Generative AI and geopolitical events roiled the technology industry last year, leading to a general unease about the state of the industry, while repeated cyberattacks, outages and company lay-offs threw further unpredictability into the mix.

Technology clearly affects where our economy is heading but there remains a great deal of uncertainty as power struggles inside companies – think OpenAI’s board vs Sam Altman – and between countries play out. The next 12 months are set to be just as critical for the technology sector, which is grappling with key questions – and opportunities – on multiple fronts. Here’s what to look out for over the next year.

Virtual reality finally hits the mainstream, thanks to Apple

One truism of the tech industry is that nothing is really mainstream until Apple has had its say. The tech giant likes to hover above the fray when it comes to new technologies, exercising restraint and letting smaller rivals duke it out first.

It’s a business philosophy known as “footdragging”, made famous under former CEO Steve Jobs, who let other companies introduce MP3 players first until the iPod was ready for prime time. Apple ended up defining the MP3 player category with the iPod, much like how the iPhone is the most popular smartphone model globally today.

Apple is set to do the same with its own electric vehicle – set for launch in 2028 or later – and its Vision Pro virtual reality headset, which retails for $US3499 (the company is yet to set an Australian price or release date). Despite being pegged by many as a niche device, Apple quickly sold out of pre-order units after fast drumming up demand for the futuristic hardware.

Customers will be able to use the Vision Pro to stream content from Disney+ and TikTok, play 3D games and collaborate remotely. Other companies, most notably Facebook parent company Meta, have already had a crack at convincing customers that they should spend hours of their day inside virtual reality. If anyone’s going to be successful, it will be Apple.

More AI – but at what cost?

If 2023 was the year that generative AI captured the public’s imagination and entered the zeitgeist, 2024 will be the year that AI enters every product you can think of.

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At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, Volkswagen announced that its vehicles would be gaining Chat-GPT functionality to allow drivers to control basic functions such as heating and airconditioning with their voice, as well as the ability to discuss general knowledge questions. Expect the likes of ChatGPT – which is far more capable and conversational than the likes of Siri and Alexa – to be found in everything from your refrigerator to your vacuum cleaner.

AI will still clearly need more time, given the ongoing fights with publishers such as The New York Times over the use of copyrighted material to train large language models. OpenAI, the maker or ChatGPT, is facing claims that it has taken millions of copyrighted news articles and opinion pieces from the Times and other publications, while OpenAI has claimed a “fair use” defence. The case, which may still be settled out of court, raises questions for the future of AI innovation and the protection of creative content.

We’ll also probably see the first cyberattacks created by generative AI. Tech giant Google has warned that generative AI and large language models will help fuel cyberattacks such as phishing, SMS, and other social engineering operations. While phishing emails are often characterised by poor spelling or grammar, generative AI can create emails with impeccable English. AI can also be used to help people with little technical knowledge automatically create cyberattacks.

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Aside from a rise in cyberattacks we can also expect a surge in energy usage globally. The rise in AI usage will necessitate an energy breakthrough, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, given future AI use cases will require vastly more power than people have expected.

“There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough,” he told the recent World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. “It motivates us to invest more in fusion.”

Luxury is out, economical is in

The cost of living is causing Australians to shop around and think more carefully about upgrading their home technology. Sales figures indicate that consumers are holding on to their iPhones and Galaxy smartphones for longer, while also reducing their spend on streaming services and home appliances.

TV giant Hisense, for example, says its Mini-LED TVs, which are in some cases thousands of dollars cheaper than their OLED rivals, have proved to be incredibly popular given their value proposition, while still offering a comparable level of image quality and brightness. Smart speakers too are cheaper than ever, as are connected doorbells, and it’s never been more affordable to deck out your living room, bedroom and basically every part of your house with smart home tech, should you so desire.

We enter the age of the Jetsons with home assistant robots

Alongside transparent TVs and laser TVs, this year’s CES event was dominated by human assistant domestic robots.

Samsung’s ball-shaped robot, Ballie, rolled around the show floor in Las Vegas and can act as an all-in-one home manager and assistant. Ballie roams around your house autonomously, monitoring its surroundings to make sure everything is in order and that no devices are left switched on. Not only can it control your airconditioners and your lights, Ballie can also guard the people and pets inside your home by sending alerts to the owners running errands outside.

Ballie also boasts a built-in projector – Samsung’s demo involved it playing a video of a bird for a dog to watch, displaying a video call on a wall, and showing a fitness video for someone working out. Expect Ballie, and LG’s own Jetsons-esque effort – Rosie – to be available and in hot demand this year.

Payback time for Australia’s venture capital funds

Start-up funding suffered a precipitous drop in 2023, with venture capital funds tightening their purse strings amid inflation, rising interest rates and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Technology start-up valuations fell by about 30 per cent on average across the board over the past 18 months, with start-ups in cryptocurrency, fintech and edtech among the hardest hit. There’s still plenty of cash to go around, particularly for start-ups in the climate tech space, and so-called “deep tech” start-ups.

Meanwhile, Australia’s largest venture capital funds, including the likes of Blackbird and AirTree Ventures, are reaching the 10-year mark for their first funds, meaning they have to pay back their first investors. That won’t necessarily be a problem, and the funds themselves say they are in no rush, particularly given how well their jewel in the Australian start-up crown – Canva – is travelling.

But that deadline will loom over the rest of the year, while local start-ups battle to stave off dreaded “down rounds”, which refers to raising capital at lower valuations than the previous round. After a sustained period of lay-offs and challenges, expect another tumultuous year for local funds.

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