GISCafe Industry Predictions for 2024 – Rendered

By Chris Andrews, COO & Head of Product, Rendered.ai

Chris Andrews,

In 2024, we’re likely to see an intensification of some of the themes that carried us through 2023. There have been some surprises, such as the rapid rise of near-ubiquitous Generative AI and increasing conflict in the Middle East, but those could also be seen as intensification of events and trends that were already started.  Geospatial technology will continue to be a bright spot in helping us to solve problems and mitigate future risk, but it’s a tool that also needs to accompany policy change and action that maximize its utility.

Climate and Security continue to concern us

Climate change is here and there’s evidence that the rate of global heating is accelerating, though we won’t know if this is really the case until enough data can be gathered over time to achieve statistical veracity.  The impacts of climate change are one contributing factor of several that are driving up global conflict and unintended population migration. Geospatial technology is going to be increasingly cemented in the toolsets of agencies and organizations who are on all sides of climate and security management and action. With power for good, such as the ability to use geospatial tech to help plan for and recover from disasters, and with power for ill, such as the news that (surely spatially aware) autonomous drones are starting to be used in conflict zones, the geospatial community needs to come together to ensure that our tech is being used to provide the greatest ethical and scientific value possible.

Spatial Computing flops commercially

Speaking with a few analysts and industry experts, there seem to be two sides watching the Spatial Computing trend, those who are fans of geo-connected XR and those who realize that technology is just a tool. The hype created by Apple around the term “Spatial Computing” and their announced headset seems to ignore the reality that spatially enabled XR already exists in a more user-friendly form factor on the mobile phone. For most consumers, the hyper awareness of everything around us is mostly a gimmick or distraction. In a time when most people are trending toward less invasive social media and tracking, the idea that spatial computing devices will be worn on our heads by everyone in everyday life is unlikely. There’s no doubt that geospatially aware XR experiences will continue to be adopted in professional industrial applications and that VR will be persistent in the gaming and entertainment industries.

Imagery and 3D everywhere

The triple impact of exponentially increasing sensors in space, sensorization of devices all around us, and the increasing capabilities of reality capture workflows, we’re going to see the use of imagery, radar, lidar, and other sensor modalities to begin approaching a 3D continuous view of the Earth. Those attempting to shoot for this ubiquitous globe will still be confounded by the patchy nature of captured sensor data compared with actual applied need, however we have already seen that gap closing as more types and amounts of data are captured every year.

Democratization of ML/AI with low/no-code tooling

Python programing, as much as I love it, isn’t the greatest form factor for everyday users to adopt a new technology. With the flashy appearance and practical applications of Generative AI, and Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in general, we’re seeing pushes from vendors and open-source groups to create more user-friendly tooling for everything from creating chatbots to building interactive sketching apps powered by generative tools. Geospatial vendors are increasingly exposing ML/AI tools in their analytical engines, such as work with Meta’s Segment Anything Model being done by several teams, including Esri, but the intersection of low or no-code storytelling and app building tools with sophisticated analytics from GIS vendors is just beginning. In 2024, we’ll see a rise of smart analytics apps that can be built by just about any organization adopting geospatial and which will become part of a continuously increasing stream of data gathering and collection tools across every real-world industry.

About Author:

Chris is COO and Head of Product at Rendered.ai, helping customers overcome the costs and limitations of using real-world data to train computer vision AI systems. Chris previously led a team at Esri responsible for 3D, AEC, Defense, and Urban Planning products. Prior to Esri, Chris was the lead product manager for Autodesk’s InfraWorks.

Category: GIS Industry Predictios

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2024 at 5:46 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.