BENGALURU: Though many emerging technologies took centre stage in 2024, the year was more about driving transformation and integrating technology across various industries. Here's our technology roundup for 2024:
AI/Gen AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI continued to drive interest in 2024 as from small organisations to tech giants, companies tried integrating and leveraging its benefits. They tried multiple use cases and one of the highlights of 2024 was that many companies moved from the proof of concept (POC) step to the next phase- transitioning the concept to reality. From automating business operations to creating copilots and redefining customer experiences, these technologies have unlocked new opportunities for innovation and efficiency. GenAI, in particular, has empowered organisations to deliver hyper-personalised solutions, says Kanchan Ray, chief technology officer, Nagarro. "What truly stands out this year is the emphasis on ethical and responsible innovation. The focus has shifted from isolated technological advancements to building interconnected ecosystems that drive end-to-end business efficiency with inclusivity and sustainable growth. Like the rest of the world, in India, the adoption of AI-driven solutions has accelerated, with sectors like healthcare, education, and e-commerce witnessing significant advancements,” Ray adds.
Digital twin
Another tech that caught the attention was the digital twin. Though it has been widely used for a couple of years now, in 2024, it helped organizations simulate real situations and also their outcomes. Pankaj Vyas, CEO and MD, Siemens Technology and Services, said that they saw a significant increase in developments of smarter systems and solutions for sustainable practices, enabled by the adoption of AI, IoT and digital twins. This has allowed organizations to leverage the strengths of each technology to optimise processes, improve predictive analytics, and accelerate innovation. “Leveraging real-time data from IOT enabled infrastructure in digital twins and AI applications, helps augment each of these technologies to create high impact outcomes. We are seeing a large number of enterprises actively investing in digital transformation by utilising these technologies across all the workflows. Individually, each technology holds significant potential, but when combined, they hold the potential not just to unlock significant efficiency gains but also are instrumental in meeting sustainability targets,” he says.
Agentic AI
Though it comes under AI, Agentic AI is now widely being used as it powers AI agents and autonomously performs tasks. These agents are capable of analyzing data and solving complex issues. Tech giants are now focusing on Agentic AI architecture as it will revolutionise human and computer interaction. John Roese, global chief technology officer and chief AI officer at Dell Technologies, in his predictions for 2025 said: “The word of 2025 will be Agentic. It is a defining advancement in AI technology and will be a catalyst for significant progress in how we approach AI architecturally."
Gartner highlights that the rise of Agentic AI systems capable of autonomous decision-making and adaptive learning, is reshaping industries at an unprecedented pace. This trend is particularly impactful in customer engagement, where organisations are moving beyond basic automation to creating intelligent systems that can proactively resolve issues, make contextual decisions, and adapt to real-time scenarios, says Anil Kumar, CTO, Exotel.
Quantum computing
This has emerged as one of the most talked-about technologies of 2024, capturing global attention for its transformative potential. Madhusudan Murthy, senior vice-president, head of engineering APAC (private equity, hi-tech & ISV), GlobalLogic, says this paradigm shift in computational power is no longer a distant theoretical concept but the year’s most electrifying technological narrative, promising to redefine the boundaries of what’s computationally possible. With the breakthrough announcement from Google on their state-of-the-art quantum chip combined with the ability to solve problems once deemed unsolvable, quantum computing is unlocking breakthroughs across industries.
“India, with its National Quantum Mission (NQM) at the forefront, is striving to establish itself as a key player in the global quantum race. Unlike traditional computing, which relies on binary bits, quantum computing harnesses the power of qubits, enabling simultaneous computation in multiple states. This capability has far-reaching implications for sectors like healthcare, finance, and cybersecurity, offering revolutionary solutions for drug discovery, portfolio optimisation and encryption systems," he says.
Apart from these technologies, there were breakthroughs in the ecosystem of semiconductors. Apart from LLMs (large language models), the focus was also on small language models that are efficient. Every industry now uses AI to be more sustainable and experts believe that the future will be more focused on human-machine interaction.
