2023’s explosive adoption of AI will be felt in the year ahead, as the technology continues to make an impact on nearly everyone. On top of the AI revolution, immersive media will be made more accessible, connected cars will give rise to new media opportunities, and carbon-efficient advertising will gain priority.
1. Generative AI search enhancements
“Despite a lot of talk [about AI] in 2023, it wasn’t a big year in terms of business impact,” our analyst Yory Wurmser said on our “Tech Trends to Watch for 2024” webinar. Some of AI’s biggest players didn’t see meaningful bumps in search ad spend share (Google), product searches (Amazon), or ad spend (Microsoft), “but that might change in 2024.”
AI will continue to influence conversational search, visual search, and voice search next year, changing ad delivery and performance. We expect this will increase search advertising fragmentation across devices and platforms, and that Google will respond to growing competition—especially from retail media channels—by experimenting with new models of advertising.
2. The emergence of AI app stores
With more than 100 million generative AI users in the US next year, according to our June 2023 forecast, the market is ripe for the proliferation of AI app stores. “Large chatbot platforms will start to have customized versions, tools, and plug-ins that will enhance the [AI] experience in its own way, and they’ll be sold in stores,” Wurmser said.
Last month, OpenAI announced a GPT store that will allow developers to build specialized chatbots, and we predict Meta and ByteDance will follow suit with their own versions. These task-oriented chatbots—which could help consumers find recipes or flight deals, for example—are slated to become prime targets for brand partnerships.
3. Immersive media advances
The recent release of Meta’s Quest 3 and the impending release of Apple’s Vision Pro mark major steps toward bringing VR, AR, and mixed reality to the masses. A relatively small population will buy these headsets, largely due to the high price point. But developers will continue experimenting, bringing those innovations to more common, everyday devices, such as smartphones.
4. Connected cars as media hubs
More than two-thirds of US drivers will drive a connected car by 2025, according to our August 2023 forecast, intensifying a battle over data, media dominance, and ad presence. Apple’s CarPlay and, to a lesser extent, Google’s Android Auto will continue to dominate, although carmaker systems and infotainment providers (such as Fire TV and Harman) will put up a fight.
We predict embedded systems will coalesce around Android Automotive because its open source allows for customization. We also predict that native forms of advertising will emerge in in-car displays.
5. Advertising’s sustainability goals
New legal mandates and increased consumer scrutiny should make carbon-efficient advertising a priority for many in 2024, said Wurmser. That’s easier said than done, however, with the carbon impact of programmatic ads, for example, contributing the equivalent of 24 million gallons of gasoline each year, according to Scope3.
“Carbon efficiency will become a differentiator for publishers,” Wurmser said. Similar to the slowness we saw to address privacy concerns, “most companies are still going to procrastinate to implement fundamental [carbon] change.”
Watch the full webinar.
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