You don’t have to be a tech guru to enjoy reading our newest Technology Trends Outlook. While it highlights 15 of the top trends, it also focuses on people; poses provocative questions; and offers a glimpse of the future, tempered with lots of examples in the here and now.
We recently spoke to the three experts who led the research: Lareina Yee, a McKinsey senior partner; Roger Roberts, and Michael Chui, both McKinsey partners. Here’s why they think the newest Outlook offers something for everyone.
McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2024
Where is tech without the talent? Nowhere! For each trend, Michael points out, we look at how the technologies shape the ebb and flow of the large-scale talent market. For example, gen AI has produced a spike in demand as companies scale their projects—a 111 percent increase in job postings in one year (2022 to 2023) for data scientists and software and data engineers.
Gen AI is also changing the day-to-day work of individual roles, peeling away tasks and freeing up time for higher-level thinking. Engineers can now use gen AI to automate routine software coding, allowing them to focus on architecture design and more complex problem solving.
In some technology fields, such as digital trust and cybersecurity, it’s the lack of available talent—from security analysts to project managers—that may hold some companies back in adopting new capabilities. In others, such as quantum technology, a body of skilled talent in quantum and cloud computing, machine learning, and Python programming is available...as this trend moves forward.
We ask the tough questions. The promise of technology can sometimes distract its advocates from the potential pitfalls ahead. For this reason, according to Lareina, the report poses the clear-eyed questions companies will have to answer to make the most of their investments, such as…
How will integration with robots reshape the workforce? How will society, with its diverse values, determine an appropriate extent for genome editing? Will our current telco ecosystems be enough to realize the value of advanced connectivity? What computationally intensive problems in drug discovery or cryptography can be solved by advanced computing techniques versus quantum computing?
Tech that’s tangible. For every trend, we include real-life examples that show how the technology is already producing results.
In a major step forward, Vertex Pharmaceuticals received regulatory approval for CASGEVY®, the first gene therapy that uses the renowned CRISPR/Cas9 technology to treat rare blood disorders, such as sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia.
In the area of digital trust and cybersecurity, a Skyflow platform helps companies manage, protect, and use sensitive data while ensuring compliance and privacy. It’s isolated in a hub and encrypted, yet can still be used in workflows, sharing, or analysis—all without ever being decrypted.
What’s under the hood? In addition to explaining the most recent advances in each trend, Roger says that the team also analyzed the underpinning technologies that must be developed in conjunction in order to succeed.
Refinements in headset technologies—for wider optical views, lighter weight, increased computing power—are critical to immersive realities. Improved electrification technologies are needed to power robotics. Low-earth satellites are key components to advanced connectivity.
We offer a glimpse of the future...with a look at two emerging technologies. Quantum computing introduces the paradigm of using quantum mechanics to solve specific classes of problems exponentially faster. It’s especially relevant to chemistry and biology-related industries.
Bioengineering brings together biology and computing advancements in a range of innovations across the healthcare, sustainability, and consumer products industries, to name a few. These include gene editing in the treatment of disease and tissue modification to cultivate non-meat proteins and other more sustainable consumer products.