Future of Work: 2023 Wrap-up and 2024 Predictions

Hello, and welcome to all 10,800 of you! 👋 🥳

It’s with huge joy that I’m able to say that we’ve surpassed the 10,000 mark with the Work3 community, with members from all over the world, working in different industries and facing so many diverse challenges. It’s been a challenging year for me and I haven’t been able to put in as much as I wanted in developing more content and keeping the weekly cadence, but it’s humbling to have received so much positive feedback and to have grown so much - making me even more motivated to do better next year.

For this edition, I thought it would have been useful to do a small wrap-up, listing the most read articles, and then jump into my predictions for 2024.

Last, but not least, a preview of what I’m planning to do for Work3 in the coming year, hoping to hear back from some of you with suggestions, inputs, and any feedback.

Let’s go! 👇🏼

📆 2023 Wrap-up

1. Datafication of Work

I like this one because data is what is going to power the future of work. It powered the digital transformation of businesses but somehow left behind human capital and human resource management. In this article, I list the types of data that are starting to be collected, the tools, and the type of changes they will power going forward.

2. Rise of Co-Bots (or Copilots)

This is an obvious choice: the future of work will see some work be done on autopilot (automated) and much more will be done with AI assistance (through copilots). This software will become the norm, whether through native apps (Microsoft) or integrated into our software of choice SaaS.

3. Exponential Organizations

AI will change how organizations are structured, and by how many people they’re built with. New organizational models are rising where 10 people will bring the same value that 100 did in the past. This is a guide that shows companies that have already paved this way, and how to get there in the future.

4. Death of Degrees

Clearly, my most click-bait title to date. No, they’re not going away completely, but yes, there is a trend to watch out for and that could be useful for universities and students to understand to be prepared for faster reskilling needs.

5. AI Leadership Roles

This one’s a mix: but a worthy mix of updates on hybrid work, future trends, GenZ, and the birth of AI leadership roles. Not comprehensive, but a good round of highlights that needed to make this list.

🔮 Predictions for 2024

Now, let’s enter the magic territory of predictions. If 2023 was the year when ‘AI broke’, 2024 will be the first of many years of consolidation.

I expect the hype to be still quite high, as the technology is only in its infancy, but a lot of startups will start to go bust and I think we’ll begin to see the light and rationalize a little bit what’s going on (i.e. a little more skeptical of its life-changing capabilities).

1. Generative AI Hype to Cool Down

Hype is going to be replaced by concerns over growing costs and regulation. Hot news is that the New York Times has been the first big publisher group to sue Open AI for copyright infringement (basically saying that the tool gives 100% copyrighted output from its content) and many will follow. It won’t necessarily bring any of these companies down, but it may be another way for Google to position itself ahead, if it’s able to introduce a new business model where it can benefit from Gen-AI in its products, but give back to publishers a cut of the revenue for example.

2. More Layoffs, but Workers React

Likely, the ‘efficiency’ trend snowball started by the tech Covid-hungover and Elon Musk’s brutal Twitter/X transformation which saw over 300,00 jobs being cut in the tech industry in 2023 will continue, although to a smaller extent. This time though, it could be the ‘quiet’ cutting where jobs are not opened, but more pressure is put on existing resources, emphasizing how AI and automation can solve for higher productivity. Whilst I’m a big believer in this technology and its effects in this sense, there is a widespread lack of understanding of real use cases, implementation strategies, and exaggeration of potential impact. This means that, as always, we will see employees pay the brunt of this on their skin - this time though I would expect the first AI-specific unions to be born, following up from what has happened in 2023 for writers and actors in the film industry.

3. AI Legislation, Ethical AI

Institutions always play catch-up with technology, especially in the US (with its ‘move fast and break things’ Silicon Valley mentality being appreciated and allowed) but regulation is coming. The AI European Regulation Act is mild, to say the least, but it’s a start and will have a sequel in 2024 - closely followed by further work in Ethical AI. The latter will be dealt with at a broader level but also will be started to be incorporated into individual companies’ mission/statements (Consulting firm PwC has released its ‘Ten AI principles’, for example). Customers and end users will want to see more of this transparency.

