O’Reilly urges world to get ready for a red-hot summer of AI

AI has never been hotter, says a new report from technology learning heavyweight O’Reilly, and the widespread interest in GPT-3 and its successor ChatGPT has created huge gains in interest around natural language processing (NLP) and deep learning. 

The data emerged in technology and business information publisher O’Reilly’s annual Technology Trends for 2023 report, which examines the most sought-after technology topics consumed by the 2.8 million users on O’Reilly’s online learning platform. 

The report shows that developer interest in generative AI is gaining momentum, with NLP being the most significant year-over-year growth among AI topics, reaching an impressive 42%. Deep learning also registered a notable 23% increase in developer interest. 

The report also indicated that developers have shown an increasing interest in content related to transformers, the AI model responsible for notable advancements in natural language processing. This trend reflects the impact of recent advancements in Open AI's GPT-3 and ChatGPT, and also demonstrates the anticipation for offerings from leading players like Google and Meta.

Growth for Go and Rust

Although Python and Java continue to be the most frequently used programming languages on the O'Reilly platform, the report discovered a substantial growth in interest in Go and Rust, with both experiencing 20% and 22% growth, respectively. The report suggests that if this growth continues, these languages could directly challenge Java and Python, which dominate the infrastructure-related languages market.

The research also identified that Microsoft Power BI was the most heavily used data tool, achieving an impressive 31% year-over-year growth, demonstrating its position as the leading business analytics platform. 

Apache Spark remained the most widely used data tool, while Hadoop receded into a legacy status. O’Reilly says these findings have significant implications for business leaders, who need to be aware of the emerging trends in technology to make informed decisions about investments and strategic planning.

The report also found:

• AWS remains the most popular cloud, followed by Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. The most popular cloud topics include cloud migration (45% growth), cloud service models (41% growth), and hybrid cloud (28% growth).
• Interest in coding practices experienced 35% growth, the largest jump among software development topics, indicating that developers are highly motivated to improve their programming skills. In the same topic group, quantum computing showed a 24% year-over-year gain.
• The two biggest security topics of the past year include zero trust (146% growth) and secure coding (40% growth), signalling a “shift left” toward bringing security awareness and responsibility into the earliest stages of the development process.
• Developers frequently looked to grow their “soft skills,” accessing topics around project management (47% growth), professional development (37% growth), and communication (26% growth).
• O’Reilly’s sharpest declines in search frequency were for cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Java 11.

“The results of this year’s analysis dispel any notion of an ‘AI winter’ and, in fact, AI has never been hotter,” says Mike Loukides, vice president of emerging technology content at O’Reilly. “The widespread interest in GPT-3 and its successor ChatGPT has created huge gains in interest around NLP and deep learning, which will only increase as the potential of these offerings grow and new projects appear. 

“The other big takeaway is developer interest in improving their soft skills, which speaks to more tech leaders scaling into business leading roles as technology permeates the entire organisation.”