Prediction time!
No matter how hard I try to polish it, my crystal ball is still hazy. So please take this with a grain of salt. Here are 7 predications for 2024:
AI grows the software pie. Plenty of tech pundits have been predicting that AI will radically disrupt existing software vendors. Nope. Software is sticky. It’s lindy. The emergence of SaaS grew the software market dramatically. Startups benefitted - but so did incumbents. AI will have a similar impact, creating huge opportunities for new and legacy players.
AI doesn’t change software market dynamics. It’s hard to get software users to switch to new software. It’s a lot easier to get a software user trying to solve a problem the first time. Selling to new stores beats rip-and-replace. The magic of AI create lots of opportunity to sell to new stores.
AI causes old industries to bloom. Laggard industries that haven’t produced big software winners this century will begin to spawn software unicorns. This is already evident in legal with surging startups like Harvey AI. By year end, I expect to see multiple breakouts in healthcare and signs of software studs emerging across sleepy industries like manufacturing & pharma.
Pre-seed, not-AI software startups become endangered. Can you get the attention of business users with a new software product that doesn’t heavily incorporate AI? By the end of 2024, this will start to become uncommon. Just as on-premise software startups became rare in 2010-2015 as SaaS startups hoovered up the oxygen of business software innovation, early stage, non-AI software startups will become endangered over the course of the next few years.
Video AI sucks up the doomer vibes. AI doomers have gotten a lot of attention for pointing out the potential for AI to go awry. Meanwhile, eerily accurate video AI is now real. It will scare the bejesus out of us, although the stakes will feel lower - phishing on steroids is scary, but not apocalyptic.
Burnout beats bankruptcy as cause of startup mortality. While the biggest headlines will go to startups running out of money, the more common cause of startup mortality in 2024 will be founder burnout. The path to find product-market-fit can be grueling. It’ll be even harder when struggling founders see a growing flock of AI-first startups hitting hyper-growth.
Crypto party continues but (still) needs a bouncer. “Easy money” and “scamming other people” will continue to crowd out the legitimate use cases needed for crypto to cross the chasm to mainstream usage.
A few more quick hits:
The Fed cuts before it hikes, yet no recession in 2024. Few will credit the Fed for threading the needle.
If Trump wins, profits at CNN and NYT will spike over the next few years. If Biden wins, Fox will be rolling in dough.
GLP-1 usage continues to surge. So does anti-vax sentiment.
Psychedelics become mainstream. Youth alcohol consumption stays low. Good things can still happen, even when the headlines are full bad news.