Gartner’s top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2017 focus on three key areas – intelligence everywhere, the digital world and the new intelligent digital mesh.
Intelligent
1. AI and Advanced Machine Learning
The techniques for machines learning will move beyond traditional rule-based algorithms to create systems that can understand, learn, predict, adapt and potentially operate autonomously. This will give rise to a spectrum of applications and services including virtual personal assistants, smart advisors, robots, autonomous vehicles and consumer electronics.
2. Intelligent Apps
Gartner expects that over the coming years, every application and service will incorporate some level of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Intelligent personal apps can make its user more efficient by prioritising emails, for example, or highlighting important content. Sales and customer service teams will be transformed by intelligent apps such as virtual customer assistants (VCAs).
3. Intelligent Things
Drones, autonomous vehicles and smart appliances will form a network of intelligent things that go beyond the execution of rigid programing models and will interact more naturally with their surroundings and with people. Gartner recommends that organisations prepare for a shift from stand-alone intelligent things to a collaborative intelligent things model.
Digital
4. Virtual and Augmented Reality
The merging of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities with the digital mesh will result in a hyper-personalised flow of relevant information to the user. The immersive applications extend beyond isolated and single-person experiences to include rooms and physical spaces that are connected with immersive virtual worlds through the mesh.
5. Digital Twin
A digital twin is a dynamic software model of a physical thing or system that relies on sensor data to understand its state, respond to changes, improve operations and add value. Gartner expects that digital twins will eventually become proxies for the combination of skilled individuals and traditional monitoring devices with organisations using digital twins to perform enhanced product development, predict equipment failure or increase operational efficiency.
6. Blockchain and Distributed Ledgers
Blockchain and distributed-ledger initiatives will gain traction. Blockchain sequentially groups bitcoin or other tokens into blocks, then chains each block to the previous block and records it across a peer-to-peer network, using cryptographic trust mechanisms. Gartner predicts increased adoption in the financial services industry, music distribution, identity verification, title registry and supply chain.
Mesh
7. Conversational System
Devices such as cars, cameras, appliances, and smartphones are connected in an expanding set of endpoints that people use to access applications and information, or interact with other people, social communities, governments and businesses. As the device mesh evolves, Gartner expects connection models to expand and greater cooperative interaction between devices to emerge.
8. Mesh App and Service Architecture
The mesh app and service architecture (MASA) are what enables delivery of apps and services to the flexible and dynamic environment of the digital mesh. This architecture will serve users’ requirements as they vary over time. It brings together the many information sources, devices, apps, services and microservices into a flexible architecture in which apps extend across multiple endpoint devices and can coordinate with one another to produce a continuous digital experience.
9. Digital Technology Platforms
Gartner has identified five critical enablers that will provide the building blocks for organisations to become a digital business in 2017. These are – information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence, the IoT, and business ecosystems.
10. Adaptive Security Architecture
The intelligent digital mesh creates new vulnerability areas requiring new remediation tools and processes that IT security professionals must factor in, in order to secure Internet of Things platforms. Monitoring user and entity behaviour will be a critical addition to combat an ever-more-complex world of security.
To learn more about Gartner and their report, visit www.gartner.com.
For strategic insights on how to leverage these trends in your organisation, contact the blueAPACHE team.