Tech Trends That Will Shape Latam IT Strategies in 2024

Digitization has transformed practically every industry in recent years. And thanks to digital solutions and platforms, companies around the world are now able to grow in an efficient and resilient manner during challenging times. But in the face of an overwhelming range of solutions, it is of the utmost importance for IT teams to identify the right partners for their needs, but also consider how to leverage timely trends so they stay up to date in competitive markets.

Unquestionably, one of those trends is artificial intelligence (AI). In a new report by International Data Corporation (IDC), sponsored by DocuSign, 35% of Latin America CIOs revealed that their organizations will adopt GenAI (Generative AI) in 2024, with the objective of ensuring an early advantage among their competitors. According to the report’s findings, by 2027, the region’s Top 5,000 companies will spend more than 25% of their IT budgets on AI initiatives. As a result, the product and processes innovation rate will increase by up to two figures.

Latin American companies should look at AI to allow customers to create their own personalized experiences. Expectations based on the report’s findings say that, by 2027, 40% of regional companies will offer this possibility by leveraging ubiquitous experiences, advanced data analysis, and GenAI. To achieve this goal, companies must promote a collaborative work culture, mainly between the IT, marketing and customer service teams, who must work closely to ensure a smooth and successful integration of traditional tools with the digital-AI powered solutions. 

But while companies are considering how to adapt to this trend, there is still a lot to understand in order to productively adopt those resources. As customers are a main business focus, AI can be a bridge to a new era of positive experiences. Digital solutions designed to help companies in making decisions based on customer data and preferences will play an important role to that end. Being able to offer true automated experiences anywhere will be a very competitive aspect of businesses. 

In the journey for AI implementations, a key element for companies to keep in mind when developing their new strategies is customer data protection. Trustworthiness and transparency are the most important and valuable brand traits for consumers. According to PwC’s latest trust survey, 79% of customers say that how companies protect their data is very important for building trust.

While the legal landscape is still elementary in that matter, many services should be integrated to AI capabilities to offer new resources and better experience. In this scenario, it's only natural that cybersecurity be one of the main budget buckets for leaders in Latin America this year (37.5%). The growing cybersecurity threats targeted at enterprises, changes in governance and cybersecurity regulations, and new compliance and data exchange regimes are among the greatest challenges to overcome.

In other words, data governance and security is as much a key trend as is AI, processes automation and customer experience. So, in this new intelligent age, companies need to invest in building a strong, resilient infrastructure to protect their customers and their own sensitive data, not only to comply with the changing regulations, but also to ensure the continuity of their operations before any challenging situation.

In addition to reinforcing or building a strong and resilient infrastructure, in preparation to fully take advantage of AI technology, companies must implement training programs for their associates to improve their skills working with AI tools, as well as establishing internal ethical guidelines for their use.

However, once the challenges in the landscape are enlightened, Latin American companies can foresee great benefits from moving in the direction of modernization, efficiency and intelligence: increased productivity, automated processes, and better customer experience, which could result in increased acquisition and retention, innovation in products and/or services, and leveraging data to create new digital income sources.

Following those trends should be a reason to influence increased income. By 2028, 75% of organizations consulted by IDC estimate that up to 60% of their income will come from digital products and/or services. Furthermore, 65% of companies in Mexico and 57% of companies in Brazil expect that their digital income will range from 49% to 90%. With commerce, services, finance and manufacturing as the most benefited sectors in the region.

It is no secret that digitization will only keep improving as the investment and adoption of digital solutions continue to increase, creating a virtuous cycle that will bring to life new opportunities and challenges. If Latin American companies wish to take advantage of all the progress the ICT sector will deliver, taking action toward integrating the right tools for their operations is fundamental, the risk is to fall behind while competitors offer smarter products and services, designed with customer satisfaction in mind, a growth opportunity that the region simply cannot afford to waste.