Eight technological trends
The digital tsunami that threatens to devastate the companies that happen to get on the wave of transformation will have it very raw to survive technological progress is going at a hellish pace.
In the head tend to distance the large firms in the sector. In the hunting squad they dispute a getaway, but from one year to the next there are few novelties that are detected. The digital tsunami that threatens to devastate the companies that happen to rise to the wave of the transformation will have it very crude to survive.
So in the heat of the tide, you can catch some trends that are well worth following. Those that have gained most impact for a while and that will become more relevant as of next year are focused, at their base, on triggering the models of Artificial Intelligence, the unpretentious support of robotics, the beginning of the explosion of the era baptized as “Internet of Things” or the constant pedaling of “blockchain” services.
A report by the consulting firm Gartner highlights the main strategic technology trends that will have the greatest impact and will affect most companies in 2018. Some of these, with great disruptive potential, are already starting to float to a greater or lesser extent, but the forecasts suggest that interest will accelerate in the coming months. They are expected to grow rapidly and become the turning point that will consolidate their adoption within five years. “Technology managers must take these trends into account in their innovation strategies or run the risk of losing ground to those who do,” David Cearley , vice president of Gartner , said in a statement.
Artificial intelligence to make decisions
That artificial intelligence plays an important role in the industry we already knew. That the models of “machine learning” or “machine learning” have evolved rapidly, too. As we also know that there is still a long way to go. Hence, companies should base part of their business on this technology. They must exploit it to achieve optimal business results.
The creation of systems that learn, adapt and potentially act autonomously will be a great battlefield for technology manufacturers at least by 2020. The ability to use it to improve decision making, reinvent business models and ecosystems, will be the daily bread until 2025, when it is consolidated. “Artificial Intelligence techniques are evolving rapidly and organizations will have to invest significantly in improving their skills, their industrial processes and achieving tools in order to successfully exploit this technology,” Cearley estimates.
Smart applications and analysis
In the coming years, the study stands out, practically all applications, applications and services will incorporate some level of Artificial Intelligence. Some of these business tools will be, for example, intelligent applications that could not exist an automatic learning system. This type of services will create a new intermediate layer between people and systems thanks to its potential to transform the nature of traditional work.
“Explore smart applications as a way to increase human activity and not simply as a way to replace employees,” says the analyst. In his opinion, the power of an intelligent analytics will also be an area of great growth and that will allow automating some processes such as the collection of data or the exchange of ideas. The challenge will be, therefore, to use Artificial Intelligence to add “business value”.
«Internet of Things» as a vehicle of change
The era of hyperconnectivity has only just begun. With the impulse that the 5G networks, which are now in a development phase, will take, this so-called “Internet of Things” era will be reached. The approach is simple; connect electronic objects to “talk” to each other. Experts predict a large deployment of business models based on these intelligent objects. Thanks to them it will be possible, among other things, to interact more naturally with the environment, the relationship between human-machine will change and businesses based on other technologies will appear, such as the use of drones or the autonomous car.
All this will translate, in the opinion of the analysts, into an energy efficiency and a more sustainable business. Transportation and transportation services will be the main beneficiaries. “Currently, the use of autonomous vehicles in controlled environments is a fast growing area. We are likely to see examples of autopilot cars on some stretches of road in 2022, but its general use will still require a person in the driver’s seat. in case the technology fails unexpectedly, “says Cearley.
The appearance of a digital twin
This idea refers to the digital representation of a real-world entity or system. it consists of a virtual model identical to the product or space that we want. In this way, these “digital twins”, in the context of smart projects, will be very necessary for the next three years. Well defined, they will have the potential to achieve a better and more efficient decision making within the company. It is creating products from the virtual world.
“Over time, the digital representations of our world will be connected to an existing figure in the real world that will offer AI-based capabilities to enable the simulation and analysis of human behavior,” he adds. E-commerce companies, health services or digital strategy departments will be able to benefit from this long-term shift towards the integrated digital twin world.
A transversal “cloud”
They call it “edge computing” and describe a model based on information processing and content collection to get closer to the sources of this information. Greater connectivity and the reduction of latency will favor the appearance of distributed models. Companies should start using design patterns at the end of their computing infrastructures. Thanks to that, a non-centralized production model can be exploited. “The technology based on the cloud can be used to create a productive model aimed at providing services,” he says.
Conversational services
The conversation platforms will drive the next big paradigm shift in how human beings interact with the digital world. The platform takes a question or a command from the user and then responds by executing some function, presenting some content or requesting additional information. In the coming years, the conversation interfaces will become a prime design goal for user interaction and will be delivered in dedicated hardware, main features of the operating system, platforms and applications.
“Conversation platforms have reached a turning point in terms of understanding the user’s basic language and intention, but there is still work to be done,” Cearley suggests. “The challenge facing conversation platforms is that users must communicate in a very structured way and this is often a frustrating experience.”
A greater immersive experience
The market for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) is currently a teenager. And, to top it all, it is very fragmented, which means that in many applications, novel services offer little real business value outside of entertainment, such as video games and 360 spherical videos. To promote a true commercial benefit, companies must examine specific scenarios of real life in which they can be applied and make employees more productive. Among other things, they can improve the design and visualization processes.
«Blockchain» integrated into the business
The technology called “blockchain” or “chain of blocks”, used for the creation of virtual currencies like Bitcoin, has more applications. It is evolving from being an infrastructure for cryptocurrencies to a platform for digital transformation. Experts believe that it can offer a radical departure from the current centralized transaction and recordkeeping mechanisms, and thereby serve as the basis for digital business.