As organisations in Limerick face into a new year of digital disruption, Dell Technologies has announced its predictions as to how emerging technologies will transform our lives in 2018.
In the coming twelve months, there will be significant progress in embedding near-instant intelligence in IoT-enhanced cities, organisations, homes and vehicles. As every object will become smart, technology will function as an extension of ourselves.
Dell EMC Ireland Commercial Manager Aisling Keegan said that emerging technologies have the potential to solve some of the intractable problems faced by humanity and offer the opportunity to increase productivity for business.
“As the new year gets under way, we want organisations to become aware of the new trends around them and plan their future with technology at the heart of it.”
Prediction 1:
AI will do the ‘thinking tasks’ at speed
Over the next few years, AI will change the way we spend our time acting on data, not just curating it. Businesses will harness AI to do data-driven “thinking tasks” for them, significantly reducing the time they spend scoping, debating, scenario planning and testing every new innovation. It will release bottlenecks and liberate people to make more decisions and move faster, in the knowledge that great new ideas won’t get stuck in the mire.
Prediction 2:
Embedding the IQ of Things
There will be gargantuan strides in embedding near-instant intelligence in IoT-enhanced cities, organizations, homes, and vehicles. With the cost of processing power decreasing and a connected node approaching $0, soon we’ll have 100 billion connected devices, and after that a trillion. The magnitude of all that data combined, processing power with the power of AI will help machines better orchestrate our physical and human resources. We’ll evolve into ‘digital conductors’ of the technology and environments surrounding us. Technology will function as an extension of ourselves. Every object will become smart and enable us to live smarter lives.
Prediction 3:
We’ll wear AR headsets
It also won’t be long until the lines between ‘real’ reality and augmented reality begin to blur. AR’s commercial viability is already evident. For instance, teams of construction workers, architects and engineers are using AR headsets to visualize new builds, coordinate efforts based on a single view of a development and train on-the-job laborers when a technician can’t be on site that day.
Prediction 4:
A deeper relationship with customers
Dell Technologies’ Digital Transformation Index shows that 45% of leaders in mid to large organizations believe they could be obsolete within 5 years and 78% see start-ups as a threat to their business. It’s never been more important to put the customer experience first. Over the next year, with predictive analytics, machine learning (ML) and AI at the forefront, companies will better understand and serve customers at, if not before the point of need.
Prediction 5:
Bias check will become the next spell check
Over the next decade, emerging technologies such as VR, AI, will help people find and act on information without interference from emotions or external prejudice. In the short-term, we’ll see AI applied to hiring and promotion procedures to screen for conscious and unconscious bias. Meanwhile VR will increasingly be used as an interview tool to ensure opportunities are awarded on merit alone, e.g. by masking a prospective employee’s true identity with an avatar.
Prediction 6:
esports will go mainstream
In 2018, we’ll see increasingly vast numbers of players sitting behind screens or wearing VR headsets to battle it out in a high-definition computer-generated universe. As hundreds of millions of players and viewers tune-in, esports will go mainstream.
Prediction 7:
We’ll move toward the “mega-cloud”
Cloud is not a destination. It’s an IT model where orchestration, automation and intelligence are embedded deeply into IT Infrastructure. However, as more applications and workloads move into various clouds, the proliferation of cloud siloes will become an inevitability. This may also result in applications and data landing in the wrong cloud leading to poor outcomes. We’ll see the emergence of the “mega cloud”, which will weave together multiple private and public clouds to behave as a coherent, holistic system.
Prediction 8:
The year to sweat the small stuff
The ripples of chaos spread farther and faster now that technology connects us in astonishing ways. One of the most substantial data breaches in history occurred because attackers used credentials to log into a third-party HVAC system. Small subtle failures can lead to mega failures. Hence, next year will be a year of action for multinational corporations, further inspired by the onslaught of new regulations such as GDPR. Prioritizing the implementation of cybersecurity tools and technologies will be a growing imperative.
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