BetaNews Staff

According to Gartner the use of generative AI within enterprise applications will be a defining factor in the 2024 tech landscape. But this isn’t the only force that will impact how technology is deployed and consumed.

Geopolitical disruption, economic uncertainty, and the energy transition imperative are all key drivers. As such, decision-makers will be motivated to bring their business, technology, and operations closer together with a few key things in mind: Elevating business performance, productivity, and sustainability. Let’s look at some of the key trends IT professionals need to keep an eye on in 2024.

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Back in October 2023, Google and Yahoo jointly announced new email sender requirements for inbound mail to their domains that they would be putting in place early in 2024, requirements that, for now, are focused on bulk senders. 

This announcement and its subsequent updates have rightly gotten the full attention of the email industry. However, there was one other item buried in Google’s announcement that we don’t think people are talking about enough. One of the bullet items in Gmail’s guidelines reads as follows:

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As organizations continue to embrace digital transformation to gain access to the cloud’s many benefits, this means that computing environments are evolving into borderless IT ecosystems. Digital identities are also evolving at pace and identity security is now a crucial aspect of cybersecurity. 

As we continue to digitally transform organizations, so the importance of secure and reliable digital identities has grown. 2024 is poised to usher in a multitude of innovations and trends in this area, ranging from advanced biometrics to the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning to meet the changing needs of businesses, individuals, and governments.

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Over recent years, Cloud computing has boomed in popularity, receiving a global spend of $55.9 billion  within the first quarter of 2022, and then by Q3 2023, it had reached $73.5 billion, a 16 percent rise year on year according to research by Canalys. As well as that, Statista had also conducted a survey that investigated the increase use of cloud services and discovered that storing and creating files and office documents was the main reason for implementing cloud technology to their business.

Businesses that utilise cloud services to their full potential can gain a helpful push towards a more digital direction. But like all technology, it will continue to evolve and provide new ways of making your processes more efficient.

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In 2024, the rate of innovation is set to skyrocket, as organizations develop new digital products and services at pace. This growing demand for new software is putting extra pressure on developers. 

As these trends gain momentum, it’s vital organizations help developers to keep up and do more with less, so they can iterate at speed without sacrificing on quality or security. Here are five ways organizations can maximize developer productivity and help them adjust to a rapidly changing world:

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In the era of hybrid work, endpoints act as the nerve center of business operations -- distributed across multiple locations and networks. While this has bolstered employee productivity and flexibility, the shift has also increased IT challenges, and the exposure to cyber threats targeting remote employees. As the workplace evolves, security must too. To minimize cyber risk and navigate compliance, it’s up to IT teams to intensively monitor, safeguard, and manage employee devices.

As the world of work continues to transform, IT departments are facing increasing demands, compounded by a shortage of skilled staff. They must find ways to boost their operational efficiency. In response, organizations are turning to always-on endpoint management. This approach ensures continuous oversight and control, which is vital as organizations shift to global digital workforces.

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Right now, to boost efficiency and achieve economies of scale, businesses want to automate as much as possible. In back office processes, approaches like Robotic Process Automation (RPA), for example, are now increasingly standard and are expected to be a $20bn-plus market by 2030. In parallel, enterprises are looking to ChatGPT and Generative AI to help them speed up everything from creating marketing brochures to drug discovery.

However, where automation is trailing behind is in how organizations go about optimizing cybersecurity. Given that attacks tend to occur at scale, or involve complexity beyond even the smartest average security professional to cope with, this core area of vulnerability should be precisely where the CISO and the SOC (security operations center) seek assistance from automation.

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With the traditional workplace changing beyond recognition at the start of the decade, we saw the most significant changes to the IT security landscape last year; with the wider implementation of artificial intelligence (AI), stronger authentication practices, third-party data breaches, end-to-end encryption, and the Online Safety Bill to name a few. In this time, cyberattacks have advanced exponentially in sophistication and regularity, with IT cyber defenses struggling to keep up.

Thanks to increasingly large supply chains, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who once thought they were beyond the ‘crown jewel’ targets of large enterprises, are now struggling to defend themselves in the face of more frequent and sophisticated attacks due to smaller budgets and a lack of robust security measures. 

