Top Conversations in Technology for Marketers

Welcome to Top Conversations in Tech, where we isolate the hottest trends, falling stars and shifting market dynamics to help technology marketers maximize their relevance. This month’s data reflects news and blog citations in June 2024 versus May 2024 and June 2023. We currently monitor 200+ topics, with data and insights going back to March 2019.

Are you as trustworthy as Artificial Intelligence?

Every conversation in the Top 10 list experienced an increase of at least 20%: While AI held steady at #1 (up 47%), Multimedia jumped from #5 in May to #2 in June, Supply Chain went from #4 to #3 following issues with counterfeit materials entering Boeing supply chains unnoticed. From May, #4 Tech Compliance increased 124%, #7 Cybersecurity increased 71% and #10 Machine Learning increased 105%.

Raise your hand if you expected Artificial Intelligence (AI) to stay at #1 on the Tech Conversation charts? Keep your hand raised if you expected almost a 50% increase from May to June 2024. Remarkably, AI jumped from over 600,000 citations in May to just under 1 million (922,309) in June. Top highlights include:

• Humans might trust AI more than traditional healthcare systems as research shows that those who interacted with AI were more likely to pick up their medication;
• An Amazon (AWS) investigations regarding policy compliance and Perplexity data scraping;
• Municipalities providing workers with educational resources to balance the increasing adoption of AI in the workplace;
• Debate over the recent Toys ‘R’ Us ad that used AI–was it successful? A good use of AI?

With AI on top of so many minds, it runs the risk of turning into a boilerplate topic of conversation for most companies (let alone tech). The upside? The AI conversation will forever be multifaceted and continue to lead the way in terms of innovation, regulation conversations and more. The downside? It will be harder to stand out in such a saturated market where AI spans markets and industries. Conversations that tend to stand out capture nuanced aspects of artificial intelligence (e.g., its potential impact on elections, how it might influence society’s understanding of what is trustworthy, etc.) and ladder AI insights into these cornerstone conversations.

Alongside #1 Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning rose to #10 with basic educational pieces like “what is machine learning,”  the differences between Generative AI and machine learning, machine learning products (e.g., Uber) and more. The rise in machine learning and overlap between AI and machine learning tell a unique story: consumers crave information on how new technologies (1) fit within broader narratives and (2) differ from other key tech conversations. Will machine learning continue growing in the coming months or will another key concept related to artificial intelligence start to take center stage? The data in the coming months will tell us the long term trend: whether the rise in machine learning reflects an interest in machine learning or if the broader tech conversation is working overtime to parse out artificial intelligence, impacting secondary conversations, like machine learning.

Regulation conversations led to a rise in #4 Tech Compliance. Issues with organizational compliance with EU regulations (e.g., Apple) gained attention with a unique focus on how noncompliance affects other organizations. On the flip side, the rise of AI has led some organizations to create new career paths, like an AI Compliance Officer whose role is designed to ensure governmental and legislative compliance.

The Bottom Line

• There may be certain gains or benefits to consider when implementing or using AI. For example, the AI use case for the healthcare industry led to an increase in customer engagement via medicine fulfillment. On the contrary, the use of AI to create an advertisement received backlash and the concerns about AI replacing creative jobs grows stronger. How should society view the boon(s) of AI? It appears one of the key factors is the aura of impact – if the use of AI spans a certain number of people, does it become more dangerous? More useful?
• Issues and crises, like the Boeing supply chain issue or the Apple EU noncompliance, present opportunities as much as they unearth challenges. For Boeing, the core question of how did the counterfeit material get into the supply chain will undoubtedly be answered in a way that is relevant to Boeing, but that does not mean that the incident can’t inform future POVs.