4. Web3 and Metaverse jump back thanks to the Fediverse

I haven’t talked and researched on Web3 in a while, but it hasn’t gone away and I believe 2024 will be the year when it jumps back. The real difference between Web3 and AI is in its user-friendliness and infrastructure complexity. Web3 requires a much deeper revolution in the functioning of the web and provides more long-term benefits, which is why it hasn’t gained as much traction as shiny AI tools that give magic-like outputs and have been given away for free overnight. I think developments in AI will accelerate Web3’s ease of use and the need for this kind of framework to exist. The need for decentralization is obvious when we see examples like Twitter/X and its terrible content management governance, or the accumulation of power with Large Language Models that gobble up all the data they can and then make huge profits on it. A good example of this is the birth of the ‘Fediverse’ (Federated Universe) which stands for “a decentralized network of interconnected servers, allowing users to communicate and interact across different social media platforms” where platforms like Mastodon, and Pixelfed are enabling. The announcement of Threads soon joining this bunch is important in giving visibility to this type of Social Media and leveraging Meta’s huge existing customer base for tests in Web3 integrations and services.

5. Distribution and Integration over Complexity

Of course, the technology will continue to run towards its goal of AGI and general improvement in AI model capacity and efficiency (cost, speed) but 2024 will be the first year where to make sense of all the chaos, distribution, and integration in core use-cases and products will matter most. This is where Google for example could have a comeback in its race against Microsoft and OpenAI, by being more able to bake AI in its products and distribute it to its users. Microsoft’s model is coming at a big price right now (Copilot, which is integrated into the Office suite comes at 30$/month - a price many companies and individuals won’t like to pay) and Google could find a way to keep this free while making advertisers pay for its costs. Smaller models, more vertical to use-cases, and industries will win in the long term.

🎯 Work3 in 2024

Hoping to borrow from the ‘build in public’ idea, I’m writing down and sharing with you for the first time what I’d like to do to improve Work3 in 2024.

Here we go:

1. Be more consistent with the frequency - My initial plan was to get an issue out every week, but I haven’t managed to always do that. In 2024, I plan to make this happen and to get it out always on the same day, so you know when to expect it in your inbox.

2. Develop more content types - I currently do either a roundup of news or a full-on deep dive. News are sporadic though, so probably not being very useful at the moment. I’d like to develop this type of content, by adding a dedicated issue on another day of the week, potentially being much shorter and faster to digest. I’ve also had the dream to start writing a book on this topic, plus release a Podcast with interviews. It’s a lot to bite on, so I’m afraid committing to both will see me come short, but one or the other is on my radar.

3. Be more useful - I’m happy many of you enjoy the musings and thinking I put out there, but I’d like to be more helpful in practical problems. This means:

   1. Opening up to some 1:1 / community ‘like’ events or calls

   2. Developing some sort of product (whether it’s a GPT, or an app, I don’t know yet) that could leverage the content I put out and my expertise for some specific use cases

4. Get to know the community better - I’ve done a bunch of calls with amazing people from all over the world, getting to know your perspectives, and co-writing some of the articles. In 2024 I’d like to do more of these because it feels so enriching and it makes me get out of my echo chamber, which is essential to developing better content.

5. Monetize the effort somehow - Buzz killer here at the end, I know. The truth is that I’m fortunate enough to have a good job as a digital marketer so Work3 is a passion project, but it would be hypocritical to say that I’ve never thought about monetizing my effort somehow. In 2024 I’d like to start doing this by bringing on some sponsors and bringing some paid content types if you think there’s a worth there. I know there’s a ton out there to choose from for your information diet, but this will push me to make it even better and to be able to get some help in getting some of the above across.

Keep in mind I do this in my free time after long hours at my day job and as a father of a toddler, so please have some patience if you won’t see it all coming together immediately, and even better please do reach out if you’re interested in helping or have topic requests, feedback and so on.

I look forward to growing the community to reach even more like-minded individuals interested in decoding the future of work in 2024. There’s so much happening that fear of missing out is becoming a given, and this is what I’m aiming to help solve for you, but also for me when I look out for what’s next.

The future is unwritten, and we - all of us - will be authors of that future. 🎶

Matteo