Welcome to Star's monthly newsletter - Star Radar. 

At Star, we are committed to crafting digital products and platforms that help our clients transform, grow and prosper. Our newsletter offers you strategic foresight and practical guidance that accelerate your digital journey and transform vision into reality. Drawing perspectives from Star's experts and our endgame thinking, we help you navigate the evolving landscape of emerging technologies, discerning between fleeting trends and enduring strategies.

Together, we will go beyond headlines, examining these trends both from a macro lens and through a practical viewpoint. We hope to provide you with perspectives that integrate strategic insights and actionable steps, helping you cultivate a more sustainable approach to your business decisions.

On behalf of our team of digital innovators, product creators and industry experts, I'm excited to serve as the Editor-in-Chief. Looking forward to embarking on this journey with you. 

Happy Holidays and see you in 2024!

Kim Soerensen,

VP of Strategy at Star

Generative AI is having its App Store moment

ChatGPT recently had its 1-year anniversary, and what a year it’s been. The chat interface to their industry-leading LLM has brought generative AI to the masses, and triggered an acceleration in investment, progress and adoption in the generative AI space.

The ensuing massive increase in availability of generative AI tools has made a similar impact on accelerating the democratization of digital innovation. Coding co-pilots, image and video generators, no-code app builders, and a slew of other tools are lowering the barrier for millions of people without technical or creative skills who aspire to launch their digital venture. 

But what about accelerating digital innovation specifically for creating generative AI solutions? The next stage of the generative AI rocket is no-code tools that enable the creation of custom generative AI agents. In essence, building your own tailored ChatGPT. OpenAI recently announced ‘custom GPTs’, and similar offerings are available both from large technology incumbents and from startups.

Easy-to-build custom AI agents present a paradigm shift for innovation in the generative AI space. It enables anyone to rapidly experiment with AI agents and explore verticalized use cases. Entrepreneurs can swiftly validate product-market fit to help raise capital and build their own solution, while established players can efficiently gauge market demand before dedicating more significant resources to commercialization. 

From an ecosystem perspective, the implications are even more pronounced. The emergence of app-store-like generative AI platforms will result in a crowded market of custom AI agents, raising the bar for creating product differentiation through some combination of superior data, models, UX, and vertical focus. And similar to Apple’s App Store, we should expect to see a long tail of narrow use case AI agents built by independent AI agent creators.

So what’s next? Monetization models for the platform owners and the creators have yet to be developed. Regulation could alter any and all aspects of the generative AI space. The barrage of new custom AI agents into the market could impact the overall quality (whether real or perceived) and possibly cool down consumer appetite.

While we ponder those big questions, I will be tinkering with building my custom AI agent. Will you?

Technology highlights of this month

Strategy to execution: A road to technology-driven sustainability

COP28, the UN's annual climate change conference, marked a turning point as governments have agreed for the first time ever to transition away from fossil fuels, aiming to mitigate the severe impacts of climate change. Nevertheless, there is a noticeable slowdown in the commitment of sustainability investment by businesses due to recent challenges, such as energy security issues, political concerns, and greenwashing.

Corporate leaders today stand at a crossroad - either waiting for regulatory enforcement or proactively creating a more sustainable future. Those that transparently commit to green practices at the board level and integrate sustainability across operations will gain a competitive advantage. Proactive steps signal to consumers, investors, and employees a genuine commitment to environmental responsibility.

In this landscape, the intersection of sustainability and technology becomes pivotal as organizations are balancing the previous process-driven approach with a technology-driven one. Under the broad umbrella of green IT, integrating product development practices that enhance the sustainability of digital solutions is essential.

Has your company considered how your technology choices can champion sustainability? If not, here's how we suggest you get started:

1. Sustainable coding 

Every line of code carries an environmental footprint. According to University of Washington research cited by Forbes, ChatGPT queries alone can consume energy equivalent to that used by 33,000 U.S. households, totaling around one gigawatt-hour daily. Adopting energy-efficient coding practices and optimizing data storage lead to significant environmental benefits. Imagine a future where all developers embrace a sustainable approach to coding. Actively engaging in sustainability community foundations, like the Green Software Foundation, is vital for fostering collaborative efforts aimed at establishing new industry standards for green software engineering.

2. Sustainable design principles

The way technology is designed significantly shapes its environmental impact. Sustainable design, exemplified through Green UX principles, guides users towards eco-friendly behaviors. By simplifying experiences, optimizing user journeys, and employing effective prototyping and testing to reduce data usage, sustainable design actively contributes to crafting a greener digital landscape. Beyond enhancing user eco-awareness, it becomes a proactive approach aligning with environmental goals while improving the overall user experience and reducing the digital carbon footprint.

3. Buying vs. building

In the pursuit of sustainability, IT leaders face a crucial decision: whether to build custom solutions or opt for existing ones. Each choice carries distinct sustainability impacts, not only concerning immediate environmental effects but also influencing long-term sustainability outcomes. Moreover, it is imperative to assess the "green" return on investment, aligning these choices with the company's environmental goals - a comprehensive environmental impact analysis associated with each technological choice should be conducted. 

In the ongoing pursuit of net-zero goals, many IT leaders are undergoing a profound evolution, directing their focus towards critical pillars such as energy optimization, e-waste management, and sustainable sourcing. With over 80% of net-zero measures either already implemented or planned within three years, IT serves as a powerful catalyst, propelling corporate sustainability efforts forward and ultimately contributing to a more sustainable future.