For those who had not heard of, or knew much about TECHTEE before arriving here, welcome!
To set the stage: TECHTEE is a software house that specialises in building emerging, early-adoption technology — specifically, software-based solutions that matter. Our mission is to build truly innovative technology with our diverse and inclusive team, a mission we’re extremely proud of — not just for ourselves but also for our partners which include the likes of Apple, SSENSE, WWF and several more. And we’re doing a pretty awesome job of it so far. The full spiel of all the fanciful, incredible, awesome things that we’ve been doing since 2017 will become more and more apparent as we roll out a few awesome things over the next few weeks, but let’s get down to why we’re here…
As the founder of TECHTEE, a company that builds emerging, early-adoption technology, I have clear insight into what’s on the horizon. And although I regularly discuss these insights, often predictions, across several digital channels throughout the year, the most in-depth analyses and software solutions are reserved for our partners.
However, embracing the spirit of today’s rapidly evolving landscape, we are starting a new tradition in 2024: we will be sharing these insights directly on our public platforms, offering a window into the industry area observations that fuel the advanced technologies that we’re currently building.
So, without further ado, let’s dive right in.
1. Interconnected Digital Ecosystems
Over the last year, we’ve seen specifically the fashion and publishing/media industry face some of the biggest downturns in over decades. Since these industries aren’t going to completely die out, the question is, what is the pivot? From my point of view, the pivot that will be made will be industry-specific models that extend and leverage other digital and e-commerce platforms into a web of interconnected experiences, blurring the lines of traditional industry boundaries. It’s a mouthful, let me explain;
Imagine a model where a brand isn’t just a brand, but a gateway to an ecosystem tailored to a user’s lifestyle, preferences, and digital persona. Envision a near future where digital platforms evolve beyond offering just a single service, with artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics not only crafting recommendations as a basic foundation (which, in many ways, is already happening) but also weaving narratives around your choices as common practise. Picture this scenario (for example purposes only): You’re eyeing a Burberry coat on burberry.com and the aim for the technology powering the e-commerce platform isn’t just to get through a transaction, but to devise all possible metrics where this new coat of yours could be relevant. Assuming that burberry.com now understands not just your spending habits, but your taste level, to be able to suggest your next ski holiday where you can wear that coat. Maybe February in Shiga Kogen? This burberry.com ecosystem now suggests the perfect hotel, the must-visit restaurants, and even the articles from your favourite publishing platform you should read before you set out on your trip. This cross-industry platform model is about creating an accurate, seamless ecosystem that amalgamates your interests, from shopping to travel to events and even self-care, all sparked by a single interaction with a brand — and of course very large, very powerful, generative pre-training transformers.
I selfishly used Burberry because we’re big fans of the brand’s technology potential at TECHTEE, but this ecosystem isn’t just a playground for existing large brands, it’s also a green field for new startups. Ones who are well connected and can leverage those connections across all of these business sectors to integrate brands onto a singular platform structure. In 2024, the software infrastructure isn’t difficult at all; fine-tune models built to layer over and integrate with a major large language model brand, offering a level of precision and style in terms of its AI powered results, that will distinguish one ecosystem from another. These models have already begun their building stages as TECHTEE has been collaborating on this for some time already and I believe something significant is happening here. The expectation I have the most is for retail giants like Selfridges or hospitality leaders like Marriott, to engage within these platforms models, rather than building their own to drive those conversions and establish their brands position within personalised target audience narratives.
I anticipate at least a couple of companies will establish a standard for this model before it quickly becomes crowded space. And sure, one or two will pay the ‘pioneer tax’, but I see the beginnings of this very lucrative model is taking shape in 2024. Thee goal here will be to curate experiences, all stemming from a singular avenue of engagement — defining a blend of interests, industries, and innovations.
2. The Year of Tech Infrastructure Overhaul
It’s been a long time coming for many organisations, particularly large ones, but 2024 is set to be the year when medium and large-sized organisations confront their clunky legacy system accumulation that many know needs a change but most have done very little about. It’s no longer about making plans or proposals to update old infrastructures, but actively seeking specialists and cherry-picking internal talent for an urgent technical facelift. This stems from an age-old narrative in tech-heavy enterprises where an organisation has adopted waterfall methodologies, and in turn, the inevitable accumulation of technical debt. I’m all too familiar with this scenario from a long time ago when I worked in a couple of large organisations and witnessed it firsthand. While in recent years, witnessing it through the ‘digital transformation’ proposals that land in the TECHTEE inbox all the time.
