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Sometimes the most promising technologies are right in front of you. All it takes is recognizing the business value inherent in their use.

To get a sense of the most promising technologies for use in business in the next year, we polled a range of IT leaders on the systems they believe will help companies innovate, serve their customers better, and transform how they conduct business. And because the best offense is sometimes a good defense, that includes how they’re protecting their companies from disruptive bad actors.

While generative AI, which may be headed toward a correction of expectations, remains top-of-mind as a business disruptor, many of the more intriguing answers we received about the technologies most likely to help organizations disrupt their markets included established technologies worth a fresh look. Finding efficiencies by uncovering untapped capabilities of existing systems before taking a big swing on new initiatives is another way to be disruptive — one that still requires foresight and vision. 

Whether shiny new or a new twist on an old friend, here are the technologies IT leaders believe will shake up the way business is done in the year ahead.

Machine learning returns to the AI spotlight

While many organizations are focused on getting started with generative AI, and still struggling with its ROI, machine learning (ML) is already delivering business value, says Cory Chaplin, managing partner of technology at West Monroe Partners.

And this long-established branch of artificial intelligence is poised to do even more — especially as companies lured by the hype around gen AI discover what ML can already do for them.

“We’ve seen firsthand how ML can optimize processes and enhance decision-making, leading to improved efficiency and cost savings,” Chaplin says. “By automating complex tasks and uncovering valuable patterns in data, ML empowers us to make data-driven decisions that drive our organization forward.”

Chaplin finds ML useful for identifying customer-related trends and predicting outcomes. That sort of forecasting can help allocate resources more effectively, he says, and engage customers better — for example when recommending products.

“While gen AI undoubtedly has its allure, it’s important for business leaders to appreciate the broader and more versatile applications of traditional ML,” he says. “Moving forward, investing in ML technologies and integrating them effectively into business operations will be key to staying competitive and achieving long-term success. The ability to break down trends and understand the drivers behind key metrics provides crucial insights for strategic decision-making.”

IT leaders who recognize this — and deliver — will be in a better position to help their companies finally transform into the data-driven enterprises they’ve always professed to be.

Data orchestration smooths the path for transformation

On that note, tools that help organizations leverage siloed data into actionable insights can help unlock greater efficiencies and drive significant change. Integrating data from internal and external sources can also provide a more comprehensive view of your operations, helping you to surface critical correlations and comparisons.

“We are constantly seeking to innovate how we manage our own data as well as how we improve how our platform manages, aggregates, and provides insights for our customers,” says Rob Skillington, CTO and co-founder of Chronosphere.

Skillington points to Snowflake, AWS Redshift, Google Cloud Platform’s BigQuery, and Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics as a handful of the tools giving organizations the means for consolidating, accessing, and analyzing large amounts of data.

“There are also platforms to help publish data from many different services and sources to help consolidate both transactional and operational data,” he says. “For instance, you can extract, transform, and load data from Zendesk to your data warehouse using data orchestration tools that avoid a lot of manual heavy lifting. Now you can see how many tickets, time, and energy is spent per customer and join that against customer behavior that already exists in your data warehouse.”

What Skillington touches on is the often-overlooked facet of any successful digital transformation: It all starts with data. By breaking down data silos, establishing holistic data governance strategies, developing the right data architecture for the business, and developing data literacy across disciplines, organizations can not only gain better access to their data but also better understand how, for example, costs of support relate to goods sold, as well as other insights that lead to improved business decision-making.

And as Skillington sees it, data orchestration tools are primed to help organizations smooth the way.

For data orchestration he points to Astronomer, AWS Glue, GCP Cloud Composer, and Microsoft Azure Data Factory.

“These orchestration services can help accelerate business data consolidation and enhance accessibility to this data, allowing the organization to be able to ask meaningful questions about the business,” he says.

Desktop computing evolves

Rob Zelinka, 娇色导航at Jack Henry & Associates, has seen major benefits from the ability to quickly share access to company resources using the cloud-based desktop, Windows 365. And while it won’t replace PCs, he says it’s ideal for specific applications.

“It provides us with agility to safely and securely grant select system access to contractors and team members who require access to key systems while traveling internationally,” Zelinka says.

