Other trends emerge as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research firm Gartner held its Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo Americas this week. Like so many other tech events this year, the symposium was virtual. Featured speaker Research VP Brian Burke highlighted the things that Gartner sees trending for the coming year.
“As organizations journey from responding to the COVID-19 crisis to driving growth, they must focus on the three main areas that form the themes of this year’s trends,” said Burke.
“Those three themes are people centricity, location independence and resilient delivery. Taken together, these trends create a whole that is larger than its individual parts and focus on social and personal demand from anywhere to achieve optimal delivery.”
The Internet of Behaviors (IoB) tops the list
The first trend that Gartner sees emerging is what they are calling the “Internet of Behaviors.” The IoB combines existing technologies that focus on the individual directly, according to Gartner. These technologies include facial recognition, location tracking and big data, for example. IoB then connects the resulting data to associated behavioral events, such as cash purchases or device usage.
Gartner predicts that by year-end 2025, over half of the world’s population will be subject to at least one IoB program, whether it be commercial or governmental.
People-centric trends
Gartner predicts that the trend of multiexperience, presented by Gartner last year, will expand to what they call total experience (TX). This is “a strategy that connects multiexperience with customer, employee and user experience disciplines,” said Burke.
Gartner also believes that by 2025, half of large organizations will implement “privacy-enhancing computation” for processing data in untrusted environments.
AI Engineering is another trend that Garner sees expanding in 2021. This focuses on the governance and life cycle management of a wide range of operationalized AI and decision models, such as machine learning or knowledge graphs.
They further predict that “Intelligent composable business” models will be adopted to speed up informed decisions aided by machines and fueled by large bodies of data.
Gartner also foresees a trend towards what they dub “hyper-automation” – will drive investments. “Everything that can and should be automated will be automated,” Burke said.