If you’re part of an organisation and you’re reading this, now that January has passed, hopefully, someone in a leadership position has already got the ball rolling. If not, there’s a window between now and the end of Q1 2024 before software infrastructure advancement become too significant to ignore as software evolves throughout the year.
Over the last few years, the market size of advanced technologies has drastically exploded, with every significant news outlet from TechCrunch to McKinsey reporting on the rapid adoption of AI across industries and emphasising the size of the impact it has. As a result, many organisations, in a bid to stay relevant, have been quick to integrate a wide range of new technologies, but often resorting to makeshift solutions — think modern tech micro-sites with URL redirects and components ‘frankensteined’ into existing old infrastructure systems to the point they work, but are fragile to touch. And while this approach works, if you look closely, in many cases, things are splitting at the seams.
For the renowned brands, especially renowned organisations, integrating AI is a given. However, the backbone of truly effective AI — robust data handling, incredible processing power, sophisticated analytics (the list goes on) — requires fully fledged software infrastructures, far beyond what old, patchwork systems offer. The outcome of this is, of course, the trusty service providers we all know and love, such as Salesforce, Microsoft Azure etc., are rapidly evolving their offerings to support these extensive infrastructure migrations. And in particular, with Microsoft becoming best friends with OpenAI, my left eye is constantly looking forward to the announcements they come out with. But let’s get to far ahead of ourselves and forget about Amazon Web Services — with their unmatched data networks and sheer data storage capacities, they’re arguably the biggest player on this pitch worth paying attention to as they advance their technologies as well.
But what does this all mean for you, the directors, C-suite, and decision-makers? Well, taking a cue from the e-commerce world, particularly luxury fashion brands, where TECHTEE has been identifying and working for quite some time, we’ve been building and significantly upgrading e-commerce archive systems. Systems that are not just repositories but platforms capable of integrating modern and advanced technologies (including AI), API’s and analytical tools to deliver insights on product performance and consumer preferences using metrics dating back decades. And if you’re sitting there wondering, ‘What does this mean specifically for my company?’ well that’s your cue to get in touch with TECHTEE directly (yes, this is a shameless plug).
3. AI Powered Hardware (No Surprise, I Know)
When we stepped into 2023, it felt like a resurgence of funky new hardware devices powered by AI and machine learning, that are not mobile phones, being the ‘revolution’ that Web3 promised us would happen happen. From Apple’s Vision Pro to the Humane’s AI Pin, and from Samsung’s Ballie to Rabbit’s R1, these devices are positioned to be more popular than Ed Hardy was in 2009 (if you know, you know). With all the CES announcements and demo’s showcased just a couple of weeks ago from big and small businesses, it’s safe to say smaller, hardware, home and personal devices have kept R&D teams busy.
Specifically with devices like Humane’s AI Pin and Rabbit’s R1, the conversation surrounding wearable AI assistants, immediately begin to hint at a future where mobile phones become obsolete and are replaced by wearable or even internal — yes, I said internal — embedded technology. However, as much as this shift is inevitable, a day when the world doesn’t regularly use mobile phone is still in a distant future. The adoption curve will likely see the global West leading, with the rest of the world gradually following suit, driven more by commercial factors than technological readiness. What Humane and Rabbit have demonstrated is not just the sophistication and sleekness of future tech but also its potential for enjoyment and practicality at various price points. With it just being two major products to consider today, even though neither is available on the market just yet, this range in approach gives us a strong idea of an impending norm to come.
I expect to see Apple use the Vision Pro as a launch pad for a line of wearable suite of product offerings, which may or may not be a poised as the favourite. But I do more newcomers making bold entries, and wouldn’t be surprised to see old players too — think Blackberry making a comeback with an AI wearable device (pure speculation by the way, although if someone at Blackberry is reading this, call me because I have ideas!).
Where this becomes even more significant is not just with the frameworks that power this new hardware, but the considerations of how existing and future web and app development is executed. Organisations are going to have to reconsider how their software systems engage with their audiences that are making a gradual shift towards a predominant, and in some cases sole, app based interactions environments. Nothing about this is particularly news — many commercial brands and services experience a majority of their consumer engagement through their app platforms. Small businesses are now tasked with thinking more about their customer journeys on wearable devices, while larger entities face strategic decisions between software and hardware paths for embedding AI and machine learning.
4. Cybersecurityyyyyyy!
Everything I’ve mentioned so far defines today’s world of software creation where technology is relentless — everything is smarter, quicker, and more diverse — therefore the realm of cybersecurity must evolve too, right?
