MoThoughts
2024 Educause Horizon Report-Future Trends & Technology
June 24th, 2025
Introduction
Below is a discussion of the 2024 Educause Horizon Report. Section I discusses a trend from this report – Technology is constantly and rapidly changing, along with a discussion of the legal/ regulatory and ethical forces that shape this trend.
Section II discusses a technology from the report – Privacy Enhancing Technologies and focuses on three categories of this technology as well as deliberation on the societal and technological forces that shape this technology.
SECTION I. New Media Consortium trend from 2024 Educause Horizon Report
The technological trend mentioned by this report is that technology is constantly and rapidly changing. The report notes that the five trend categories are social, technological, economic, environmental and political. Within the technological trend category, this report observed that a continuing trend is that technology is constantly and rapidly changing. The report acknowledges that technological change is accelerating and that AI will be a key element in increasing that acceleration (Robert et. al., 2024, Bulao, 2024, Ameen, 2025).
“AI is developing so fast that we can’t keep up especially-, but not only, on the regulation side” (Robert et. al., p. 11, 2024). Gaps in regulation which do not address AI risks are glaringly obvious and require corporate or government cybersecurity divisions to develop strategic policies and risk management plans until regulations are developed.
However reactionary and rules-based threat detection policies will not be able to keep pace with the speed of cyberattacks. The report recommends several methods for cyber-specialists to keep up with the constant and rapid change of technology,
1. Implement real-time adaptive approaches, those that use continuous monitoring.
2. Balance prevention and response technologies.
3. Ensure that support technologies and infrastructure is current.
4. Implement a sustainable user training program (Robert et. al., 2024).
The online report – How fast is technology growing (Bulao, 2024) provides startling statistics related to the speed and changes in today’s technology.
- “Over two thirds of the world is online. 5.64 billion people use the internet with some countries reaching 99% penetration” (Bulao, 2024).
- “94% of companies use cloud services” (Bulao, 2024).
- “AI is exploding across industries. The AI market will hit 390 billion in 2025 and reach 1.8 trillion by 2030” (Bulao, 2024).
 |
| AI now works for you- Technology is constantly and rapidly changing |
Trend impact forces
Two of the forces that impact this trend are legal/regulatory and ethical forces. Robert et. al., advises that the current regulatory landscape does not include AI risk factors (2024).
Ameen informs us that despite the “…competition in research, infrastructure and industrial application for the new technology is intensifying. But at the same time regulations are struggling to keep pace with rapid development in some regions. This raises concerns about ethical risks, economic inequality and global AI governance” (2025). The United Kingdom and Europe had taken a stance to regularize AI development and use, the United States is balancing regulation and innovation, and China is heavier on innovation with some recent regulatory policies being passed. This uneven approach to AI regulatory creates instability when discussing a global position (Ameen, 2025).
Ethical forces related to AI development also consider the inequality created by unstandardized regulation. Wealthier markets are ability to take advantage of the many benefits of AI while less fortunate areas are left behind. Privacy concerns, malicious uses, changes in job markets are also present serious ethical concerns. “Ensuring that AI development benefits society as a whole will require a strategic approach to skills, education and governance” (Ameen, 2025).
SECTION II. New Media Consortium technology from 2024 Educause Horizon Report
The panelists who contributed to the 2024 Educause Report selected Privacy Enhancing Technology (PETs) as one of the technologies and practices of note which would have an impact on cybersecurity now and in the near future. (Robert et. al., 2024). Tolentino describes PETs as, a combination of software and hardware systems which are designed to analyze, share and test data securely (2024).
Further research led me to choose three types of PETs which are listed below along with one example.
1. Homomorphic Encryption -allows for computation on encrypted data. For example – Microsoft Seal (Tolentino, 2024).
2. Differential Privacy - implements statistical noise to datasets before analysis and release, which protect individual identities. For example – Google Rappor (Tolentino, 2024).
3. Zero -Knowledge Proofs -allows sensitive data to be quickly authenticated without displaying private contents. For example – zk-STARKs (Tolentino, 2024).
These three PETs can be used across multiple industries in healthcare, financial services, government and work to create a safer space for operating when handling or storing personal data.
Technology impact forces
Two forces that impact Privacy Enhancing Technologies are societal and technological. In the current data rich environment, corporations, governments and other data holders and processors create an ever-expanding attack surface. Tolentino states that “as regulations expand and data volumes explode; PETs adoption is accelerating from nice to have to must have” (2024). Increasing demands in today’s society for private data as identifies for applications and services create a high value commodity that requires the correct, technological solutions for the maintenance of confidentiality, integrity and authenticity.
References
Ameen, N. (2025, April 23). Developments in AI need to be properly regulated as the world scrambles for advantage. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/developments-in-ai-need-to-be-properly-regulated-as-the-world-scrambles-for-advantage-248404
Bulao, J. (2024, January 2). How fast is technology growing? (58 Key stats for 2025). TechJury - Tech Insights, Reports And Analysis. https://techjury.net/industry-analysis/how-fast-is-technology-growing/
Robert, J., Muscanell, N., Arbino, N., McCormack, M., & Reeves, J. (2024). 2024 Educause Horizon Report: Cybersecurity and Privacy Edition. In Educause (ISBN:978-1-933046-21-1). https://library.educause.edu/resources/2024/9/2024-educause-horizon-report-cybersecurity-and-privacy-edition
Tolentino, T. (2024, March 17). Top 10 privacy enhancing Technologies & use cases in 2025 - Marketing Scoop. Marketing Scoop. https://www.marketingscoop.com/ai/privacy-enhancing-technologies/
