Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is set to become a staple topic and technology for us to keep an eye on in 2024 and beyond. While the concept of AGI has been around for some time, it wasn’t until 2023 that we started to see the first sparks and potential existence of the technology in the real world.

For context, AGI is the next stage of artificial intelligence, also known as Strong AI. What sets these systems apart from current AI is the ability of these intelligent systems to operate across domains, learn, adapt, and out-compete most humans at almost any task. These systems are closer to what we think of as true AI compared to the traditional recommender systems or chatbots we have become accustomed to.

Many of my colleagues and I believe that AGI will start to show up in more solid forms in 2024 and onwards, with a high-speed innovation cycle as they develop. While some professionals in the industry are skeptical of AGI (and with good reasoning), I believe they are underestimating the capacity of companies such as Deep Mind (Google), Anthropic, Infleqtion, Cohere, OpenAI, Meta, and numerous other companies working on the development of AGI.

The development of AGI will fundamentally reshape the geopolitics of the world, labor/work, military power, economics, and the pace of development of humanity. Far from something that will happen in 50 years, we must be properly prepared in government, business, society, and our individual lives to flourish as AGI enters every part of the world.

Quantum Computing had several significant breakthroughs in Computing, Quantum Hardware, and Quantum Software that are taking the technology from the lab into the real world. No longer the domain of just the largest companies like IBM, Amazon, and Google, startups worldwide are raising massive rounds of capital to fund the development of applicable quantum technologies for companies.

Different from classical computing, quantum computing uses Qubits (instead of bits) that allow for the computation of highly complex problems that would be unsolvable by a classical computer in millions or billions of years. In contrast, quantum computers can solve these classically unsolvable problems in minutes and sometimes seconds, which opens up a whole new realm of possibilities.

In concrete terms, developments in quantum computing will likely lead to significant advancements in R&D for health care, material sciences, medicine discovery, cancer, protein folding, climate tech, cryptography, communications, and artificial intelligence (quantum AI), to name just a few. Each advancement can change entire industries dramatically, launch new trillion-dollar companies, and change how we work and live our lives in countless ways.

At the same time, the development and deployment of these powerful computers will impact cybersecurity/traditional cryptography, weapons systems, and the development of super-powerful AI and AGI. Governments, companies, and individuals alike need to start thinking about these issues carefully. Especially in the use of post-quantum encryption.

Quantum Computing will be one of the defining aspects of Nation-State and corporate superpowers. Governments, businesses, and investors must focus on these technologies as they accelerate in 2024 and beyond.

Nearshoring in North America is the most fundamental shift in geopolitics, global economics, and the history of globalization. For the past 70+ years, the world has been globalizing and interconnecting unlike anything in human history. But this is ending in many industries due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, geopolitical tensions with China, a revanchist Russia, war in the Middle East, and increasing trade nationalism of countries.

Nearshoring is the process of bringing supply chains back to the country of destination and to close neighbors (also called Friendshoring.) When companies (and governments) take these actions, new factories and facilities are built to support the development of the new supply chain. At the same time, old suppliers and factories must be repurposed, shut down, or find alternative clients in other markets to compensate for the loss.

A prime example of government and private industry nearshoring can be seen in the Chips and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act passed during the Biden Administration to help improve supply chain resiliency as tensions with China over semiconductors, AI, Taiwan, and geopolitical influence continue to percolate during the hot peace between the two nations. In this case, the United States wants to ensure consistent access to advanced semiconductors that currently only come from TSMC in Taiwan. Companies like Intel are developing semiconductor foundries in Arizona with other parts of their supply chain in Mexico.

It will take 15-20 years for the United States to have complete supply chain independence from China. It would be a similar story for other regions looking to secure their supply chains for crucial technologies and resources in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, another pandemic, broader conflict in the Middle East or Europe, or other issues that will undoubtedly arise around the globe in the future.

For as much as technology like AI, AGI, and Quantum will shape the future of the world, so will the shifting national and regional priorities hold massive business opportunities, risks, and challenges. Governments, companies, and investors alike will need to readjust their strategies for a world that will look very little like the one we have known during our lifetimes.

AI Copilots are a relatively new concept that will shape how we live and work. Starting in 2024, we will see a broader deployment of intelligent agents to assist in high-value jobs and then cascade down into almost every job imaginable to work alongside employees in real time.

Copilots are AI systems that are built on Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Llama (Meta), BERT (Google), or any of the other LLMs being developed by cutting-edge AI firms such as Deep Mind or Infleqtion. The copilots built on these systems can be trained to complete any task with propriety information from the company and the individual employee. Individuals using a copilot at work could have the productivity of 10 or 15 non-AI-enabled co-workers.

This shift in work and productivity represents the first divergence between the non-AI natives and the AI native workforces and organizations. Organizations of all sizes and industries need to start the process of AI enablement of their workforces and foster the development of copilots to transition successfully into the future, where AI will be the deciding factor. For leaders who don’t start their transition proactively in 2024, the competitive gap between enabled and non-enabled firms will become almost insurmountable in most industries.

To give a clear example, a company with 30 fully AI-enabled staff would have the productivity and revenue of a 300 to 450-person team without the corresponding costs. This means higher profits, more opportunities, and the development of true asymmetrical advantage in the market since these ratios compound exponentially as they grow.

The copiloting revolution is already taking place; for example, we developed Professor McEthical to co-teach my graduate Artificial Intelligence course at EGADE and work with my 70 MBA students 24 hours a day from their phones or computers to complete their assignments, design projects, answer questions they would have emailed me, and reason through problems. In numbers, handling all 70 MBA students took roughly 30 minutes a week outside of class.