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2023 represented a breakthrough year for generative AI, which gained immense popularity for enhancing productivity through instant content creation based on user inputs. However, in 2024, organizations must shift from marveling at generative AI's dazzling technical capabilities to rigorously evaluating its tangible business impact and risk.

Organizations eagerly anticipate AI's transformative potential. Forrester's September 2023 Artificial Intelligence Pulse Survey revealed that most companies are evolving in their approach to AI. More than a quarter are experimenting with the technology, while 33 percent are expanding their existing efforts, the survey found. In light of this heightened interest, here are three critical AI-centric predictions for the coming year:

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In one way or another, we invariably find ourselves sharing personal details online. Whether it's signing up for a newsletter, registering to access a website, or simply making an online purchase, our presence online is a constant. So how do we keep our info safe when we're buzzing around online?

And how much trust can we place in the websites where we share our personal details? Let's delve into strategies to safeguard our information and ensure our safety when sharing personal details online.

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Cyberattacks are on the rise across all industries, but the history of the public sector’s weaker protections makes it an increasingly attractive target for cybercriminals with costly consequences. IBM asserts the toll of each cybersecurity incident in the public sector averages a substantial $2.6 million. In addition, according to the 2023 Verizon DBIR, Public Administration was the leader in the total number of incidents and the total number of breaches last year.

Cyberattacks can have detrimental impacts on government agencies and officials. Municipal services such as water supply, emergency services, public transportation and waste management rely heavily on interconnected digital systems. Cyberattacks like ransomware can disrupt these services, causing inconvenience and potential safety issues for residents.

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Businesses are on the cusp of an era of transformation with the widespread take-up of AI. Many have already invested time and resources in exploring how these tools could bring additional value. For some that may be improving efficiency and increasing productivity, or creating tailor-made customer experiences to increase sales; for others, it could mean developing new product concepts. The list is endless.

AI promises ground-breaking innovation across industries and professions, provided organizations are fully prepared to take advantage of its capabilities. But are businesses anywhere near ready for AI? Or are they in danger of rushing ahead, akin to the early days of cloud technology, and could live to regret decisions made in the race not to miss out?

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So far in our 'Deep Tech Series,' we have explored ways for companies to share the more technical side of their work, with research-based publications such as white papers, and how to connect with their community through meetup events. While both initiatives have the purpose of reaching out and engaging with the target audience, one component that has been missing so far is that of a true call to action -- an invitation for the audience to become an integral part of these activities.

In 2022, Google awarded more than $12 million in bug bounties to security researchers who helped identify and fix over 2,900 issues and vulnerabilities. A bounty program is one of the most popular ways to achieve this, where vendors offer monetary rewards to anyone finding a security vulnerability in their products. In this particular case, vendors encourage security researchers to disclose their findings and let the company fix the security issue, instead of encouraging a black market for vulnerabilities that would be the only way for its authors to get some money out of their work. The bounties are open to individuals who have the right skill set to identify and potentially fix issues, work for which they can be economically rewarded.

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The global cloud computing market is expanding rapidly and reaching new milestones every year. According to recent data, the market is projected to grow from USD 626.4 billion in 2023 to USD 1,266.4 billion by 2028 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15.1 percent during the forecasted period.

The industry's rapid financial growth is also driving new technological advancements. With this, the dynamic and innovative nature of cloud technology brings new security vulnerabilities and risks, thereby every year increasing the number of malicious incidents. According to the 2023 Thales Cloud Security Study, more than a third (39 percent) of businesses experienced a data breach in their cloud environment last year, an increase from the 35 percent reported in 2022. The leading targets for hackers were Software as a Service (SaaS) applications (38 percent) and cloud-based storage (36 percent).

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Sustainability has become one of the largest considerations for businesses worldwide with 96 percent of G250 companies reporting on sustainability or ESG matters. And sustainability cannot, and should not, be forgotten in your IT advancements and digital transformation.

Developing your digital transformation strategy has many considerations, but one that you shouldn’t neglect is the impact it can have on the environment. Integrating sustainability into a digital transformation program is not just about reducing environmental impact -- it's about future-proofing your business, enhancing efficiency, and meeting the expectations of customers and stakeholders in an increasingly eco-conscious world.

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