By the end of 2023, the gap between advancing software infrastructures and existing cybersecurity measures was glaring. There is a greater need for manually performed security protocols to learn the intricacies of automated ones — remembering that there will always be a need to manual, human verification (even if in very small numbers) in all areas security validation.
We’ve seen a global surge in the interest of cybersecurity from the growth of cybersecurity firms to the aggressive recruitment of cybersecurity professionals by international governments. This period of time, is cybersecurity’s version of dude with sign, where the universal urgency of required digital defences is unmistakable. Yet, we know that (in most instances) the excessive costs, complexity, and resource intensity of cybersecurity, are not appealing factors for most small and some medium-sized enterprises.
This is where I weigh in; The proliferation of no-code/low-code cybersecurity solutions, specifically to secure digital platforms against AI technologies and cryptocurrencies is about to have the time of its life in 2024. Tools designed for easy integration and accessibility, will democratise cybersecurity, enabling organisations of all sizes to fortify their digital platforms effectively. Because the progression of AI has given way a natural overall redefinition of the technological landscape, and that also exposes vulnerabilities in technology system architectures. In this context, I forsee established cybersecurity platforms like Kali Linux who are already very popular, become even more so, especially those that are open-source and promote their seamless integration capabilities.
Another angle within cybersecurity to focusing on in 2024 is the rise in development of AI-driven cybersecurity solutions. Advanced tools, powered by machine learning algorithms, offering predictive security measures, identifying threats before they manifest in ways we haven’t seen before. This is one of those things that is not new, but will experience a surge in demand this year. With the increasing interconnectedness of devices and systems, the importance of securing not just individual assets but entire ecosystems becomes paramount.
I’ll admit this particular prediction about the technology in 2024 isn’t very sexy, but its significance cannot be overlooked.
5. The Renaissance of the Technology Specialist
A question I tend to ask during introductory meeting with new and potential partners at TECHTEE is, “Who is driving the innovative decisions?” often followed by, “Are they technical?”. As I wrote that, I thought to myself, “Will this come off in a tone that screams ‘tech elitist snobbery’?” But the truth is that it’s a real and valid question that I needs to be asked.
I frequently talk about how technology as an interest as well as a career path has become heavily mass adopted, parallel to the way the fashion industry was in the 2010s — where both novices and experts are given the same platform, and its up to the individuals and organisations to deduce what is hype and what truly matters — and it’s no suprise this often goes wrong.
For the Future of Jobs Report from The World Economic Forum in 2023 they studied 673 millions employees to put the report together — I mean, kudos to them! The report is well detailed and has a series points I can talk about for months, but one of the things that stood out to me the most, was their emphasis on skills being a key factor for the future of the working working, and I read that and am choosing to believe that this is where specialists, in technology, are going to become highly sought after — in ways that create long-standing career paths in a niche yet transferrable way. There is something extremely powerful about technology specialists, who are highly skilled in a particular software tool or software language and can pinpoint the relevancy of their expertise across business area and almost any industry or sector. Trust me, knowing many of them, and as one of them myself, this isn’t about sidelining industry experts in favour of tech specialist; it’s more so about about ensuring that when it comes to steering organisational decisions, that almost always affect how the technology is used, the right people are in the room, and that almost always should include a technical leader.
We’ve publicly seen the absence of this through the rise and fall of NFT’s—where many technologists said this isn’t really an idea with legs (not yet at least) but many others insisted it was tomorrows future —well, that rather expensive wave is has come to an end in sorts.
I foresee a large shift in more intentional decisions being made towards valuing individual as opposed to organisational technical expertise at the heart of innovation regardless of the industry. It’s a fundamental change in how businesses will approach innovation rather than temporary efforts. The involvement of technical consultants, specialists, and developers in key discussions will be the methods in which organisations define how they bring forth organisational growth and change.
To Conclude
Having tried to keep this a light-hearted read, without spilling all the beans on of the driving strategies and research findings that keep me busy. I hope you’ve enjoyed a glimpse into the conversations and driving forces behind decisions TECHTEE and I make. Between the lines of everything I’ve mentioned here, there are countless nuances and things that need to be read between the lines that I hope you’ve picked up on.
Whether you’re a leader in an organisation, a solo developer building incredible things, or simply a curious mind eager to explore the future of technology, TECHTEE is here for you — we’re all ears for your thoughts, questions, and ideas. Feel free to reach out and engage with me and the TECHTEE team at hello@techtee.co. We’re excited to geek out with you and derive more solutions that drive innovative. business growth.
