By 2024, 80% of technology products and services will be built by non-IT professionals such as citizen developers, data scientists, and even AI systems that generate software.
That's according to new Trend Insight research by Gartner, titled “Tech Providers 2025 Special Report”, which aims to help technology service providers understand the long-term changes in their markets and how they can prepare for them.
Gartner distinguished research VP Rajesh Kandaswamy said that this trend will be driven by a new approach towards digital business, which “is treated as a team sport by CEOs and no longer the sole domain of the IT department”.
“Growth in digital data, low-code development tools and artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted development are among the many factors that enable the democratisation of technology development beyond IT professionals,” he added.
Gartner found that the pandemic has helped to bring down the barriers for tech developers outside of IT, allowing them to create technology-based solutions by tapping into the demand for specific pandemic-induced needs.
According to the research firm, COVID-19 has expanded the horizons of innovation and technology use cases: in 2023, $30 billion (£21.27 billion) in revenue is expected to be generated by products and services that did not exist prior to the pandemic.
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As a result, Gartner expects that the next 12 months see a number of high-profile technology launches from non-tech companies, including those in the financial services and retail sectors. The latter, in particular, is known to be creating IT-driven solutions more frequently and ambitiously due to increased digital transformation efforts.
“The availability of business technologists provides new sources of innovation and the ability to get work done. Thus, technology and service providers will need to extend their sourcing of ideas and technology development into new communities, whether they are based on citizen development, their own customer communities or other sources,” said Kandaswamy.
Gartner also found that total business-led IT spend now averages up to 36% of the total formal IT budget. Earlier this year, it was estimated that enterprise software would grow by 8.8% in 2021 as businesses seek to expand and improve remote work environments.
