Chasing the next big technology around can be a bit like watching a peewee soccer game.

All the players gather around the ball intent on getting their hands (or rather feet) on it, but if they do, they don’t really know what to do with it.

Generative artificial intelligence — which has demanded the spotlight since the emergence of ChatGPT just over a year ago — is indicative of this. Enterprises of all types and sizes are talking about it and want to use it, but they aren’t always sure where or how.

So, as Deloitte cautions in its 15th annual Tech Trends report out today: Move cautiously and purposefully with any new, shiny technology.

“To run headlong into some next-gen technology of the moment without getting the foundation right would be folly — it’ll be like castles standing on sand,”  Mike Bechtel, Deloitte’s chief futurist, told SDxCentral.

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The firm’s flagship report identifies several trends that C-suites, tech leaders and boards should keep on their radars over the next 18 to 24 months, from specialized compute to technical wellness.

“To be a proper futurist is to be a historian: Look at where we’ve been to make heads or tails out of where we’re headed,” said Bechtel, who describes his “chief futurist” moniker as a “shiny title for the substantive work of emerging technology research and development.”

“This year’s report is really all about how our clients around the world are finding ways to balance the shiny and the substantive.”

Generative AI has a ‘shine factor,’ but implement it wisely

Deloitte’s flagship report identifies several trends that C-suites, tech leaders and boards should keep on their radars over the next 18 to 24 months.

Those technologies include generative AI; spatial computing and the industrial metaverse; moving beyond brute force compute to specialized compute; the evolution to DevEx; securing against innovative attack methods; and evolving from technical debt to technical wellness.

For starters, it’s no shocker that this year was all about genAI. Deloitte clients are looking to use the technology as a growth catalyst, considering it “rocket fuel for elevated ambitions,” said Bechtel.

“It’s a low-effort move when you realize you can do the same work with fewer people thanks to gen AI,” he said.

Still, Bechtelemphasized the importance of not over-focusing on the hottest technology of the moment.

“Take it from a geek who's been up to my eyeballs in all things newfangled … there’s always a new thing,” he said, pointing to past emergence of transformative technologies including ERP, IoT, big data or cloud. “There’s always a virtuosic soloist that gets all the attention. But the soloist simply doesn’t work without the symphony.”

While genAI has a “shine factor,” it needs a simple, user-friendly interface to be viable and requires data that is unbiased and near-pristine. AI goes beyond the old ‘garbage in, garbage out’ adage to “garbage in, garbage squared.”

“GenAI is forcing data refinements,” said Bechtel. “Gen AI it’s the shiny thing but buttressed by substance beside and below.”

Metaverse that is less escape, more elevate

Another emerging human-computer interaction is the maturation of metaverse technologies into “practical, tactical next-gen interfaces in surprising new places,” Bechtel said.

For instance, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) tools and digital twin architectures in industrial applications.

While discussions of the metaverse seemed to halt with the sudden emergence of genAI tools, “spatial computing is still real,” said Bechtel.

On-site workers are increasingly embracing extended devices such as smart glasses. Hyundai, for one, is leveraging digital twin technologies to measure configurations virtually before physically pouring concrete and moving million-dollar machines.

When it comes to more general enterprise applications, Bechtel pointed to new innovations such as Apple Vision Pro — which is expected to hit stores in 2024 — and said the mixed reality headset, once available, might divert some attention away from genAI.

He noted that “nobody wants to wear a toaster on their face to the office,” but that technologies such as Apple Vision Pro are first-gen, much as the 8-track cartridge, which eventually gave way to the cassette, then CDs, then iPods. Similarly, headsets will eventually give way to smart glasses and contacts — and eventually brain-computer interfaces

“‘Metaverse’ the term connoted a sense of escapism: The real world’s a drag, I’m going to hang out in the fake world,” said Bechtel. But in industry, metaverse technologies are “less escape, more elevate.”

Moving away from brute force compute

The last 50 years of Moore’s Law has prompted many enterprises to procrastinate. As Bechtel put it, the thinking has been: “If you don't like the architecture, wait two years, it’ll be cheaper and faster.”

But increased virtualization, parallelization and push to the cloud is hitting an inflection point. “The lift and shift playbook doesn’t cut it anymore,” he said.

As a result, organizations are moving away from “brute force compute toward leaner, meaner cleaner code and special purpose architecture.”

For instance, optimizing code bases to enable performance gains, or leveraging hardware specific to training AI (such as GPUs, AI chips and, eventually, the quantum and neuromorphic computers that will mark the next era of computing).

Simply put, tasks must be delegated to the appropriate technology to ensure the most gains, Bechtel asserted.

Supporting people, not just processes

Enterprises have increasingly adopted DevOps processes to quickly deliver apps and other technologies. But this can often be a drain on developers.

As a result, Deloitte predicts an evolution from DevOps to what it calls “DevEx.” That is, a developer-first mindset that aims to improve software engineers’ day-to-day productivity and satisfaction.

“It is a recognition that developers and engineers are a different kind of employee” that are incentivized and motivated differently,” said Bechtel.

As such, enterprises are beginning to remove red tape and silos and installing platforms and architectures that help speed up developers’ work. They are also increasingly providing continuous learning and career development opportunities.

Enterprises are “treating developers and employee experience as a tier-one concern,” said Bechtel.

Bolstering security, performing ‘wellness checks’

An enterprise is only as strong as its cyber defenses and internal well-being, so Deloitte researchers anticipate increased focus on cyber defenses and ‘technical wellness.’

While AI tools have been critical in protecting organizations, bad actors now have access to them, too, and are creating content such as deepfakes that can get around voice and facial recognition access or phishing attempts that “can fool everybody,” said Bechtel.

“When we literally can’t trust our own eyes and ears anymore, what are we to do?” he posited.

To survive, organizations will continue adopting policies and advanced cyber defense tools. “When reality itself begins to come under threat, that’s the next frontier,” said Bechtel.

In similar fashion, Deloitte predicts a movement away from technical debt to more incremental, holistic technical wellness.

“When you hear technical debt, it’s a downer, it sounds pessimistic, you’re in debt you don’t want to think about it,” said Bechtel.

But 2024 is the year that enterprises will begin to tackle the problem in the way of “preventative wellness assessments” — much as one might get their steps in orgo in for regular checkups.

This turns technical debt from an “annual monolithic grumble” to a regular part of daily habits at an organization, Bechtel said.

“Think of it like we’re always doing tiny little things to nip and tuck the old into the new.”