Gartner Report On Emerging Tech - 2024
Gartner Report On Emerging Tech - 2024
Gartner Report On Emerging Tech - 2024
Future Opportunities
Published 1 September 2023 - ID G00796158 - 21 min read
By Analyst(s): Danielle Casey, Bill Ray, Roberta Cozza, Ray Valdes
Initiatives: Emerging Technologies and Trends Impact on Products and Services;
Generative AI Resource Center
Overview
Key Findings
■ Generative AI (GenAI) is primarily being used for the creation of text-based content
across many industries, such as legal, healthcare and financial services.
■ Image, video and voice generation, as well as AI avatars, also represent areas of
opportunity, but will primarily be used in marketing and human resources
departments.
■ GenAI is also adding new capabilities and improving the performance of virtual
assistants and content discovery tools, such as data and analytics (D&A) platforms
and insights engines.
■ Drug discovery, despite being a narrowly defined use case, is an early application of
GenAI that has gained notable traction within the pharmaceutical industry.
Recommendations
Product leaders developing emerging technologies and evaluating the value of GenAI
should:
■ Add GenAI to your product roadmap now, so as not to risk falling behind peers in the
conversational AI and D&A markets.
■ Plan for future GenAI opportunities in simulation-related use cases (beyond the
current activity in drug discovery) by assessing GenAI’s unique ability to deliver
business value in generating designs, predictions, digital twins and more.
By 2025, 60% of marketing departments will be using some form of generative AI (such as
image, video, audio, AI avatars or advertising platform solutions), up from less than 10%
in 2023.
By 2025, Gartner expects 95% of developers will regularly use generative AI to assist with
code creation, up from 50% in 2023.
Generative AI will play a role in 70% of text- and data-heavy tasks by 2025, up from less
than 10% in 2023.
By 2030, the design and discovery of all new drug leads will result from some use of
generative AI, up from less than 1% in 2023.
Analysis
Technology Description
Generative AI technologies can generate new derived versions of content, strategies,
designs and methods by learning from large repositories of original source content. GenAI
has profound impacts on business including content discovery, creation, authenticity and
regulations; automation of human work; and the customer and employee experience.
This note offers an examination of some of the basic patterns revealed in this research,
leaving it to the product leaders to identify the patterns most applicable to their business
strategy and mission-critical priorities. See Note 1 for details on capability representation
in pattern analysis.
Other types of content creation (such as images, videos and voice) as well as AI avatars
are growing in popularity. These use cases are industry agnostic, but will primarily be used
in marketing and human resources departments.
GenAI is also adding new capabilities and improving the performance of virtual assistants
and content discovery tools. Here, integrations with LLMs will become quite prevalent over
the next two years.
Drug discovery, despite being a narrowly defined use case, is an early application of GenAI
in simulation that has gained notable traction within the pharmaceutical manufacturing
space.
This document is scoped to over 70 GenAI-enabled use cases across the following
categories: GenAI for content creation (image, video, text, voice and code), content
discovery, drug discovery, AI avatars and virtual assistants (VAs).
Text
The use of LLMs is ideal for text- and data-heavy tasks, due to the significant time
investment required. These tasks span industries, and this will be reflected in adoption
trends. Examples of how GenAI will be used for text-related tasks (such as creation,
summarization, rewriting and translation) include:
■ Legal — Creating first drafts of contracts, emails, and other forms of legal
documentation and providing summarization from meetings and long legal
documents. For example, Evisort is using GenAI to assist in the drafting of contracts
by offering redline edits and automatically suggesting clause rewrites. 1
■ Media — Generating marketing campaigns and drafting blog posts, sports coverage
and news articles. For example, the Wall Street Journal is using Narrativa to
automatically generate drafts of news articles. 2
These applications are expected to expand to include additional tasks and the creation of
more comprehensive end-to-end solutions as GenAI matures.
Example providers using GenAI for text generation: Narrativa, Jasper AI, OpenAI, Amazon
Lex and many more.
