Top 6 Tech Trends for 2024: Reading the Tea Leaves with Thad West

Our top predictions for the new year are here! I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Co-Founder and CEO of Isos Technology Thad West to talk about the most exciting, most transformative tech trends we should be prepared for in 2024. You can listen to the full conversation on our podcast, or read on for highlights.

Trend #1 - AI will be everywhere...

 ...including places that we don't want it to be. There are some real challenges that AI will present for organizations and enterprises at scale, mainly data privacy and security. Organizations will need to consider: Where can AI help? Where will it be in the way? Where is it introducing risk? How can we harness its power? The potential is so high that organizations will need to weigh it against some of the risks and challenges. One of the things that we try to help our customers with at Isos is how to make sense of technology and how to get the best outcomes. Our expertise with the Atlassian tools, including Atlassian's new AI engine, Atlassian Intelligence, can help guide customers to consider and use AI as they would any other tool, to drive productivity and outcomes.

Trend #2 - Market uncertainty will continue to drive the need for efficiency...

...but it's not all doom and gloom. The reality is there are always external pressures, whether it's the economy, or an election cycle, or the ongoing impact of COVID. The common thread no matter the changes or pressures occurring is the need to be more efficient, and for organizations to make sure that what they're doing makes sense. Whether you're scaling up, scaling down or going through shifts, the need to work smarter, faster, and better is always there. When the economy looks a little unstable, that presents opportunities for forward-looking organizations--opportunities to hire people that might not have been available before, opportunities to get into new markets because the competition is soft, and opportunities to streamline tools and processes for greater collaboration.

Trend #3 - People want better ways of working...

...no matter what they call it. At Isos, we usually talk about better ways of working in the context of business agility, but people have strong reactions to the word "agile." What people really want are better ways to collaborate, as well as alignment across the organization, because we all want to do meaningful work. In a post-COVID world many people are remote, so how we work together really matters. How do we make sure that everybody has a voice and everyone is heard? What are the processes and methodologies we can work on to ensure that? Our experts help organizations work within some agile concepts and constructs, but we don't adhere to a rigid, scaled agile framework unless it fits your business. No matter what you call better ways of working, it should always come back to outcomes. Is everyone driving towards the same goal? Are you delivering value? Is what you're working on important to you and important to the organization? How do you know what everyone else is doing? All of these questions are really important for your business to be successful. 

"Opportunity is everywhere when you choose to operate from a place of hope and possibility, instead of a place of fear."

- Thad West, Co-Founder and CEO, Isos Technology

Trend #4 - Jira Service Management is the future of enterprise ITSM...

...and will continue to capture market share from ServiceNow. In 2023, we said Jira Service Management was going to put the squeeze on ServiceNow. And what we experienced last year was helping some very large organizations migrate from ServiceNow to JSM. We expect to see that trend continue, as JSM continues to be effective moving upmarket. Atlassian has spent a lot of money building out JSM through acquisitions and new development to make it a viable platform for not just IT and dev teams, but business and customer-facing teams as well, making it a true enterprise service management solution. And companies don't have to take our word or Atlassian's word for it. Atlassian has been recognized by trusted analysts as a leading platform for ITSM, including the Gartner Magic Quadrant and Forrester Wave: ESM. It's validation to large enterprises that when they choose Atlassian as a solution partner, there is longevity there. 

Trend #5 - The rush to Atlassian Cloud will continue...

...with enterprise organizations with stringent security and compliance needs open to exploring cloud migrations. The cloud conversation has evolved, and yesterday's Atlassian Cloud is not today's Atlassian Cloud. There are many features that are only available in Cloud like Atlassian Intelligence, and a lot of interconnectivity between tools and apps. That's the draw for a lot of organizations, and we'll see more and more really large Data Center customers with 10,000 to 30,000+ users being pushed into Cloud by users who are used to enterprise grade cloud experiences. Atlassian also understands that security is the number one factor for many organizations, and is making significant strides to comply with data residency and data privacy regulations, so you know exactly where your data is hosted. Forge is Atlassian's new framework for building apps in the cloud, so you know that your app data is also being processed within Atlassian Cloud. Atlassian is also working through FedRAMP certification right now so that U.S. government agencies can confidently deploy within a FedRAMP environment in Cloud.

Trend #6 - Human connection is back...

...and in-person experiences will be more impactful than ever. Everybody is tired of being on Zoom, but nobody wants to go into the office five days a week either. Going into an office of your choosing (like a co-working space for remote employees) a few days a week to be around other people and have face-to-face conversations is becoming the most popular form of hybrid work. In-person events are also back, as everyone has sat through enough webinars in the last few years to last a lifetime. Whether that means visiting customers' places of work, bringing top customers and partners together, or attending trade shows and conferences, people want to get out, meet people, and have new experiences. Many of us love working from home, but that makes the opportunities we get to be together in-person that much more meaningful.