In 2024, CIOs are expected to prioritize the adoption of gen AI for larger scale implementations. The primary motivation behind enterprise gen AI initiatives is to improve the velocity of existing operations. A recent global survey from Everest Group and Yates Ltd. suggests gen AI has successfully penetrated early enterprise adoption thresholds, with nearly 83% of global enterprises actively testing their capabilities or have already adopted gen AI for production-grade use cases.

2024 will be the year of doing more with less, according to the results of the Everest Group 2024 Key Issues Study of enterprise executives. Top priorities for enterprises for the year ahead are revenue growth and a continued emphasis on cost optimization. Talent acquisition, which dominated enterprise concerns just two years ago, is no longer among the Top 5 expected challenges, falling to No. 8 from previous No.1 and No. 3 positions in expectations for 2022 and 2023, respectively.

Hyperscale public cloud providers have experienced growth rates exceeding 30% for the past few years, and their appetite for enterprise IT spend remains insatiable. Everest Group predicts hyperscalers—namely Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure—will seize more of enterprise IT spend as the cloud services market accelerates to 24% compound annual growth rate through 2024.

IDP vendors are expected to offer more out-of-the-box, pre-trained IDP solutions to meet the demand for faster ROI and quicker deployment. Cost impact is now the key driver for IDP adoption as enterprises seek to realize tangible benefits from the technology, closely followed by improving operational efficiency and productivity.

Everest Group reports the year 2020 and Q1 2021 produced a seven-fold surge in retail and institutional investments in cryptocurrencies and related crypto assets, driven by increased investor demand, pandemic-fostered digitalization and clarity in regulatory tenets. The cryptocurrency market hovered around $2 trillion through April 2021 and is projected to reach $24 trillion by 2027. Traditional banks are realizing digital assets are the future of money.

About 68% of enterprises that embarked upon digital transformation have not realized the envisioned outcomes, according to Everest Group. A majority of enterprises attribute this shortfall in return on investment to having an undefined or ineffective change management strategy, with 58% of enterprises citing change resistance as a key obstacle.

Global sourcing activity picked up in Q3 2020 as the initial effects of the pandemic temporarily eased and countries reopened for business. However, the industry is bracing for another slowdown as the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic takes hold across the world.