2024 Generative AI Trends: Let’s DELVE Into the Details 🚀

ICYMI last week: Amazon is in hot water over union-busting behavior.

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In today’s ever-changing business landscape…

Last year most people were wowed by what generative AI could do. Then came the prompt engineers, the AI agents, and the looming threat of losing our jobs to LLMs that can’t tell how many Rs are in the word “strawberry.”

What changed in the past 12 months, and what should we expect next year? Here are the highlights from Menlo Ventures’ new report: The State of Generative AI in the Enterprise 👇

Businesses spent 6x on generative AI compared to 2023 – from $2.3 to $13.8 billion.

And now organizations are shifting from “experimentation mode” to execution mode, which means AI will become even more embedded in business strategies.

Where did AI spending money come from?

• 60% from innovation budgets (not a surprise since adopting generative AI was largely experimental last year)

• 40% was sourced from more permanent budgets

• 58% of the money sourced from permanent budgets was redirected from already existing allocations

Where are companies using AI the most?

• Coding copilots for software development/engineering teams

• Support chatbots for internal employees and external customers

• Enterprise search + retrieval and data extraction + transformation to connect data and information across organizational silos

• Meeting notetakers and summarization 

Which departments are spending the most on AI?

What should I look out for in 2025?

• Software-as-a-Service will transform into Services-as-a-Software – aka software operating like service providers, not just tools. 

• Software Goliaths will have to fight AI-native newcomers to keep their market share.

• There will be a fight for AI talent, and those folks will be able to demand a premium salary. 

Should I worry about being replaced by AI?

The report found that most companies are currently implementing AI to augment existing human workflows, not outright replace them. However, there are always going to be extreme examples—like Klarna laying off around 1800 employees to replace them with AI this past August. 

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Boeing and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

Oh, you thought you were having a bad year? Trying being Boeing…

January

• A door plug is expelled from a Boeing 737 Max 9 taking off from Portland, Oregon, resulting in an order from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground and inspect all aircraft in that model. Luckily, no one was hurt. 

• Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, reported finding loose parts on their grounded 737 Max 9 jets.

• FAA says it will audit Boeing production.

• A Boeing whistleblower comes forward.

February

• The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirms bolts were missing from Portland flight.

• The head of Boeing’s 737 Max program departs the company.

• FAA tells Boeing to come up with a plan to address quality control issues within 90 days.

March

• FAA bodies Boeing after a six-week audit that found it wasn’t complying with quality control requirements.

• Boeing “loses” important documents relevant to the ongoing investigation.

• The Boeing whistleblower is found dead in his vehicle.

And that was just Q1!!!

This week, the company announced layoffs in Missouri, Washington, and Arizona. And Boeing’s new CEO, was quoted in an all-hands meeting saying “We are at a low here, folks.” and “Everybody is tired of the drumbeat of ‘what’s wrong with Boeing?’ I’m tired of it and I haven’t been here that long.”

So yeah, going into next week let’s just all be thankful we’re not Boeing… 🙏