What’s next for generative AI in 2024?

1. Investments will go to platforms that solve problems: In 2024, the race will focus on getting AI into the platforms that people use rather than creating individual tools that people are expected to tinker with. Across the technology spectrum, from visual communications and design to software coding, the generative AI that wins over users and scales will have to solve real-world problems. For startups, commercially viable use cases will win in the fierce competition for venture funding and will be the platforms to develop the fastest.

Cameron Adams, co-founder and chief product officer, Canva

2. Generative AI will start to be operationalized: Many businesses have seen generative AI as a hot new experimental technology this year. But now that organizations have had time to experiment with its uses, shortcomings and risks, next year, businesses will strive to operationalize it more extensively and infuse generative AI in their business processes, optimizing their generative AI infrastructure and setting foundations for using it effectively long term. A component of these foundations must be a comprehensive integration infrastructure able to link AI functions with traditional systems. Organizations able to infuse AI capabilities into their business processes will outperform their competitors and build sustainable competitive differentiation.

Massimo Pezzini, head of research, Future of the Enterprise, Workato 

3. Decision-tree chatbots will become a thing of the past: Currently, customer experience chatbots make consumers answer a repetitive (and limited) set of multiple-choice questions that prompt you to call a customer rep if your question does not fit within those parameters. As generative AI takes off, the AI will take in important details — including a customer’s purchase history and preferences — to respond with relevant and accurate recommendations, at the right moment. This means that businesses can now translate the in-store sales associate experience into an online one – providing a hyper-personalized experience 24/7. Using AI, brands will be able to answer shoppers' questions, suggest products based on their previous purchases, and answer support requests in real-time.

Sara Varni, CMO at Attentive

4. Expect a flood of new AI-powered tools: A surge in AI SaaS investments this year will lead to an abundance of AI-powered products in 2024. This surge will pose challenges for enterprise software buyers trying to separate the signal from the noise in a sea of automation tools. Only truly innovative products that leverage AI to enhance productivity will rise to the top. In contrast, the plethora of superficial, look-alike applications built on LLM APIs will compete in a cost-driven race to the bottom and eventually wash away entirely.

Scott Beechuk, general partner at Norwest Venture Partners

5. Generative AI will fuel disinformation: Disinformation will be at an all-time high in 2024, especially leading into the U.S. election. Historically, disinformation campaigns were only launched by nation-state threat actors. However, with the increase of bot-related services, anyone can eliminate the manpower needed to spread these campaigns with just a few clicks and a few bucks. In addition, these disinformation campaigns will be more convincing this election thanks to advancements in generative AI. Generative AI allows bots to operate at scale and personalize their messages down to the individual account - instead of posting the same message over and over. This will make disinformation more persuasive and more difficult for social media platforms to detect and remove.

Sam Crowther, founder and CEO of Kasada

6. Personalization will be paramount: Driven by AI, consumers are going to rely less on search and more on personalized recommendations to discover and purchase products. For example, instead of people searching for goods, goods will search for people. This model is used by the likes of Alibaba in China already and combines AI with SKU-level product data to deliver recommendations to consumers. The U.S. and other Western countries are next.

Martin Elwin, senior director of engineering at Klarna

7. LGMs become the next big generative AI tech: Next year, another major AI technology will emerge alongside LLMs: Large Graphical Models (LGMs). An LGM is a probabilistic model that uses a graph to represent the conditional dependence structure between a set of random variables. LGMs are probabilistic in nature, aiming to capture the entire joint distribution between all variables of interest. They are particularly suitable for modeling tabular data, such as data found in spreadsheets or tables. LGMs are useful for analyzing time series data. By analyzing time series data through the novel lens of tabular data, LGMs are able to forecast critical business trends, such as sales, inventory levels, and supply chain performance. These insights help guide enterprises to make better decisions.

Devavrat Shah, MIT AI professor and co-CEO and co-founder of Ikigai Labs

8. Generative AI performance will set new speed standards: Not only is the quality of generative AI output at a relentless pace of improvement, but the speed at which the results are delivered is unprecedented. As businesses and consumers alike come to expect this kind of speed with results, this same speed of progress will be expected of other industries and technologies - like factory automation, automated farming, accelerated construction, and autonomous vehicles.

RK Anand, founder and chief strategy officer at Recogni

9. Generative AI will transform the film industry: In 2024, Hollywood will transform into a cost-per-mile and cost-per-usage structure. With just a click of a button, celebrities will be able to take on more projects across the globe and across categories without any physical effort on their part. Consent and contracts will become of the utmost importance as celebrities will have a larger degree of control over the authorization of the use of their likenesses. Using AI, celebrities will be able to create virtual influencers or characters that are more aligned with their brand, and these entities will be used for marketing, endorsements and interaction with fans, providing them with the ability to offer personalized responses.

Shubham A. Mishra, co-founder and global CEO of Pixis

10. Generative AI will aid cybercriminals:  Previously, a high-yield social engineering attack required a high degree of effort -- extensive research on the victim and extensive effort to craft convincing fakes. All of this changes with modern AI. Modern AI can automate research, and today’s generative AI, with its extraordinary skill at mimicry, can create convincing deepfakes. The result is high-yield social engineering attacks perpetrated at scale. The next time your boss, colleague, friend or partner asks you to do something – be it via a text message, phone call or video call – can you really be sure of who you’re talking to?

Robert Blumofe, CTO and EVP at Akamai

This article was first published on IOT World Today's sister site, AI Business.