In 2023, tech spending reached $4.4 trillion, growing nearly 5% from 2022, according to Forrester Research.
The largest tech trend came in 5G technology, valued at $25.69 billion in 2023 and expected to grow to $348.76 billion in the next seven years.
Cloud computing is valued at $480 billion and expected to grow to $2.29 trillion by 2032.
But Artificial Intelligence stands in a league of its own. According to Grand View Research, the AI market is currently worth $136 billion and is expected to grow 13x over just the next 7 years.
Peter Foltz is a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies AI's growth, impacts and consequences.
"There's a real challenge and a real tension happening in terms of unbridled growth versus trying to have growth that is taking into consideration ethics, usability, accessibility to everybody," he said.
He says what we saw in terms of ChatGPT this year is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of how this technology is being used.
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For example, students can use it to help write papers now. Next year, it might accrue that student's data in minutes, allowing educators to quickly identify students who require intervention as well as develop predictive models to address their future learning challenges.
In other fields, like health care, it can be used to offer 24/7 support to patients and reduce dosing errors in medicines.
In the law field, AI can be used to comb over massive amounts of legal precedent and data in a matter of minutes, whereas it can take lawyers hours.
"People are now getting their head around some of these new AI technologies; how they're used and now they're really trying to say how do we actually put them into use by people. So, you're going to start seeing things coming out embedded in more applications," he said.
According to Foltz, that embedding will come in cars, smartphones, apps and websites as the technology accrues massive amounts of data in a matter of moments, pushing certain ads or content based on each individual users' tendencies.
And since AI is always learning and adjusting, that rate of growth is only expected to compound.
"It's really being embedded in almost every place where they can do some sort of data processing and understanding how to be able to deliver things more efficiently or more personalized to you," he said.
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