Predictions: Onymos Reflects on 2023 and Looks Ahead to 2024

As December progresses, it’s an ideal time to not only contemplate the events that shaped 2023 but to envision the possibilities that lie ahead in 2024. 

Our founder and CEO, Shiva Nathan, made a number of bold predictions in 2023 — from the increased need for better app development processes to how geopolitical events would impact cybersecurity. While reflecting on those predictions, we found most of them had come true. 

What Came True in 2023

Let’s take a look back at his thoughts from 2023 and see what actually unfolded this year:

“Economic Cycles Will Push Companies to Focus on Optimization, and Companies Will Focus on Creating More Efficient Application Development Processes Amid Changing Economy and Budgets”

It is no secret that 2023 was a tough year economically for many enterprises, pushing them to do more with less. This caused a number of challenges, which were reflected in our 2023 Application Development Survey. The results indicated that 70% of application development leaders were dissatisfied with the amount of time their engineering team has for innovation, while 56% reported that the workload for updating apps is increasing year to year. These findings highlighted a greater need for optimization and efficiency.  

“Developers Will Begin to Take a More Active Role in Project Decision-Making”

Based on insights gathered from our team, our colleagues in the technology industry, and our customers, there’s a noticeable shift towards developers playing an increasingly pivotal role in decision-making processes. With their expertise, developers possess the unique ability to envision the functionality and performance of software, predicting how features and functionality will operate. This underscores the need for enterprises to continue to involve their development teams in the strategic planning of software and application projects.

“Current Geopolitical Environment Will Cement Security as Top Priority for Companies”

The geopolitical turmoil in our world has led to numerous cybersecurity incidents in 2023. The critical importance of data and systems to enterprises and governments today has made these facets top targets for bad actors and cybercriminals. That’s why we’ve seen the continued investment and prioritization of cybersecurity processes and measures among organizations. In fact, according to Deloitte, “54% of companies with $5 billion or more in revenue are spending more than $250 million annually on cybersecurity.” The heightened emphasis on security is expected to continue not only in 2024 but also in the coming years, driven by the escalating sophistication of bad actors and the ongoing criticality of data and systems to both business and government operations. 

“Password Alternatives Will Begin to Gain Traction But Won’t Annihilate the Traditional Authentication Method Yet”

The password still remains the tried and true method of authentication for many of the most popular software and applications. For example, Google made some progress in the fourth quarter of this year with their passkeys, but many people are still using the default password method. The journey towards passwordless will continue to move on incrementally in the next year, and we wouldn’t bet on that changing drastically in the next few years, either. 

“Metaverse Technologies Will Remain Just Hype, While the Adoption of Digital Transformation Technologies Trends Higher and Higher”

The Metaverse has not seen a lot of growth in 2023. Last year, Shiva had predicted that “there will not be any mass adoption or game-changing impact,” and he was very right about that. Even Meta itself is downplaying the Metaverse as it shifts more of its resources to AI projects to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.

What to Expect in 2024 

We recently had another conversation with Shiva to gather his insights on the upcoming trends for the technology industry in 2024.

Here are the six significant trends he foresees shaping the industry:

1. There Will Be a Greater Focus on App and Data Security for Government Technology: In response to escalating cyber threats and increasing digitization within government operations, a palpable shift towards prioritizing app and data security is paramount. Governments both here in the U.S. and around the world will intensify their efforts, allocating substantial budgets and resources to fortify cybersecurity infrastructure. One way in which we will begin to see governments take action in 2024 is by moving towards utilizing third-party software providers that work with a no-data architecture. This type of architecture offered through certain providers is ideal for government entities as it ensures full ownership and control of their data remains with them. 
2. The Technology Industry Will Still Remain on the Long, Arduous Journey to Passwordless: Despite progress made in 2023 with updates from Google and others related to passkeys, the progression towards a passwordless future will remain slow in 2024. The gradual progress in this journey can be attributed to user behavior patterns and a myriad of other factors, including the challenges that application and software providers will encounter while integrating new login measures. Nevertheless, this won’t hinder major platform players such as Apple and Google from persisting in their rollout of passkeys. The mandatory introduction of these passkeys will prompt app and software providers to actively seek solutions for seamlessly integrating these new security measures into their offerings.
3. Alternatives to Low-Code/No-Code Will Continue to Gain Traction: While low-code/no-code tools have gained popularity for their rapid development capabilities, concerns regarding scalability, customization, and the ability to handle complex functionalities will drive enterprises to seek out new, pro-code tools. These tools, including Features-as-a-Service, enable enterprises to continue rapid application development and empower them to focus on the complex features and functionality that will set them apart from the competition. They do so by offering a wide range of out-of-the-box common functionalities (such as chat, location, and access) and granting them full ownership of licensed source code. This provides enterprise engineering teams with the flexibility needed to tailor features and functionalities to meet their requirements. 
4. IoT and IoMT Will Remain “Internets of Threats,” But Enterprises Are Taking New Steps to Ensure Their Security: The Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) are increasingly being adopted by enterprises and organizations across a wide range of industries. Because of the connections these ecosystems have with devices and software, such as those related to patient monitoring in healthcare, the monitoring of critical infrastructure, and logistics in transportation, they are high-value targets for cybercriminals. In the year ahead, we will see enterprises and organizations take steps towards ensuring the safety of their IoT and IoMT ecosystems through in-depth audits of their third-party software and hardware providers, maximizing their ownership of their data by understanding who and what has access to it; and avoiding vendor lock-ins and ensuring they can extract as much of their ecosystems as possible from third-party access.
5. A Critical Priority for Cybersecurity Professionals Will Regaining Ownership of Their Data: Following yet another year of cybercriminal activity targeting software solutions containing troves of enterprise and consumer data, many cybersecurity professionals will intensify their efforts toward reclaiming ownership and control over their data in 2024. This will begin by assessing all current third-party software and hardware providers they contract with for their systems and development efforts. And, because many of today’s top software vendors have access to some – if not all – customer data, cybersecurity professionals will initiate work with their IT teams to identify providers that offer no-data architecture, full ownership over licensed source code, and are compliant with SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI DSS standards.

To hear more thoughts from Shiva, check out our Onymos and industry news page.