Trends Identified
Democratized AI
AI, one of the most disruptive classes of technologies, will become more widely available due to cloud computing, open source and the “maker” community. While early adopters will benefit from continued evolution of the technology, the notable change will be its availability to the masses. These technologies also foster a maker community of developers, data scientists and AI architects, and inspire them to create new and compelling solutions based on AI. For example, smart robots capable of working alongside humans, delivering room service or working in warehouses, will allow organizations to assist, replace or redeploy human workers to more value-adding tasks. Also in this category are autonomous driving Level 4 and autonomous driving Level 5, which replaced “autonomous vehicles” on this year’s Hype Cycle. Autonomous driving Level 4 describes vehicles that can operate without human interaction in most, but not all, conditions and locations and will likely operate in geofenced areas. This level of autonomous car will likely appear on the market in the next decade. Autonomous driving Level 5 labels vehicles operating autonomously in all situations and conditions, and controlling all tasks. Without a steering wheel, brakes or pedals, these cars could become another living space for families, having far reaching societal impacts.
2018
5 Trends Emerge in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018
Gartner
Digitalized ecosystems
Emerging technologies in general will require support from new technical foundations and more dynamic ecosystems. These ecosystems will need new business strategies and a move to platform-based business models. “The shift from compartmentalized technical infrastructure to ecosystem-enabling platforms is laying the foundation for entirely new business models that are forming the bridge between humans and technology,” says Walker. For example, blockchain could be a game changer for data security leaders, as it has the potential to increase resilience, reliability, transparency, and trust in centralized systems. Also under this trend are digital twins, a virtual representation of a real object. This is beginning to gain adoption in maintenance, and Gartner estimates hundreds of millions of things will have digital twins within five years.
2018
5 Trends Emerge in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018
Gartner
Digitalized ecosystems
Emerging technologies in general will require support from new technical foundations and more dynamic ecosystems. These ecosystems will need new business strategies and a move to platform-based business models. “The shift from compartmentalized technical infrastructure to ecosystem-enabling platforms is laying the foundation for entirely new business models that are forming the bridge between humans and technology,” says Walker. For example, blockchain could be a game changer for data security leaders, as it has the potential to increase resilience, reliability, transparency, and trust in centralized systems. Also under this trend are digital twins, a virtual representation of a real object. This is beginning to gain adoption in maintenance, and Gartner estimates hundreds of millions of things will have digital twins within five years.
2018
5 Trends Emerge in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018
Gartner
Do-it-yourself biohacking
2018 is just the beginning of a “trans-human” age where hacking biology and “extending” humans will increase in popularity and availability. This will range from simple diagnostics to neural implants and be subject to legal and societal questions about ethics and humanity. These biohacks will fall into four categories: technology augmentation, nutrigenomics, experimental biology and grinder biohacking. For example, biochips hold the possibility of detecting diseases from cancer to smallpox before the patient even develops symptoms. These chips are made from an array of molecular sensors on the chip surface that can analyze biological elements and chemicals. Also new to the Hype Cycle this year is biotech, artificially cultured and biologically inspired muscles. Though still in lab development, this technology could eventually allow skin and tissue to grow over a robot exterior, making it sensitive to pressure.
2018
5 Trends Emerge in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018
Gartner
Transparently immersive experiences
Technology, such as that seen in smart workspaces, is increasingly human-centric, blurring the lines between people, businesses and things, and extending and enabling a smarter living, work and life experience. In a smart workspace, electronic whiteboards can better capture meeting notes, sensors will help deliver personalized information depending on employee location, and office supplies can interact directly with IT platforms. On the home front, connected homes will interlink devices, sensors, tools and platforms that learn from how humans use their house. Increasingly intelligent systems allow for contextualized and personalized experiences.
2018
5 Trends Emerge in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018
Gartner
Ubiquitous infrastructure
In general, infrastructure is no longer the key to strategic business goals. The appearance and growing popularity of cloud computing and the always-on, always-available, limitless infrastructure environment have changed the infrastructure landscape. These technologies will enable a new future of business. For example, quantum computing, with its complicated systems of qubits and algorithms, can operate exponentially faster than conventional computers. In the future, this technology will have a huge impact on optimization, machine learning, encryption, analytics and image analysis. Though general-purpose quantum computers will probably never be realized, the technology holds great potential in narrow, defined areas. A second new technology in this trend is neuromorphic hardware. These are semiconductor devices inspired by neurobiological architecture, which can deliver extreme performance for things like deep neural networks, using less power and offering faster performance than conventional options.
