This year was a case study for how impossible it is to predict what will happen in the world of tech. Famous musicians staged a walkout from Spotify, the world’s richest man took over Twitter, the world’s richest man made a mess of Twitter, the “safest” crypto exchange collapsed and its former CEO was arrested and charged with numerous counts of fraud. 

Despite these surprises, half the fun of reflecting at the end of one year is guessing what will come in the next. So we’re going to try our hand at it … again.

Here are seven predictions for the tech industry in 2023.

The metaverse will break out from under Meta’s shadow

The metaverse is much more than Meta’s troubled pet project, and in 2023 will start to receive the recognition it is due—in all its variety and possibility. Through its first year in the limelight, the metaverse was overshadowed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s own vision, which includes legless avatars, unwieldy VR headsets and massive take rates on the sale of digital assets. So when The Zuck was inevitably chastised, much of the criticism fell on the underlying concept itself.

Conflating the metaverse with Meta is like conflating social media with Facebook. Maybe at the tech’s onset, doing so was understandable, but soon new platforms and developments came onto the scene and shed light on how expansive social media can be. Next year, the same will begin to occur for the metaverse.

The most impressive advancement in AI will create a physical output

AI has been on a tear in the past few months with the rise of the DALL-E image generator and ChatGPT chatbot. Both of these systems, built by OpenAI, hinge on the interplay between a querying user and the AI software, creating a digital output. In 2023, this dynamic will reach new heights by enabling the creation of a physical output.

Imagine standing in front of an AI system hooked to some kind of manufacturing arm, like a 3D printer, and querying it to produce an object that has never been produced before. It’s sort of a combo between the imaginativeness of DALL-E and the practicality of ChatGPT, but with its own physical twist. When everyday users see AI generating crazy items in the real world, there will be no going back.

Twitter will face a massive diaspora 

In 2023, Elon Musk’s chickens will finally come home to roost. Users, mass numbers of users—even some of Twitter’s most active users—will throw in the towel on the platform as the bot issue becomes overwhelming, the lack of site maintenance renders its services unusable and Musk’s worsening attitude once and for all drives his leadership into the ground. (Full disclosure: this prediction was submitted even before 58% of respondents to Musk's own poll voted for him to step back from his leadership role). 

The most infuriating part of this reality will be the absence of any competitive platforms that could scratch the itch created by Twitter. Mastodon was interesting for all of five days, but it’s too sober and too fragmented, while other alternatives like Post and Hive Social aren’t even worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as Twitter. 

Of course, a social media heavyweight could step in and try to fill the void. Meta, apparently and unsurprisingly, has already considered doing so. Might TikTok or Snap step in with a new microblogging product? The answer is doubtful, especially as the promise of ad dollars remains unclear amid a tough economy. 

Apple’s ad business will explode in popularity

In 2023, Apple will finally take steps out in the open to expand its ad business, and marketers will be chomping at the bit to get involved. The tech giant has historically been quite secretive about its ad business, humbly pointing to search ads in the App Store as its only skin in the game. But throughout the year there were signs that Apple was looking to grow its ad business, namely, through job listings that detailed a demand-side platform and “innovating on some of Apple’s most confidential and strategic plans.”

The secrecy will not last much longer, and soon Apple will begin providing advertisers new ways to buy media by tapping into the ad potential of its various products. Expect integration with Apple TV and Apple Maps, as well as programmatic opportunities within apps themselves. 

If Apple is looking to take maximum advantage of the economic slowdown, it could even develop a sophisticated supply-side platform for publishers. This would round out its ad business a la that of Amazon and Google, and propel services revenue far beyond its current track.

The scrutiny of digital privacy will expand beyond the internet

Digital privacy’s primary touchpoint with mass consumers has been in the realm of the internet, where tech giants like Facebook and Google indisputably maintain control over absurd amounts of customer data. Here’s a shocker: Internet companies aren’t even close to the only ones who exploit you for your data. This will become far more widely understood in 2023.

Highly trusted entities like Apple leverage troves of data on their customers, as do connected TV services, health applications, morally dubious financial firms and cloud companies. Brands, too, are responsible for persuading consumers to surrender their data whether they truly know how it’s being used or not. 

As people become more data literate, they will realize just how important their data is to a wide variety of entities. This is scary, but should also be empowering because you have something so many companies want. The time is nigh for users to come to the table and renegotiate the collection of their data on their terms, and with privacy top of mind.

Crypto will have another tough year

Not financial advice! The prices of crypto assets will stay depressed in 2023 as macroeconomic headwinds continue to impact riskier investments. There was a sliver of hope when the November consumer price index showed less inflation than expected, but a few days later the Federal Reserve doubled down on its hawkish position, raising interest rates and suggesting a higher target interest rate for 2023. Translation: The economy has a lot more shrinking to come.

Of course, there are a million things that could move prices in the opposite direction. Maybe a large government fully shows support for the crypto space, or the bug bites enough new investors to spark high demand. Alternatively, a million and one things could go wrong (i.e. the collapse of a major exchange), so please, please do your own research before making investments and don't rely solely on this flimsy prediction.

TikTok is here to stay

TikTok isn’t going anywhere in 2023. Concerns have mounted recently that the platform’s China-based parent company may be pressured by Chinese government officials to surrender U.S. user data, spurring lawmakers to propose action. But TikTok says otherwise, and so far there haven’t been any major instances of them being proven wrong.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew appeared at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit last month, where he defended the platform’s data protection mechanisms and said the company is in the process of moving U.S. data to Oracle’s cloud system. His presence and the nature of the conversation indicated good faith (as compared to the conversation with FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried later that day), and assuming he’s telling the truth, U.S. officials should be appeased.

It’s also worth pointing out that young Americans love TikTok, and if they were to lose it, there would be a firestorm of feelings of distrust and misrepresentation. Something akin to the backlash of taking a teenager’s phone, but on a national level. Does that sound like something politicians want to deal with?