Code
GenAI is increasingly being used to generate first drafts for code and assist with code
completion. In fact, a March 2023 GitHub survey of 500 developers working in companies
with over 1,000 employees revealed that 92% of developers were already using GenAI for
coding. 3 GenAI is also being used for other phases in the software development life cycle,
to include design, coding, documentation, testing and deployment.
As coding is a text-heavy and time-consuming project, this is an ideal use case for LLMs.
Developers are using coding assistants to improve their productivity and reduce the
amount of time it takes them to write a new program. In some cases, there is a 50%
reduction in the time it takes to create new code. For example, Mercado Libre, which
operates an online marketplace, reported a 50% reduction in time writing code using
GitHub Copilot. 4 By 2025, Gartner expects 95% of developers will regularly use generative
AI to assist with code creation, up from 50% in 2023.
Example providers using GenAI for software development include Amazon CodeWhisperer,
GitHub Copilot, JasperAI and Tabnine. For a list of GenAI coding assistant providers, as
well as supported programming languages and coding features, see Emerging Tech:
Generative AI Code Assistants Are Becoming Essential to Developer Experience.
GenAI can also be used to conduct AI video reshoots for lip synching and dialogue
replacement. An example provider is Flawless.
AI-generated images are also becoming more popular. Here, GenAI is lowering the skills
barrier by enabling nonartists to produce creative work. Example providers include Adobe
Firefly, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Fact AI and Masterpiece Studio.
Audio
GenAI for audio is an emerging application, though most activity is focused around
synthetic voice versus other audio effects. Using text-to-speech, GenAI companies can
create voice-overs for media materials. This content can be used for marketing
campaigns, commercials, training videos and more and can be paired with AI-generated
videos or avatars. Generative translation is also being used to improve audience reach, as
well as add characteristics around language tone, pace and pitch. GenAI for voice is not
one of the most popular applications of GenAI, but it has garnered more traction than is
currently represented in Figure 1. Gartner expects most near-term generative audio activity
to focus on communications, media and services, as well as retail. Example providers
include ElevenLabs, WellSaid Labs, Speechify and OpenAI’s Jukebox.
Advertising Solutions
GenAI is being used to create more efficient and personalized advertising solutions. For
example, Yotta (a banking platform) partnered with Omneky to improve prospecting
campaigns. GenAI enabled more personalized content production to maximize customer
engagement. This solution lowered lead generation costs and doubled conversion rates. 5
Though a lot of the current GenAI activity in marketing is focused on content outputs,
GenAI is also starting to be used to augment platforms for managing the marketing
pipeline. This includes content ideation, creation, production and testing, and analytics of
advertising materials (such as text, images, audio and videos).
Content creators are using GenAI to brainstorm new, creative ideas and create first drafts
of images, videos and text. Equipping the marketing department with GenAI will improve
time to market and reduce content production costs. By generating more marketing
material, faster, companies are able to improve client and/or prospect engagement and
acquisition — particularly when combined with rapid content testing and algorithmic
optimization techniques.
Example platform providers include Omneky and Pencil. Adobe recently launched a GenAI
tool for marketers.
GenAI-Enabled Conversational AI
Avatars
GenAI can be used for the creation of AI avatars using text-to-video technology. These
avatars are interactive and provide real-time responses to external engagements. AI
avatars include unique voices, physical features, facial expressions and body movement.
They are often accompanied by generated background scenes or branded products,
depending on the application.
AI avatars can be used across a variety of use cases and industries. Examples include:
■ A virtual news anchor, where videos of an avatar providing news updates are created
using GenAI.
■ A virtual assistant for sales and brand engagement. These AI avatars include a
conversational interface for user engagement, question and answering, and lead
generation. Avatars can also enable virtual try-on experiences. These use cases
primarily appear in retail organizations and manufacturers of consumer goods, as
well as in communications, media and services.
■ AI avatars for employee training and student educational videos. Here, the use of
GenAI increases content production and reduces production time and cost. These
use cases are in retail and manufacturing.
GenAI is being used in virtual assistant offerings to improve overall VA performance, such
as the ability to support question and answering, enterprise knowledge search,
personalized conversational journeys and more. It also adds new capabilities to VAs, such
as automatic email generation, augmented business intelligence (BI), image creation and
more.
