Amy Webb’s 2023 Emerging Tech Trend Report Keynote at SXSW 2023

It’s the end of the internet as you know it.

-Amy Webb

For better or worse, the future is here!

The amazing futurist Amy Webb is the founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute and a professor at NYU Stern School of Business. Her SXSW keynote is always a favorite where she releases her Tech Trends Report, and this year marks the 16th edition of the famous report which is downloaded over 1 million times every year. She provides a data-driven analysis for the emerging tech trends that need to be on your radar – and she shows scenarios that will change your perspective on the possible future.

This year’s report highlights a whopping 325 trends from everything from energy, robotics, data, privacy, and security to artificial intelligence.

She shared that the days of the internet as we know it are numbered. She reinforced that we need to be active participants in determining how we want this technology to be in society as it can go a few different ways, one that benefits a few or one that benefits all. WE have a lot to do to ensure that we are co-creating the world we want to live in.

Her keynote is a must-watch to get a pulse on where we are and the future possibilities depending on how we as a society decide to move forward.

This is the moment we go from fiction to reality.

Amy Webb

A.I. is Invention of the Steam Engine for this Generation

Here are some excerpts from the executive summary of the 2023 Trends Report:

• AI is a force multiplier on technological progress because it is an enabler of other technologies and powers the evolution of business, government, and society.
• We have entered the “text-to-everything” era. Soon, we will use natural language to operate and interact with computers rather than graphic user interfaces (GUIs).
• If the 2010s were known for perception AI—systems that sensed signals such as images and text—to understand the world around us, the 2020s will be known for generative AI. These systems not only sense and understand the world but can also generate new content, concepts, and ideas while communicating with us.
• In the next 18-24 months, generative AI will be incorporated into consumer applications. Already, Canva, the popular online graphic design tool, has integrated Stable Diffusion in its platform. Microsoft has incorporated OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 image-generating system into its Microsoft Designer and Image Creator applications, which is a big upgrade to clip art. Google’s Bard includes an API to encourage developers to start building new products. Notion, the freemium productivity and note-taking web application, uses LLMs for assistive writing.
• General-purpose models will be commoditized in the near-future. This will lead to large language model (LLM) features being integrated into every app. The first players to succeed in the space will likely be creative apps, and all of them will have LLMs as a backbone to inspire and augment human creativity.

Download and check out the full report which she included in her Amy Webb SXSW 2023 Digital Swag Bag for SXSW attendees. More information is also on the Future Today Institute’s website.