Let’s explore the key trends to keep top of mind in 2023.
AI Here, There, and Everywhere
Companies must not wait before investing in AI or risk being left behind. According to IDC, worldwide AI spending will top $500 billion in 2023, with software as the dominant investment area. The ever-expanding breadth of no-code and cloud service AI offerings exponentially increases AI accessibility. With the technology infrastructure, data science and creation simplified, businesses with great ideas can produce AI-powered products and services that enhance customer interactions.
2023 brings advancements in both adaptive AI and generative AI concepts.
Adaptive AI
Adaptive AI can change its code and continuously retrain its models to learn and adapt based on new experiences, observations, and data processed in production without having developers rebuild it. These capabilities enable the AI to produce faster and better outcomes like more efficient business processes and improved reaction time to disruptions, leading to new business models, products, and services.
Adaptive AI can constantly improve the customer experience with each customer interaction with a company. AI-driven chatbots will continually refine their conversational skills, and recommendation engines will become more accurate, making recommendations that genuinely satisfy customers.
Generative AI
Traditional machine learning algorithms can only learn from existing data they process and know about and cannot independently create new forms of information. What algorithms can process and produce depends on what was given to them by their human creators. Generative AI is a new focus that uses neural network models to create something new, like text, images, and video, based on what is processed. Generative AI has the potential to influence all aspects of human activity, from architecture to medicine, art, music, and design.
A fast-growing use of generative AI is marketing tech. Content and UI design and creation are resource-intensive parts of marketing. Generative AI is more adept than humans at creating text, graphics, audio tracks, and images. Generative AI creates opportunities to dynamically create more personalized experiences and advertisements based on website or application user visitor behaviors and usage statistics. Think personalized banners, videos, and audio to entice you to engage more.
Blockchain Becomes the Cornerstone of Digital Trust
More and more business transactions and social commerce interactions are moving online, driving the demand for digital trust. In most cases, establishing trust between entities online has been through third-party centralized systems. Think Google for identity and Venmo guaranteeing safe money transfer. The hyper-connected world will likely require a more decentralized trust model to conduct person-to-person and entity-to-entity commerce and information flow.
In 2023, digital trust will see heavy re-architecture investment, so there is no single central point of ownership by a process, company or organization. This requires decentralized networking with consensus ownership between entities and encryption for data transmission and storage. Blockchain fits the bill nicely because it’s simply a database or ledger distributed across multiple machines in a peer-to-peer network. Blockchains store information in a digital format guaranteeing data reliability and security without needing third-party governance.
This decentralization creates new ways of communicating and doing business for humans and machines. Machines will utilize this means to carry out secure transactions with each other. Technologists are automating business interactions between systems like smart contracts between distributors and suppliers. Many companies are investing significantly in blockchain to create new forms of digital ownership, driving customer demand. You can now have digital ownership of things such as art, music, luxury products and even access to hotel stays like a digital timeshare. The opportunity for new business models and customer engagement is significant.
The Hyper-Connected World
The move to digital has driven the world to become a system of interconnected sensors, devices, networks, and infrastructures that gather the data for processing by consumer and business applications. This paradigm is called the Internet of Things (IoT). According to Statista, there will be approximately 20 billion IoT devices worldwide in 2023, ballooning to 31 billion by 2025.
In 2023, several key trends will emerge that will power this explosion of devices. 5G will make data transmission faster and drive the ability to have a higher magnitude of more connected devices. Governments will take steps with regulatory requirements such as the EU’s Cyber Resiliency Act to drive device manufacturers to follow strict cyber security rules and regulations, leading to new standards and network security to protect businesses and consumers from attacks.
Technology companies will adopt edge computing with advanced developer tools, deploying compute processing, AI and content distribution capabilities throughout metropolitan areas in response to IoT growth. Datacenter providers will create portable micro datacenters built with a few racks and all the power, cooling, and networking needed to enable application providers to make the resilient network mesh they need at the edge.
Sustainability Technology
The ubiquitous use of data and the exponential increase in compute-intensive algorithms dramatically increase the use of energy and other resources that impact the environment. Gartner projects by 2025 that “50% of CIOs will have performance metrics tied to the sustainability of the IT organization.”
In 2023, solutions will emerge to help companies measure and categorize their emissions and power consumption in a repeatable, consistent, auditable way. This first step will help companies establish their consumption baseline to identify and prioritize technology improvements that impact their sustainability strategy. Technologies, including traceability, analytics, emissions management software, and AI, will power these solutions. In subsequent years, AI automation solutions will emerge to provide actionable steps to change software code to be more sustainably efficient.
Conclusion
The innovation in 2023 will provide the bedrock for the next generation of the internet. Investments in these technology trends can create more operational resiliency or provide new avenues for growth. An experienced advisor can help you make the right choices and create an accelerated roadmap setting you on the path to success.