GenAI-Enabled Simulation
Drug Discovery
Traditional drug testing routinely takes more than a decade, with a 90% failure rate and an
industry cost of around $6 billion a year. 7 GenAI is already being used to cut development
time below two years. The overall impact of these techniques is still hard to judge, as in
many cases lengthy clinical trials are ongoing, but it’s clear that GenAI is becoming an
essential part of the drug discovery process.
Examples of companies using GenAI for drug discovery include ChemPass, IBM and
Standigm.
GenAI for content discovery includes two use cases — search engine optimization (SEO)
and data and analytics (D&A).
GenAI is being used in SEO due to the emerging concern that LLM-powered search
engines will not surface company information. This is achieved by creating content
optimized to appear in search engine results to ensure visibility to end users.
Traditional search engines use keyword matching to surface user results to a query. LLM-
powered search engines identify a user’s intent and offer information and resources to
answer that question. If your content is not included in the search response, a user may
never know your company exists. GenAI for SEO seeks to address this concern.
Here, LLM generates content by using keyword analysis to generate, edit and optimize the
performance of new content against existing articles, particularly from competitors. For
example, Surfer SEO (a content optimization platform) is enabling this through a Jasper
Integration. 8
■ Financial Services — Analyzing financial data and text for financial reporting and
market analysis, to include the generation of images, charts and, in the future, 3D
animated visualizations.
■ Human Resources — Analyzing resumes from job seekers, as well as other hiring
and HR data.
GenAI is also being embedded into data and analytics platforms to extract relevant
content from images and videos, categorize data for searchability, conduct pattern
recognition and data classification, and generate visuals. These capabilities are
significantly improving the searchability and usability of data within organizations.
Examples of providers using GenAI to provide enterprise data and analytics insights
include Huma.AI and Coveo.
Implications for Product Leaders: Use GenAI for Human Augmentation, Not
Replacement
GenAI-Enabled Content Creation
Text
Currently, most organizations using LLMs are using a foundational model that is then
customized to the organization via fine-tuning, prompt engineering and data injection, and
the use of knowledge graphs and indexed vector databases. However, a handful of
organizations are training general LLMs using industry-specific data. Proprietary, industry-
specific LLMs will have improved accuracy and model performance, be embedded into
industry-specific applications, and support use cases targeted at solving key business
problems.
Code
With AI-generated code, what used to be a time- and labor-intensive task is increasingly
not. This means that developers can produce more code in less time, creating new
possibilities for software development within the organization.
However, GenAI can be used beyond code creation. It can be used throughout the coding
life cycle, to include testing, monitoring and maintenance of software. GenAI is also being
used for writing software documentation; software deployment and configuration;
translating from one programming language (a legacy system) to another (a newer
programming language); and refactoring and rewriting software for clarity, consistency
and maintainability. It is important to recognize this opportunity, as many organizations
are considering the role of governance and responsible AI in their GenAI deployments.
Tools to help enable this will gain significant traction over the next year, for both
performance and compliance reasons.
Images/Video
AI-generated images and videos is an application that has high growth and impact
potential. Though industry agnostic, this application will be primarily used by an
organization’s marketing and human resources departments for the creation of
promotional and training materials. By 2025, 60% of marketing departments will be using
some form of GenAI (such as image, video, audio, AI avatars or advertising platform
solutions), up from less than 10% in 2023.
Audio
GenAI for audio will support the creation of AI avatars, as well as support the proliferation
of content production (particularly videos). Though generative AI for audio is currently
focused on voice, it is expanding to include sound effects and music. Other emerging use
cases include:
■ Mimicking real life acoustics for virtual reality environments or enhancing immersive
gaming/media
However, generative voice does come with specific challenges. The ability to mimic an
individual’s voice using GenAI poses a security challenge to call center agents and other
companies that use voice biometric authentication. By extension, facial authentication
solutions are also much less secure. Audio generation for voice cloning poses a security
risk, particularly when voice biometrics are the only method of authentication. The use of
multifactor authentication can help improve security. Beyond call centers, the fusion of
voice cloning with video generation is resulting in deepfakes, which are impacting digital
media forums.
