Evidence from 2024 strongly supports Jason’s prediction that a key trend would be efficiency via AI tools plus aggressive use of lower‑cost global remote talent at roughly one‑third of U.S. cost.

1. AI tools explicitly adopted to boost efficiency in 2024

   • A 2024 survey of 3,000 American managers by Beautiful.ai found that 66% said they were adopting AI tools specifically to enhance worker productivity or improve efficiency, and 90% had already introduced AI into their own workflows; 68% were encouraging employees to use AI if it helped them perform better. (beautiful.ai)
   • Tech.co’s 2024 “Impact of Technology on the Workforce” report found that businesses heavily using AI tools were much more likely to report high productivity (72%), and that digital collaboration + AI tools were now “key to increasing productivity.” (allwork.space)
   • An HR-focused summary of the same manager survey likewise reports that most managers are bringing AI into the workplace to drive productivity and efficiency, not just as a curiosity. (thehrdirector.com)
     Collectively, these show that in 2024, using AI for efficiency was not fringe behavior—it was a central management theme across companies, consistent with Jason’s framing.

2. Remote hiring/outsourcing to cheaper geographies surged in 2024

   • Deel’s Global Hiring data, reported in Nearshore Americas and other outlets, shows that demand for remote Latin American tech experts “leapfrogged” in 2024, with U.S. companies actively “scouring the region for talent.” Remote hiring growth was striking: Chile up 67%, Colombia 55%, Mexico and Argentina 54%, Brazil 53%, all versus the prior year. (nearshoreamericas.com)
   • A 2024 hiring-trends piece on Colombia, relying on Deel’s Global International Hiring Report, notes that Colombia stayed in the global top tier for remote hiring, with the U.S. and U.K. among the main countries hiring Colombian professionals for tech and other skilled roles. (colombiaone.com)
     These are exactly the kinds of cross‑border, remote knowledge‑work arrangements Jason was describing, and they clearly accelerated in 2024.

3. Cost arbitrage at roughly one‑third of U.S. rates is empirically accurate

   • A 2025 Deel–Carta compensation report (with 2024 data) shows median engineering/data salaries in India at $36k in 2024 versus $122k in the U.S.—Indian pay is under 30% of U.S. levels, i.e., roughly one‑third. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
   • A LinkedIn post citing 2024 Glassdoor and regional data highlights that Indonesian and Vietnamese senior developers deliver comparable work at “one‑third the cost” of Silicon Valley engineers, giving U.S. figures around $175k versus local ranges of about $48k–72k. (linkedin.com)
   • A 2025 salary analysis (drawing on 2024 ranges) compares senior software developers in the U.S. at $120k–$150k to similar roles in Latin America at $40k–$60k, again around one‑third to one‑half the U.S. cost, with some roles and countries showing even larger gaps. (weknowinc.com)
     These data points match Jason’s claim that startups can often hire remote talent abroad for about a third of the U.S. cost.

4. Putting it together: was this a major 2024 startup/company trend?

   • On the AI side, multiple 2024 surveys show broad, management‑level adoption of AI explicitly for productivity and efficiency, across industries—not a niche experiment. (beautiful.ai)
   • On the global talent side, Deel’s large data set (hundreds of thousands of contracts) and the coverage it received in 2024/early‑2025 describe remote hiring from Latin America and other lower‑cost regions as a core way companies—especially cost‑sensitive firms—are building teams. (nearshoreamericas.com)
   • Contemporary analyses of LatAm vs U.S. salaries explicitly frame this as a strategic play for startups and fast‑growing product teams to get high‑quality talent at far lower cost, confirming that cost‑efficiency via global remote hiring had become mainstream startup advice by then. (weknowinc.com)

There is nuance—AI adoption was uneven (e.g., many employees reported confusion or even reduced productivity, and some regions like French SMEs were slower to invest). (forbes.com) But Jason only claimed this would be a leading trend, not a universal practice.

Given: (a) widespread 2024 use of AI specifically for efficiency, (b) strong documented growth in remote/offshore hiring to lower‑cost regions, and (c) salary differentials that are indeed around one‑third of U.S. levels in many cases, Jason’s prediction about the dominant 2024 trend of AI‑driven efficiency plus global labor arbitrage is well supported by the evidence.