Ashwin Ballal, 娇色导航of Freshworks is also bullish on virtual desktop infrastructure in the cloud that allows access from users’ mobile devices. “These technologies have improved security, IT operations, and the total cost of ownership while enhancing productivity and providing great employee experiences,” he says.

Meanwhile, research firms Gartner and IDC both PCs with AI accelerators to take up more space on workers’ desks, selling more than 50 million units by the end of 2024. IDC nearly 170 million AI desktops will sell in 2027.

The PCs promise better performance for AI-centric tasks that are increasingly common, along with enhanced security.

“Promises around enhanced user productivity via faster performance, plus lower inferencing costs, and the benefit of on-device privacy and security, have driven strong IT decision-maker interest in AI PCs,” , group vice president of devices and consumer research at IDC. “Over the next few years, we expect the technology to move from niche to a majority.”

Edge computing and 5G get practical

A recent IDC report forecasts a 15% increase in spending on edge computing this year — including hardware, software, professional services, and provisional services — with that number expected to reach $350 billion by 2027. The research firm estimates revenue for private LTE/ reaching $5.2 billion in 2027.

Edge computing and 5G are two complementary technologies that are maturing, getting smaller, and delivering tangible business results securely, says Rogers Jeffrey Leo John, CTO and co-founder of DataChat.

“Edge devices such as mobile phones can now run intensive tasks like AI and ML, which were once only possible in data centers,” he says. “Sensitive data will not leave the device of the end-users. This is very important in the current age of generative AI, where sending data to data centers has a lot of privacy and security concerns.”

In addition, the speed and lower latency of 5G networks, combined with edge computing, offers potential for quicker decision-making, he says. “This hybrid edge-cloud architecture that leverages the best of traditional cloud and the edge will spur the development of innovative applications,” he says.

Max Belov, CTO at Coherent Solutions, is also bullish on edge computing when integrated with cloud services. “This technology is transforming industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and autonomous vehicles by enabling real-time analytics and decision-making, enhancing efficiency and responsiveness,” he says.

Immersive experiences are poised to pay off

While technologies like aren’t new, Coherent Solutions’ Belov says the term that encompasses them both — — is improving in part because the hardware is getting less bulky and invasive, while the code is creating increasingly sophisticated experiences.

“More companies are joining the space, including Apple with Vision Pro, and XR technologies are transforming sectors like education, training, healthcare, and entertainment by providing immersive experiences and new ways to interact with digital content,” Belov says.

Krishna Prasad, 娇色导航of UST, agrees. “We’re finding good adoption and use cases among our clients for immersive experiences using AR and VR in training and commercial configuration designs.”

IDC reported this year that newer headsets and lower prices would drive from 2024-2028 for XR technologies.

Further fortification against cyberthreats

Remote workforces expose cloud tools and services to cybersecurity risks. But two technologies are helping address those issues, Belov says: and .

“SSPM tools enhance security by continuously monitoring and managing the security posture of SaaS applications, while CAASM provides a comprehensive view of all cyber assets, helping organizations understand and manage their attack surface that has changed significantly from the days of people working in the offices behind firewalls and within complex designs of LANs and WANs,” Belov says.

The two approaches provide a better overall view and control of cloud applications and assets, he says, while reducing vulnerabilities and improving compliance.

Optimizing underused systems

David Higginson, executive VP and chief innovation officer of Phoenix Children’s Hospital, notes that the race to implement new technology sometimes ignores the underused capabilities of your existing stack.

As such, the most disruptive technologies in the years ahead could be the ones you already depend on.

“I see systems replaced or implemented with great fanfare and then processes remain untouched, and 60% of the potential efficiency is lost or never accomplished,” Higginson says. “We must make the best use of the technologies we have already invested in.”

Higginson notes that in his industry, patients expect to schedule appointments online, as they do in other areas of their lives. And yet less than 15% of appointments are made using self-scheduling.

“As organizations, we fail to enact the cultural changes in our practice that allow us to use or benefit from these tools,” he says. “As IT leaders we often are convinced to implement systems because of large potential ROIs, but then move on to the next project without ensuring those gains were achieved and the organizational change occurred to properly adopt the change.”

The lesson being that IT leaders can be a disruptive force for organizational good if they rethink IT strategies and implementations — and shift how IT itself is perceived.

“Growth and success must be judged by using technology to improve what we did yesterday,” Higginson says. “It can’t be judged on whether we install the software on time and within budget.”