by Terry Chen
I wrote these notes at the end of 2023 with a simple filter. What will feel obvious by summer 2024 to people doing the work. What will actually move budgets. What will change how a city looks when you walk through it. The list is short and practical.
AI adoption will be real in back office work and real in user facing tools where the error bars are honest. Teams will keep the human in the loop for decisions that affect money, safety, or reputation. The quiet win will be workflow glue. Data entry reduced, reconciliation sped up, and retrieval that respects privacy and context. The big public demos will be fun. The value will live where an assistant reads the room, not just the document.
In markets I expect rate relief to arrive slowly and to be uneven. The first move in many companies will not be hiring. It will be maintenance. Old systems will be upgraded. Backlogs will shrink. The companies that used the slow period to clean house will move faster than people remember they can. The firms that learned to tell the truth about cost will have room to price with care instead of panic.
Consumer behavior will reward durability and clarity. The brands that explain what they do in small words will win share from brands that use mood as a business model. In cities where rents remain high I expect more practical luxury. Fewer status purchases that live in closets. More goods and services that make daily life feel competent and humane.
Fashion always tells the truth about attention. High fashion in 2024 will keep borrowing workwear and schoolwear because both say something stable about the body and the day. Street fashion will simplify fit while playing with color in very small places. Cuffs and collars and stitch lines. Loud prints will stay in rotation for weekend events. The weekday silhouette will look tidier. You will see this most clearly on subways and in studio elevators where the uniform is almost a sign of care for the work.
I expect a new patience for craft from the tech world. The best teams will rediscover the joy of small releases that add up. They will publish fewer manifestos and ship more receipts. The hiring market will value highly literate generalists who are kind and can carry weight across product, data, and operations. Titles will matter less than posture. People who can write clearly will be asked to do so often.
The best signal that these notes are on track will not be a headline. It will be small changes in what you see when you sit down in a meeting. Fewer slides. More documents. Shorter calls. More quiet work that respects the room. When that begins to happen, the rest will follow because attention is the real currency of an organization and 2024 will reward people who spend it well.