On these dates everything is filled with lists of trends that will have an impact on certain sectors or companies next year. But what happens with those that, in addition to doing it next year, will also be relevant in the following years? Which are? The Thoughtworks Annual Looking Glass Report offers several answers to these questions, with the aim that companies have some information about what to expect in the future.
For the preparation of the report, the impact of a hundred current and emerging technologies. The results have established that there will be five areas in which there are trends with the longest impact, that is, whose impact goes beyond 2022. They are as follows:
Work with Artificial Intelligence
This area examines how companies can get the most out of the adoption of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. To do this, companies need to understand where technology works well and where it doesn’t. For example, applying Artificial Intelligence to solve problems that require creativity or intuition is not the best situation, but it can be used as an assistant to help human decision-making.
In other areas, such as deploying chatbots to answer basic questions or escalate a request from a customer to human-served customer service, Artificial Intelligence works very well. In this sense, the areas that can get the most out of automation driven by Artificial Intelligence are dynamic price calculation, recommendation systems, anomaly detection and optimization of the supply chain.
Other trends that should be taken into account in this space for the future are computing that respects privacy, AutoML (automatic machine learning), federated learning, and in a more distant future, quantum machine learning.
Evolution of the human-machine experience
This area has a lot of room for improvement. It focuses on the concept of metaverse, a space of reality in which the real and digital worlds overlap. It is a space dominated by extended reality applications. That is, for virtual, augmented and mixed reality.
According to the report, more attention to this area is expected in the future, especially when manufacturers of augmented virtual reality devices and startups related to this sector try to increase revenues. But it will not be until 2028 when the metaverse becomes a trend and explodes its market, which will grow approximately 40% year after year to the 800,000 million dollars that it will move in that year.
Among the technologies and trends to consider in this area are human-machine interfaces, retinal projection, emotional and affective computing, and, in time, the metaverse itself.
Trends in platforms
The platform development is one of the core strategies for many companies going forward, but there are still quite a few ambiguities about it. To avoid them for their development, the report recommends that companies define beforehand what they want to achieve with them and the results they want. Also make sure that all parties involved understand and share the same goals.
There are currently three types of platforms. The former are developer-centric infrastructure, which accelerates time-to-market and reduces risk through a common, validated approach to security and compliance. The latter are business training platforms that accelerate product development through a set of APIs that encapsulate existing capabilities and facilitate the development of new services with existing resources. Finally, third parties are business model platforms in which value is created by facilitating interactions between consumers, peers and service providers.
Some of the technologies and trends worth following in this space include fog computing, trusted ecosystems, collaboration between machines and, in the somewhat more distant future, private Platform-as-a-Service Internet of Things platforms.
Hostile Technology Expansion
This area explores the idea that even beneficial technology can be used to do evil. But in some respects, this is relative. While some people may view the web crawling while browsing as invasive and hostile, others freely give their privacy in exchange for certain benefits, such as targeted advertising.
Therefore, to avoid customer anger and to improve trust, the report suggests respecting customer wishes, avoiding intrusive segmentation and abandoning biased Artificial Intelligence.
Some trends to follow in the future in this field include privacy-aware computing, privacy-aware communications, differential privacy, and, somewhat later, the metaverse and quantum machine learning.
A push towards sustainability: trends
The last area to consider in the long term is the future viability of technology-driven consumption and growth. At the same time, consumers, governments and investors are demanding more environmental responsibility from companies. But the path to a more sustainable world is accelerating, and this trend has many implications for business.
Some of them include government and legislative policies that mandate energy efficiency and sustainability. Furthermore, companies prefer companies with strong environmental, social and governance standards. For their part, companies are taking advantage of green initiatives to attract new customers to the same ones that they keep current ones. Among the trends and technologies to follow in this sector is technology for circular economies, blockchain for sustainability and green software engineering.
