5 trends for AI innovations in 2024
What’s driving AI startups? Learn more about the current developments and trends for AI innovations in 2024 and how they influence startups – directly from leading AI-experts and successful founders from the gate.
As a founder, you should be flexible, as plans are often as unpredictable as decisions in Game of Thrones. Some lead to a heroic victory, others to an unexpected plot twist. “Adaptability and a willingness to learn continuously are crucial to succeed in this new era,” says Dr. Daniel Carton, founder of gate alumnus BotCraft.
In order to be best prepared, we would like to look into the future. But as we can’t do that, we interviewed industry experts and our startups from the gate. Their different points of view have resulted in some corporate trends in AI innovations in 2024: Germany, with its numerous AI start-ups, would actually have the potential to become a pioneer. However, market fragmentation and a lack of capital in Germany are impeding progress in the AI sector. The USA dominate AI investment, which means a challenge for European start-ups. In addition, the reluctance in exchanging data and the challenges of data collection limit the development of advanced AI models in Europe. Nevertheless, the technology offers huge growth opportunities for startups by offering unique solutions and automation. The experts we consulted believe that the proper support by platforms and institutions is crucial for the success of AI startups.
MARKET FRAGMENTATION AND LACK OF CAPITAL INHIBIT PROGRESS
If you are realistic about the situation, Germany is already dragging behind when it comes to AI development. The exact figures vary. However, roughly 5 percent of VC investments flow into European AI-startups, which means that about 95 percent of value creation takes place abroad. However, in order to remain competitive and train our own AI models based on our own data and values, we need this capital in Europe. Currently, an vast majority of the companies we are in contact with use basic models from the USA. – Dr. Philip Hutchinson, appliedAI Institute for Europe
In the AI-sector, we are facing challenges in Germany that primarily manifest in the fragmentation of the European markets. Another obstacle is the far lower diversity and availability of investors and early-stage-financing in Europe compared to the USA. – Antoine Leboyer, TUM Venture Lab Software & AI
PROPER SUPPORT DETERMINES KI-SUCCESS
We either get left behind even more or we catch up with it. Startups can join forces in the AI Startup Landscape with the appliedAI Institute for Europe, for example. This is both a database with the best AI-startups in Europe and a community to bundle voices, carry out analyses and a place in which startups can generate leads. The selected startups are given access to matchmaking events, for example, where large companies from all over Europe are brought together in a target-oriented manner with suitable AI startups. Numerous accelerator programs are currently being created specifically for startups in the field of generative AI, providing access to large-scale resources and computing capacities via European providers. – Dr. Philip Hutchinson, appliedAI Institute for Europe
Despite all the challenges, we have made remarkable progress, especially due to the EXIST program, which offers significant support to German startups. This change is confirmed, amongst others, by the fact that VCs are contacting us, inspired by the exciting developments they see in Munich. Although there is still a long way to go, the direction we are moving in is a positive one. – Antoine Leboyer, TUM Venture Lab Software & AI
TREND FOR KI-INNOVATIONS: TAKING ADVANTAGE OF GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
The progress of generative AI is rapid and the potential for value creation is correspondingly high. The AI-sector offers startups enormous growth opportunities by developing innovative business models. While some startups find that simple concepts are easily copied by large companies, the key to success is in creating unique solutions difficult to replicate.
Another exciting field is the development of more and more powerful agents that take on specialized tasks along the value chain. These agents are able to link different applications and design AI-controlled workflows. Although they do not completely replace humans, they relieve them of repetitive tasks. As a result, the role of humans shifts to monitoring and quality control of results, allowing them to concentrate on more mentally demanding and creative work areas. – Dr. Philip Hutchinson, appliedAI Institute for Europe
The chance for all of us to use AI-systems to deliver results at almost zero cost is a technological revolution we have rarely seen. One of our TUM Venture Labs startups used AI to explore the benefits of their technology, which has led to identifying the oil and gas industry as an unexpected target market. They were able to develop use cases with high ROI. A LinkedIn blog post quickly resulted in five demo requests. This example shows how AI can effectively help startups develop markets and demonstrate the value of their innovations. I can’t predict the future. But I do know one thing for sure: the founders who exploit the potential early enough will be the ones who get the farthest. – Antoine Leboyer, TUM Venture Lab Software & AI
The increasing automation of traditional work areas by means of AI technologies opens up enormous opportunities, in particular for start-ups. With significantly less staff, we are still able to generate revenue that rivals major corporations. At BotCraft, we test AI-solutions for software development and are already leveraging this advantage for our clients. We help them to use AI in their technology. In this way, we offer products that our customers can use plug and play – a competitive advantage “off-the-shelf”. On the other hand, our experienced developers become much more productive by using AI, which saves significant costs. For example, they use prompts such as “build me a function as efficiently as possible” or “make my code faster in execution”. The effectiveness with which companies integrate AI into their operational processes is crucial to their success. Pioneers such as Microsoft and OpenAI are impressively demonstrating how the integration of AI can operationalize and revolutionize software development. – Dr. Daniel Carton, BotCraft
Our daily productivity is significantly increased by using AI. For example, we use GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT to support our coding. While GitHub Copilot supports us with luxurious code completion, we use ChatGPT in order to find errors and optimize our code. These AI-tools are particularly useful for time-consuming and monotonous tasks such as creating complex regular expressions or implementing object-relational mapping techniques. In addition, we use AI-based tools such as Zoom Meeting Summaries to help us prepare for meetings and also use ChatGPT for evaluating and creating contracts. – Jens Technau, Cockpit-IT
TRAINING DATA ARE AN IMPORTANT FACTOR
The restraint of European industrial companies when it comes to data exchange, characterized by a conservative attitude, limits the development of advanced models. Groundbreaking solutions can only be developed with access to unique and high-quality data. This is therefore an enormous opportunity for German SMEs. However, the unwillingness to share such data currently remains a critical obstacle. – Dr. Philip Hutchinson, appliedAI Institute for Europe
RESILIENCE, ABILITY TO TAKE CRITICISM AND DETERMINATION
Looking at the qualities most important for founders in AI and all other industries, resilience, ability to take criticism and determination are on top of the list. I am always impressed by the founders we work with: Their determination and entrepreneurial spirit are in no way behind other countries. These successful founders never give up. That is their secret. – Antoine Leboyer, TUM Venture Lab Software & AI
As Antoine Leboyer says: “ In the end, the success of AI-startups not only depends on technological innovation, but also on the mental strength and resilience of the founders. The determination to keep going despite setbacks and to keep learning will be the key to surviving in this fast-moving industry. Support from incubators such as gate Garching, the appropriate networks, investors and funding programs is essential in accordance with the trends in AI innovations 2024. The future belongs to those who boldly move forward now and fully exploit the potential of AI.