paper.
The study’s conclusions suggest that sophisticated AI algorithms and applications will optimize data, automate difficult jobs, and enable decision-making that is on par with human intellect.
Real-time cybersecurity monitoring, automation of the supply chain and warehouse, support for software development, recruiting acceleration, and drug discovery acceleration are among the most promising uses of AI.
In an interview with VentureBeat, IEEE Member Yale Fox stated, “AI will drastically redefine and improve software development and cybersecurity with profound improvements in efficiency, security, and resilience.” He mentioned how AI can improve code quality, speed up development, improve predictive threat detection, and automate repetitive security activities.
But as AI gets more sophisticated, businesses will face new cybersecurity issues. The most often mentioned worries were deepfakes, sophisticated social engineering assaults, and AI-enabled software vulnerability detection.
A few stand out as the danger landscape shifts as a result of these new technologies. First of all, there are a lot of new problems when anyone can just use AI to produce realistic-looking false audio and video (deepfakes), Fox told VentureBeat.
Next Wave Of AI Growth Is Enabled By 5G
According to the IEEE report, 5G networks will offer a crucial backbone that will let the next phase of AI growth through expanded smart device connectivity, decreased latency, and quicker data transfer speeds.
Panetta told VentureBeat that “the amount of information being generated and transmitted is exploding.” “5G will make it easier for us to make sure that we can quickly collect and send cybersecurity and monitoring data so that cybersecurity protocols can identify, isolate, and, if needed, take defensive action to stop attacks on our vital infrastructure and businesses.”
“5G will greatly reduce the time it takes for data to travel across networks, enabling AI systems to process and react to real-time data faster than they have in the past,” said Fox. “Applications that depend on data analysis and decision-making need this performance boost.”
Using Quantum Computing To Enable Next-Generation AI
A new generation of AI systems is also expected to be unlocked by ongoing advancements in quantum computing. “A new era of technological advancements is expected to be heralded in the coming years by the collaboration between AI and quantum computing,” stated Fox.
According to Panetta, “quantum computing will help create new computing infrastructures that are more suited to the needs of computation for AI.” “Hopefully, this will enable us to create new, more scalable AI systems and stronger artificial intelligence (AI) by addressing the urgent need for better explainability.”
Experts from IEEE stress the need to prioritize human oversight and carefully pursue AI growth, even as they underline the enormous promise of AI. The latest research emphasizes AI’s role as a technological trailblazer and economic engine until 2024 and beyond.