Technological changes can make or break huge industries. Throughout history, a graveyard of colossal companies have failed to adapt to technology or have been rendered redundant in the face of significant technological change. On the contrary, entirely new multi-trillion-dollar industries have emerged because they’ve pioneered innovative technology.
You only have to look at the world’s top companies to get a taste of this, whether Nvidia with its groundbreaking AI development or tech stalwarts like YouTube, Apple, and Microsoft. While many of these companies feel like they’ve been around for a long time, they’ve eclipsed and swallowed many challenger companies or titans of yesteryear.
YouTube’s taking colossal revenue and audience from traditional media companies is one example, as Blockbuster is now defunct due to Netflix’s unstoppable growth. However, in 2024, which industries face the age-old battle of accommodating technological changes and moving with the times?
Casino & Gaming Industry
To say the casino gaming industry is facing significant technological changes probably wouldn’t be the correct terminology. Few industries and businesses have been able to embrace, utilize, and champion the emergence of new technology the way casino gaming has.
While they’re at the forefront of many of these changes, it’s still a challenge for the top names to consistently identify what technological advancements are on the horizon and develop their business plans accordingly. If they don’t, dozens of budding new casinos are desperate to get a slice of the burgeoning multi-billion-dollar casino gaming industry.
Casinos have adapted well to several key changes throughout this century. They’ve effortlessly glided from the internet to mass smartphone adoption and, more recently, to mobile device gaming, virtual reality, and AI implementations. These have resulted in constant changes, allowing the industry to attract fairly lucrative and sustained investment.
With a solid commitment to implementing new technology, iGaming staples such as new casinos will always look to incorporate it. If they don’t, they face an uphill struggle to survive in such a competitive industry. While new casinos might try to innovate or create a niche, like new payment methods or new slot gaming ideas, many of the technological changes in casino gaming are deep-rooted in broader industry impacts, and it’s more of a collective pull rather than one or two pioneers driving the change.
Although there have been minor exceptions to this rule in the past, the casino gaming industry is at the precipice of many technological changes due to its being so intertwined with global tech changes. It’s proven that it can utilize them in the past, and not many people doubt they’ll have any issues moving forward, either.
Artificial Intelligence – The New Sheriff in Town
Discussing significant technological changes without addressing the big AI-shaped elephant in the room would be pointless. All industries will have to adapt to the all-encompassing AI changes that are on the horizon. While other technological changes will play some part, it’s AI that everybody has their eye on.
You can often gauge an industry’s prospective potential by the market leader’s performance – and Nvidia overtaking Google is a huge indicator of where the wider industry is headed. Many economists believe they will soon overtake Apple, which speaks volumes about the colossal changes on the horizon.
No industry will manage to dodge the impact of AI—finance, healthcare, manufacturing, education, cybersecurity, and coding are already witnessing massive changes. However, as the sheer volume of innovation and investment continues to soar in AI, it feels like it will drive the bulk of technological change.
Print Media & Journalism
Not many industries have struggled the way print media and journalism have because of the internet. Although many of the world’s top companies have emerged solely because of the internet, print media faced a significant uphill challenge from the start—they faced a perfect storm of cheaper, convenient online news and a total saturation of the market, meaning that people could find abundant amounts of news that most appealed to them.
Instant online news also meant that many newspapers and journalists could no longer put together finely crafted, researched, and written stories about topics that had happened a day or two before. Social media sites, videos, and images are now the dominant way that people seek out their news. Although some of the more prominent news sites have been able to adjust in time and still maintain their size via digital subscriptions and a strong online presence, technology continues to pose significant risks to the industry.
Continued, relentless challenges from grassroots media on YouTube, a flurry of fake news circulating on social media fueled by AI, and increased issues surrounding legitimate, well-sourced media are posing threats to a centuries-old industry. They could be the final nail in the coffin, especially for print newspapers. The industry has been bleeding out, suffering significant losses, and is very much operating on empty in this digital-dominant world we now live in.
Finance, Investment & The Blockchain Revolution
Finance takes up a significant slice of several countries’ GDP. It’s often at the epicenter of technological changes, with many big investment banks and hedge funds driving technological investment from the ground up. However, there have been startling developments in finance, too, courtesy of blockchain technology, which has driven the exponential rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies over the last decade.
Cryptocurrency, at its very essence, is a technological change that has the potential to shake the traditional banking and financial industry to its core. Given that there is now a host of Bitcoin ETFs that institutions are using to invest in digital assets en masse, blockchain technology could soon revamp the foundations of how financial institutions deal with core structure ideas.
This includes cybersecurity, proof of purchase, vastly reducing cost and time in overseas currency transfers, and NFTs, which provide proof of purchases on the blockchain without involving teams of cybersecurity experts or other traditional security guarantees.
Cryptography and blockchain technology mean that it’s secure, verified, and immutable on the blockchain, and it doesn’t require the expensive or heavy maintenance of cybersecurity encryption, which is what many traditional institutions use. While this won’t happen overnight, more prominent financial companies are warming to the idea, and with the number of these companies holding Bitcoin and cryptocurrency increasing, you’d expect to see blockchain play a more pivotal role in financial security and changing the way the financial sector operates.
Final Thoughts
While finance and print media are arguably the two biggest industries facing the most drastic change, AI will play such a monumental role that it will transform the world as we know it. How deep these changes will go is anyone’s guess, and although companies like Nvidia have experienced a colossal upsurge in their prices, this will likely cool off at some stage as regulation comes into play. Those significant funds that have profited significantly from AI will look to realize some of their profits.
One thing is for sure, technology will continue to significantly impact the development of global industry. It will continue to render more traditional companies surplus to requirements and create profitable, innovative subdivisions. Those companies and sectors that are unable to adapt or refuse to remodel their approach in light of such change are in for a challenging task.
