Even with a tough market in 2023, investments in new technologies hint at strong future growth. Generative AI has been a big trend since 2022. It’s been driving excitement and new ideas in fields like robotics and virtual reality. High interest rates have slowed down investment and hiring. But, factors like optimism, innovation, and long-term talent needs suggest a bright future. This AI development prospect guarantees a good bonus with the right investment strategy.
What’s News
In 2023, the top trends were generative AI and electrification with renewables. Searches for generative AI on Google surged nearly 700% from 2022 to 2023. There was also a notable rise in job postings and investments in this field. Generative AI technology advanced rapidly. It now has the capacity to process from 100,000 to two million tokens. It is expanding from handling a single research paper to about 20 novels. Its capabilities now include not just text and images but also video, audio, and more. This progress has driven increased investment and innovation in computing systems.
Generative AI is now integrated into various enterprise tools. It is used for tasks like customer service chatbots, ad creation, and drug discovery. This trend is expected to continue, pushing AI technology further. Senior leaders are increasingly aware of these innovations. This means we’re seeing more money and effort going into AI technologies, like robotics, which is a hot trend this year. As AI improves, robots are getting better and can be used in more ways.
Electrification
Electrification and renewables stood out as the top trends. It had the highest investment and interest scores despite economic challenges. Job postings in this sector also saw a slight rise.
Although investment and hiring in many trends dropped in 2023, the future still looks bright. Job postings for these trends went up by 8% from 2021 to 2023. This showed that people are still excited about and investing in these technologies for future growth.
In 2023, technology investments dropped by 30 to 40 percent, totaling around $570 billion. Rising costs and uncertain growth led investors to focus on technologies with strong revenue and profit potential. Companies are recognizing that adopting and scaling new technologies is a long-term process. They are diversifying their investments. At the same time, they are concentrating on areas with the greatest potential for innovation. Despite cautious investment, funding for generative AI surged sevenfold. This is due to major advancements in text, image, and video generation.
AI Revolution
Even though private equity investment is down, innovation keeps moving forward. Three big trends in the “AI revolution” are leading the way: Generative AI, applied AI, and industrializing machine learning. Generative AI creates new content from existing data. Applied AI uses machine learning to make predictions and analyze information. And, industrializing machine learning makes these technologies faster and more secure. We can see growth in applied AI and industrializing machine learning through more publications and patents from 2022 to 2023.
Electrification and renewable energy technologies are still in demand because they help with global decarbonization, boost renewable energy capacity, and ensure energy security during geopolitical and energy crises.
In 2023, the tech job market followed investment trends. Many tech companies reduced their workforce, causing a 26% drop in tech job postings, while global job postings only fell by 17%. This larger decrease in tech jobs likely happened because tech companies were trying to save money as their revenue growth slowed. However, areas with strong investment and innovation, like generative AI, actually saw an increase in job postings, showing high demand for new skills. Electrification and renewables also experienced job growth, partly due to public infrastructure spending support.
Despite short-term shifts in talent demand, our review of 4.3 million job postings across 15 tech trends revealed a significant skills gap. Less than half of job seekers have the tech skills that employers want. Even though there were fewer job postings in 2023 compared to 2022, tech job postings actually went up by 8% from 2021. This suggests there could be growth in tech jobs over the long term.
