Don't worry, I'm not going to give you yet another article about the day-by-day successes of the team in 2022. Last year, I didn't write an article about the transition to the new year, and the one on 2020 to 2021 was more focused on resilience in the face of the crisis, specifically the COVID crisis at the time.
The Past (for us)
2021 and 2022 were exceptional years in many ways. From a self-centered perspective, we raised funds for Babbar in mid-2021, and I'm proud to say that by the end of 2022, we have a company that is running smoothly and paying all its staff. Of course, there are always things we can improve, starting with our products, but also our way of working and sometimes even how we communicate. But overall, we're pretty happy with what we've achieved over the past two years.
On the historical ix-labs side, training programs were largely put on hold (though they've been back since December), while the publishing activity, under the fantastic leadership of Lucie, remained at a very good level.
There will be new developments in 2023, particularly in our tools and training programs. However, the purpose of this article is not to talk about us but to discuss the broader situation.
The Future (everywhere)
2022 was far from peaceful, with the Ukrainian invasion starting as early as February. The psychological and economic context is particularly bad: confidence is at an all-time low, inflation is high, and operational costs are skyrocketing, fueling this inflationary spiral.
It's essential to understand the cascading effects this creates: take, for example, rising energy costs, which increase the cost of renting servers in data centers. Some operators (like us, for instance) then decide to buy, which increases demand while supply decreases due to rising energy and raw material costs. This leads to higher machine prices through simple market logic, adding to the overall increases, and this is how price hikes sustain and amplify themselves.
At some point, some companies can no longer keep up, leading to layoffs and eventually closures.
This is the context for 2023. It’s a bit grim, but we must not lose hope. Every company needs to adjust its strategy to grow or at least survive. Pricing, communication strategy, supply purchases, and production equipment acquisitions must all be carefully considered. At our level, we’re seeing a significant shift among our clients, who now contract for one or two full years, avoiding future price increases and ensuring access to essential tools (an expense that might not be prioritized if the situation worsens).
For individuals, the employment situation is becoming increasingly uncertain. This, too, will be a significant change in a sector like ours, where, in recent years, employees have held the upper hand (in terms of salary and employability).
As often happens, this means there are opportunities for those who can (or are lucky enough to) seize them. Whether by taking advantage of a lull to gain new skills or by launching bold projects, there are always things to do in these somewhat challenging times.
Finally, 2023 promises to be an exciting year for one last, much more technical reason. It's a pivotal year for so-called "artificial intelligence" technologies. I won't dwell on the term—it's the one society has chosen—but we can all agree that some impressive technologies have emerged in the past two years, and we'll finally see what we collectively make of them.
Will we just churn out low-quality content en masse to flood the web? Or will these technologies serve the common good as tech optimists hope? Only time will tell, and likely in the near future.
In the meantime, we’re already seeing the disruptive power of a still-prototypal tool like ChatGPT (I'll be discussing this topic very soon in Reacteur, the professional newsletter of Abondance), even though it’s only been around for a month.
This brings me to my conclusion: we can see that the world has been changing for the past two or three years. It's changing due to old-school shocks (wars, diseases—these are not new concepts) but also because of techno-ideological shocks, and AI is entirely in this realm.
In short, don't think I'm pessimistic; I remain optimistic, though realistic about the challenges ahead for all of us. I wish you all a great New Year. Don't overdo it on the champagne!
