Insights and Innovations: Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2023

Gartner recently held their annual IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando and Barcelona, respectively. We attended both events, a jam-packed four days of learning, dynamic conversations, and innovative sessions. It was great showcasing our latest capabilities, reconnecting with our clients, and witnessing first-hand the demand for Internet resilience within the broader community. In this post, we’ll dive into the key takeaways (wear good trainers, trust me) and the trends shaping the future of IT and business.  

The machines are coming!  

Unsurprisingly, the foremost theme of the Gartner Symposium was the rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and its impact on enterprises. Speaking in the opening keynote in Orlando, Don Scheibenreif, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner emphasized that GenAI will soon infuse everything we do, stating, “AI is not just a technology, it’s not just a business trend, it is actually a profound shift between humans and machines and how they interact.”  

Key stats:  

• By 2025, generative AI will be a workforce partner for 90% of companies globally.
• By 2030, 80% of humans will engage with smart robots on a daily basis.

Source: We Shape AI, AI Shapes Us: 2023 IT Symposium/Xpo Keynote Insights  

In the opening keynote, Gartner advised CIOs to play a leading role in defining their organization's AI ambition, stating, “As a CIO, you must engage the whole executive team to chart the course for using AI in the organization.” Gartner’s analysts also introduced an AI Opportunity Radar, which they encouraged all companies to work through, deciding with the broader enterprise what flavor of AI to focus on.  

Two flavors of AI:  

1. Everyday AI is centered on productivity and helping us do what we already do but faster. According to Gartner, 77% of CIOs and tech leaders are focused on the opportunities of Everyday AI.  
2. Game-changing AI is focused on creativity, capable of creating new products, business models, and whole new industries.  

In either case, Gartner encouraged corporate leaders to make their AI Ambition a top priority and become AI-ready within the next 12 to 24 months to maximize the technology's benefits. “Now is the time to put the AI Opportunity Radar in front of your executive team. Decide where you will — and will not — play,” explained Distinguished VP Analyst Mary Mesaglio.  

While encouraging participants to take swift action, Gartner pointed out that AI currently resides at the peak of the Gartner Hype Cycle and is expected to plateau within the next two years before descending into the trough of disillusionment.  

“By 2028, more than 50% of enterprises that have built their own large language models (LLMs) from scratch will abandon their efforts due to costs, complexity and technical debt.”  We Shape AI, AI Shapes Us: 2023 IT Symposium/Xpo Keynote Insights

Gartner advised companies to seriously consider how integral AI is to their organization's strategy and the potential of game-changing AI driving them out of business.  

Noteworthy highlights  

AI remained at the top of the agenda throughout all four days of the Xpo, encompassing topics like managing AI risk and issues around GenAI and cybersecurity. Here are other noteworthy insights from the event, including Gartner’s top strategic predictions for 2024 and the future of the cloud.  

Gartner’s Top Strategic Predictions for 2024 & Beyond  

Leigh McMullen, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, outlined Gartner’s top strategic predictions for 2024 and beyond:  

1. AI makes us seem better than we are.  
2. AI productivity shifts geopolitical balance.  
3. The real value of neurodiversity spikes.  
4. Energy-aware operations are a competitive advantage or a major failure risk.  
5. GenAI supercharges legacy modernization.
6. Robot workers outnumber people.
7. Machine customers force CEOs to embrace new channels.
8. Malinformation is a multifront threat.
9. CISOs get more power.
10. Unions of people form to combat machines.

‍Catchpoint at Gartner

In our opinion, Gartner’s concerns and AI insights harmonize with our approach to using this cutting-edge technology. One of our recent blog posts showcasing our improved AI capabilities stated, “At Catchpoint, our philosophy is that AI should not be adopted simply for the sake of AI itself. Instead, it should be embraced when it proves to be the most effective solution for addressing a particular business challenge.” In line with this philosophy, the tools we showcased at the Xpo demonstrate how we leverage cutting-edge AI technology to address specific business challenges.  

Innovative AI-powered tools we showcased at the Xpo

Fully embracing the Game-changing flavor of AI, our use of the technology to create new products and categories is genuinely innovative, none more so than Internet Sonar, which we showcased at the Xpo. This groundbreaking tool uses data from the world’s largest, independent, active observability network to monitor hundreds of the Internet’s most popular services for outages. The millions of daily tests we run on this network result in billions of datapoints that are turned into actionable information by our AI analytics engine. The result is an AI-powered, real-time, interactive status report that can be displayed via an interactive map, a dashboard widget, or accessed by any system via API.    

Catchpoint Tracing emerged as another popular tool that we demoed during the event. The latest addition to our Internet Performance Monitoring platform, Catchpoint Tracing enables end-to-end monitoring of distributed applications no matter where they are deployed – on physical devices, virtual machines, and containers. It enables businesses to analyze resource usage, troubleshoot issues, and debug applications rapidly by providing granular insights into all interactions between services and associated resources like databases, caches, queues, streams, and more.

‍Exploring the Path to CX Leadership with SAP

One of the highlights of our participation at the Xpo was our joint session with Martin Norato Auer, Vice President of Observability at SAP Customer Experience (CX). Martin delved into the essential components needed to become a CX leader and explored the synergy between Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and CX within this context. It was enlightening to hear about SAP’s journey, starting from the monolithic CRM era, progressing to independent cloud solutions, and now embracing a composable strategy – according to SAP, the future of CRM.    

Gartner events are always a valuable platform for us at Catchpoint, providing a rich environment for learning, connecting, and exploring the ever-evolving landscape of IT. This year's Symposium/Xpo was no exception, offering AI insights that are already transforming our approach and strategies.

Speaking of the fusion of technology and humanity, meet our new robotic companion, Catchy, who we adopted at the event in Barcelona.  

Catch him at our next appearance at a Gartner event. We look forward to seeing you.  

To get up to speed with our latest AI capabilities, read The Future of Operations: AI-powered Internet Performance Monitoring.