Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2017 report has named three distinct megatrends that the firm says will enable businesses to “survive and thrive” in the digital economy over the next 5-10 years.
The analyst firm says that Artificial intelligence (AI) everywhere, transparently immersive experiences and digital platforms are the trends that will provide “unrivalled intelligence, create profoundly new experiences and offer platforms” that will allow organisations to connect with new business ecosystems.
The report is the longest-running annual Gartner Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that to consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios.
“Enterprise architects who are focused on technology innovation must evaluate these high-level trends and the featured technologies, as well as the potential impact on their businesses,” said Mike J. Walker, a research director at Gartner. “In addition to the potential impact on businesses, these trends provide a significant opportunity for enterprise architecture leaders to help senior business and IT leaders respond to digital business opportunities and threats by creating signature-ready actionable and diagnostic deliverables that guide investment decisions.”
Gartner says that Artificial intelligence technologies will be the most disruptive on the market over the next 10 years due to “radical computational power, near-endless amounts of data, and unprecedented advances in deep neural networks” which will enable organisations with AI technologies to harness data in order to adapt to unprecedented situations and problems.
The firm believes that enterprises should consider using deep learning, autonomous vehicles, cognitive computing, commercial UAVs (Drones), and smart robots in the bid to leverage the benefits of AI.
It also predicts that technology will continue to become more human-centric, to the point where transparency between people, businesses and things will greatly increase. This relationship is expected to become much more entwined as the evolution of technology becomes more adaptive, contextual and fluid within the workplace, at home, and in interacting with businesses and other people.
“When we view these themes together, we can see how the human-centric enabling technologies within transparently immersive experiences — such as smart workspace, connected home, augmented reality, virtual reality and the growing brain-computer interface — are becoming the edge technologies that are pulling the other trends along the Hype Cycle,” Walker added.
Digital platforms are rapidly moving up the Hype Cycle, meanwhile. Technologies such as Quantum Computing and Blockchain are poised to create the most transformative and dramatic impacts in the next 5-10 years, according to Gartner.
“These megatrends illustrate that the more organisations are able to make technology an integral part of employees’, partners’ and customers’ experiences, the more they will be able to connect their ecosystems to platforms in new and dynamic ways,” Walker said.
