This year has been a big one for tech, with 2024 bringing Innovative advancements that have redefined productivity and integration. But did we truly see progress across the board? While plenty of innovative technologies emerged, their impact at the corporate level didn’t feel groundbreaking.
In other words, we’re seeing more technical developments than ever, but the real challenge lies in turning these innovations into measurable ROI.
Let’s look into the key tech trends and enterprise software breakthroughs from 2024 that are transforming the way we work, collaborate, and maintain a competitive edge.
Which 2024 Tech Trends Are Reshaping Industries?
Entering the 2024 tech trends, it’s clear that AI, security, and the future of work are at the forefront. However, these innovations go across various areas. From Agentic and GenAI-driven solutions to platform engineering, companies are racing to deploy these advancements. But to save you some time, we summarized them as it follows:
- AI-Driven Workflow Integration: Businesses are embedding both Agentic and GenAI into workflows, using predictive analytics and automation to boost efficiency.
- Composable Architectures: Organizations are looking for modular design on enterprise software to integrate APIs and microservices, enabling fast, tailored software solutions.
- Platform Engineering: Creates self-service platforms to streamline developer workflows, improving productivity and aligning tools with business goals.
- Hyper-Personalization: Real-time data and AI drive personalized customer and employee experiences through predictive insights.
- CTEM (Continuous Threat Exposure Management): Proactive approach to cybersecurity that focuses on continuously identifying, analyzing, and mitigating vulnerabilities in an organization’s digital environment.
What Were Enterprise Software Developments Focused On this 2024?
We can say that the highlight has been the beginning of the “maturity stage” of AI, in which this technology is expected to bring tangible results in punctual workloads and processes. However, this new stage of AI poses a triple challenge:
- AI systems need integrated frameworks to ensure access to the up-to-date data they need to work and avoid fragmented systems.
- Businesses require more cloud capacity to store, manage, and integrate large data volumes securely.
- New AI models need training to adapt and solve more complex tasks based on business, client, and market needs.
That’s why enterprise software vendors were focused not only to expand their AI capabilities, but also to anticipate these demands. In the following sections, we’ll analyze the key tech launches of 2024 and how they help to solve some aspects of this triple crossroads.
1. Agentforce Autonomous AI Agents: What AI Was Meant to Be
So, as we said, one of the main 2024 tech trends has been the next step in AI evolution: Agentforce AI agents. This is a low-code platform that allows business users to build, customize, and deploy AI-powered autonomous agents for supporting both employees and customers. Bringing AI closer to non-technical business users, this promises both fast development and agile incorporation on business workflows.
This has not only democratized the access of business users to AI solutions but also expanded their capacity to act in new industries such as finance or healthcare. In fact, according to the CEO of Salesforce Marc Benioff, this platform closed +200 deals in just one quarter. But, although autonomous, AI agents still have limitations.
As we mentioned, AI agents need a lot of accurate, up-to-date data to perform their tasks effectively. That means having an integrated digital framework that ensures seamless access to the information they rely on. Without it, you risk overloading your tech stack with apps that won’t deliver the results you’re looking for.
No need to stress—we’ve got you covered. At Inclusion Cloud, we’re trusted partners of Salesforce, ServiceNow, and AWS, and we specialize in building the technological frameworks businesses need to successfully integrate AI agents into their workflows. Ready to future-proof your business? Book a meeting with us today!
2. Oracle Autonomous Database Features
Regarding cloud management challenges, Oracle took a significant leap on the 2024 tech trends with its Autonomous Database Cloud. This integrates machine learning (ML) and AI to automate critical tasks such as database tuning, backup, and patching, reducing human error and improving efficiency. Here’s how it stands out:
- Self-Securing: The database proactively applies security patches without downtime, ensuring protection against vulnerabilities.
- Self-Optimizing: It uses AI to adjust resources dynamically, maximizing performance while minimizing costs.
- Self-Repairing: Automated recovery systems enhance reliability by reducing downtime caused by unforeseen failures.
But what’s remarkable is that Oracle’s AI-driven approach tackles the AI maturity challenge in three ways. First, by unifying data across systems and ensuring seamless access to up-to-date datasets for AI. Secondly, it scales storage and processing needs while ensuring security. Finally, their in-database ML enables real-time analysis and training, reducing latency and refining AI models with high-performance analytics.