2018
5 Trends Emerge in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018
Gartner
5G Fixed to 5G Mobile
Here’s the thing about 5G: we’ve been talking about it for a while. And if you’re a world traveler or on certain networks like Sprint, you know it’s still possible to slip back into 3G zones from time-to-time without realizing it. So, what’s the big deal with 5G now? In short, we’re finally in a spot where we will start seeing 5G everywhere. If you have been following the tech community, you will have seen that there are a wide number of fixed and test deployments with companies like Qualcomm, Intel, Nokia, Ericcson, Samsung and Huawei all getting into the action. We are also seeing new companies like Mimosa Networks making it possible to roll 5G out to both rural and urban locations, paving the way for bullish 5G mobile providers—i.e. ATT and Verizon—to start offering new, cooler, faster, more innovative services for mobile users. It’s an exciting time for 5G and mobile alike. While 2018 was the year that fixed 5G applications found their legs, in 2019 we are going to see 5G finding its way into the upper corner of our Mobile devices, albeit for you iPhone users it is more likely going to be 2020 or later.
2018
Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends For 2019
Forbes
Chatbots Good to Great
Hear me out on this one. I know we’ve all had extremely frustrating chatbot experiences as we round out 2018. But the good news is that huge steps continue to be made in the way of natural language processing and sentiment analytics—so many, in fact, that some believe NLP will shake up the entire service industry in ways we’ve never imagined. Think about all the services that could be provided without humans—fast food lines, loan processors, job recruiters! What’s more, NLP allows companies to gather insights and improve their service based on them. Some 40% of large businesses have or will adopt it by the end of 2019—which makes it one of our top 2019 digital transformation trends. Now, I know many are alarmed by where AI and Chatbots may impact the workforce, but I’m also bullish that companies are going to be upskilling their work forces rather than displacing them as machines may be good at delivering on clearcut requests but leave a lot to be desired when it comes to dealing with empathy and human emotion required to deliver great customer experiences.
2018
Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends For 2019
Forbes
Connected Clouds (Public, Private, Hybrid)
Honestly, we can just file this as “the continued evolution and growing pains of cloud adoption.” Basically, what’s happening is that companies are realizing that going all public cloud, private cloud, or data center isn’t the best option. Sometimes, they need a mix of all or both. Thus, connected clouds are continuing to develop to meet companies’ changing needs—whether they want to cloud-source storage, networking, security, or app deployment. Major public cloud providers like Amazon and Alibaba are answering the call, offering private cloud (or in Google’s case, container-based) options. We are also seeing Microsoft via Azure, HPE with their 2017 acquisition of Cloud Technology Partners and their consumable IT services as well as VMware with their recent acquisition of CloudHealth Technologies all show increased commitment to connecting clouds. The term, Multicloud will be the new buzzword for the cloud conversation and what I believe this movement means more than anything else is that no matter which workloads are being run in which cloud, the experience for IT and those that are utilizing the applications needs to be seamless, secure and streamlined. For most businesses this means a mix of workloads running in public, private and hybrid environments and this will be a big topic in 2019.
2018
Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends For 2019
Forbes
Blockchain Finally Understood and Flops (kind of)
Forget everything magical I ever said about blockchain. Just kidding—kind of, but bear with me here. As we continue to explore this technological miracle worker, we’ve come to realize that blockchain is kind of a mess. It’s too complicated for lay people to use right now, and there’s no standard way to use it because we all want to use it different. The only way to get mass blockchain adoption is to create a plug-and-play version that all of us can use and understand. I’m watching closely as leading technology firms like IBM continue to make massive commitments to the potential of Blockchain for applications beyond cryptocurrency. The financial industry are also looking at this closely as well as a mass of applications in transportation of goods and services. However, to this point, it seems more of a marketing ploy than a bonafide technology offering. My guess is a lot of smart developers will continue to work on realizing the potential of blockchain in 2019, but I’m of the mindset that it will be 2-3 more years before we start to see the traction that has been promised.
2018
Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends For 2019
Forbes