Generative AI content detectors are emerging to help address these issues. Though the
current focus of these emerging products is the detection of AI-generated text for
educational institutions, these solutions will similarly be developed for other forms of
generated content, such as images, videos and voice.
Advertising Solutions
Currently, marketing is one of the biggest use cases for GenAI. However, eagerness to use
GenAI has resulted in risk-prone usage environments. Based on Gartner’s GenAI inquiries,
a number of organizations are using LLMs, particularly ChatGPT, without any usability
guardrails such as data-handling standards or usage guidance.
GenAI does not produce wholly net new content, meaning some of the content may be
derivative of other sources on the internet. To prevent issues around copyright
infringement, GenAI-powered marketing solutions should include usage guidance. The
regulatory environment surrounding AI-generated text and images is still uncertain. Rather
than forfeit this use-case opportunity, create editing tools, techniques for flagging
derivative content and best practices around usage. This will help you and your customers
ensure future regulatory compliance, without compromising innovation.
GenAI-Enabled Conversational AI
Avatars
Virtual Assistants
Over the next two to three years, it will be challenging to provide competitive virtual
assistant solutions without large language models. In 2023 alone, most conversational AI
platform providers have embedded LLMs into their offerings or have added LLM-driven
capabilities to their product roadmap. It is critical for VA providers to identify ways that
GenAI can enhance their existing use cases by adding new features and functionality,
while mitigating cost and performance risks.
LLM-enabled opportunity must be balanced against perceived risk. Many use cases
remain internal-facing, such as VA for HR or sales support. This allows organizations to
test LLMs in a controlled way and keep a human-in-the-loop to monitor performance. B2E
(business-to-employee) use cases are lower risk than B2C use cases, though there are
measures to contain B2C interactions (for example, supporting document summarization
but not allowing the model to offer business advice to users).
GenAI-Enabled Simulation
Drug Discovery
GenAI is expected to play a significant and growing role in the future of drug discovery
and design. By 2030, the design and discovery of all new drug leads will result from some
use of GenAI, up from less than 1% in 2023.
As LLMs are good at processing large amounts of data, their use in content discovery
tools and platforms is expected to continue. Moreover, more of these models and their
applications are expected to be multimodal, expanding the number of tasks and functions
that can be performed. In addition to SEO and D&A, they will also be used to improve the
accuracy of search engines by enabling a higher degree of contextualization and
personalization.
Recommendations
■ Develop GenAI-enabled features to add to your existing software solutions by
identifying text- and data-heavy tasks where GenAI can augment human
performance and reduce operational inefficiency.
■ Avoid GenAI washing by developing scalable, sustainable use cases that deliver on
key performance indicators (such as time to market, cost savings and operational
efficiency).
■ Add GenAI to your product roadmap now, so as not to risk falling behind peers in the
conversational AI and D&A markets.
■ Plan for future GenAI opportunities in simulation-related use cases (beyond the
current activity in drug discovery) by assessing GenAI’s unique ability to deliver
business value in generating designs, predictions, digital twins and more.
Evidence
1
Evisort Announces Availability of Enterprise-Grade Generative AI for Contracts, Evisort.
2
The Wall Street Journal Uses Narrativa’s AI for Its News Automation, Narrativa.
3
Survey Reveals AI’s Impact on the Developer Experience, GitHub.
4
Mercado Libre Frees Developers’ Minds to Focus on Their Mission With GitHub, GitHub.
6
Mondelēz International | #NotJustACadburyAd - SRK’s Becomes Ambassador for
10,000+ Local Businesses, Rephrase.ai.
7
How to Improve R&D Productivity: The Pharmaceutical Industry’s Grand Challenge,
Nature.
8
Surfer SEO
This document is part of Gartner’s case-based research (CBR) for generative AI and
focuses on the application of this technology for AI avatars. The upcoming documents
will also explore generative AI applicability and tech innovators around drug discovery,
content generation and software coding.
This Gartner CBR project engaged a team of four analysts conducting in-depth interviews
and data collection over six months starting in July 2022. This project involved
completion of 50 interviews across 25 generative AI vendors globally and analyzed 70
adopter use-case studies.