3. SAP Business AI Suite
SAP has also taken significant strides in advancing AI-driven enterprise solutions with its Q3 2024 Business AI release. This update mainly focuses on embedding AI across their cloud solutions, streamlining business operations with predictive capabilities, and enhancing user experiences. But, to save some time, here we summarize what stands out:
- Joule AI: An AI assistant that improves decision-making by analyzing data across SAP applications. Embedded in SAP BTP, it aligns with the CTEM model by proactively identifying potential risks and offering actionable insights.
- SAP Signavio: AI-assisted process and performance recommenders provide preconfigured models and quick suggestions, while the new process analyzer offers natural language insights, democratizing process mining.
- SAP S/4HANA AI-assistance: AI features include smart summaries, faster financial closing, and Joule’s tax compliance detection, now in both editions.
- Sustainability & ESG: AI-enabled ESG reporting now reduces manual data collection from 30 minutes to 30 seconds using SAP Sustainability Control Tower.
- SAP BTP improvements: AI in SAP Integration Suite automates integration flow creation, reducing design time by 3x. SAP Build Code also uses GenAI to speed up app development by 30% and cut costs by 30%.
4. ServiceNow Xanadu release: AI-Powered IT Operations
Another of the 2024 tech trends was marked by ServiceNow and its biggest AI release on the Now Platform: Xanadu AI features. To put it in simple terms, this major upgrade aims to integrate AI across various business functions, involving almost all platform roadmaps. However, this could be summarized in 5 principal upgrades. These are:
- Now Assist for IT and Customer Service: Enhanced generative AI capabilities that streamline task automation, reduce resolution times, and improve decision-making across IT and customer service operations.
- Industry-Specific Enhancements: Tailored updates for sectors like healthcare and telecom, offering specialized workflows and AI tools to address unique industry challenges.
- Hyperautomation Advancements: New features to expand automation across workflows, ensuring seamless integration and operational efficiency.
- Proactive Security Upgrades: AI-driven threat detection and vulnerability management, aligning with Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) principles.
- Developer-Centric Improvements: Enhanced platform tools for developers, including advanced workflow management and integration capabilities.
5. OpenAI’s o1 Model Series
One of 2024’s standout tech trends, driven once again by OpenAI, is the introduction of the o1 model series. This reasoning AI model is designed to mimic human-like thinking, improving problem-solving accuracy, safety, and efficiency. It’s not just automation—it’s intelligence that works more like we do.
The o1 series can revolutionize workflows by streamlining data integration, optimizing cloud resources with smarter design, and enabling adaptive AI training that grows with evolving business needs.
By managing complex workflows and reducing system fragmentation, these models address two key challenges in this new AI era: effective model training and building unified systems that truly deliver.
What 2024 Tech Trends Taught Us
This year’s tech trends weren’t just about flashy new launches—they marked some key turning points in how we use and understand emerging tools. The democratization of AI and the rise of autonomous agents, while still in their early days, are already changing the way we work in significant ways. But, as always, new tech comes with its own set of challenges.
Take GenAI, for example. As its apps are rapidly adopted by businesses, it’s also driving a growing problem: SaaS sprawl. Companies are finding themselves juggling disconnected apps that don’t communicate, leading to issues like:
- Data silos
- Skyrocketing IT costs
- Security vulnerabilities
- Inefficient workflows
Integration: The Foundation of Digital Transformation
The key to tackling SaaS sprawl is integration. It’s not just a nice-to-have—it’s the backbone of any successful digital transformation. Integration enables centralized management and creates the digital ecosystem needed for AI tools to truly deliver. Without it, fragmented systems will only grow, dragging down efficiency and ROI.
2024 has shown us the potential of these new technologies, but it’s clear that success depends on the right strategy to make them work together.
No need to stress—Inclusion Cloud is here to help you take the first step toward future-proofing your business. As partners with top enterprise software and cloud vendors, we specialize in finding integration solutions tailored to your organization’s unique goals and needs.
Let’s connect and start building the digital ecosystem you need to stay competitive in a fast-evolving market.
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