Gartner: 10 Radical Changes Coming To IT
Gartner's Daryl Plummer paints a convincing picture of a near-term future full of robots, smart machines, machine learning, and changing mobile habits. Here's everything CIOs and IT professionals need to know to be prepared.
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Predicting the future of technology is never easy. Gartner gazed into its crystal ball recently to give us 10 strategic predictions for 2016 and beyond. If the research firm is right, CIOs and IT professionals need to start preparing as soon as possible for the major changes coming to IT -- and to our lives in general.
Daryl Plummer, Gartner managing vice president and fellow, presented his organization's view of the technology future during the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando last week. Some of the predictions won't be news to you, some will stun you, and others you'll find downright creepy.
Some of them may need to be taken with a grain of salt. "This is so you can understand the things that are going to happen to you," said Pummer, before launching into the predictions. "Some of this will seem hard to believe, but that is the point. The future is hard to predict. Who would have thought we would have had so many smartphones if we did this in the 90s? We're trying to predict the things that are hard to predict."
[Want to know more about the future? Read 10 Emerging Trends From Gartner Symposium.]
Still, Plummer paints a pretty convincing picture of a near-term future full of robots, smart machines, machine learning, and changing mobile habits. In addition to giving you Gartner's 10 predictions, we offer advice for CIOs and IT professionals on how to cope with them. Once you've reviewed these, tell us in the comments which predictions you think will actually come to pass, and which ones you think are plain crazy.
By 2018, 20% of all business content will be authored by machines.
This seems like the most slam-dunk prediction of the bunch. As Plummer pointed out, the Associated Press has already used AI to create some sports content. Plummer said one very compelling use of AI business writing will be in marketing. Personalized marketing copy has been shown to be more engaging. However, there is no way to scale personalized marketing content. Combining AI content writing and big data, it's possible for CIOs to work with marketing teams to create personalized ads at scale.
By 2018, 6 billion connected things will be requesting support.
Welcome to the Internet of Things (IoT). These "things" asking for support can take the form of anything from a smart alarm being tripped to an automated vehicle asking for directions or reporting mechanical failure. Prepare for a deluge of connected devices. Those devices will be making increasingly complicated requests. CIOs and IT teams will need to treat "things" the same way they treat their customers requesting service. Gartner predicted a new industry will spring up, composed of third-party companies willing to service "things" for overwhelmed enterprise IT departments.
By 2020, autonomous software agents outside of human control will participate in 5% of all economic transactions.
The most interesting part of the multiplication of smart machines is that eventually they will make so many decisions so quickly, we couldn't possibly set aside human time to check those decisions. We are going to have to accept on faith that they are doing the job correctly, and respond when they do not. Financial markets are the obvious first place this is going to happen. Tasks such as sourcing goods for manufacturing, acting as agents for consumers, and basically moving money anywhere it is exchanged will eventually be affected by the growth of autonomous software agents.
By 2018, more than 3 million workers globally will be supervised by a "roboboss."
During his presentation at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, Plummer asked an interesting question to help us prepare for this eventuality: "If you found out your dog was an android, would you still love it?" That seemed plausible to the crowd.
Then he challenged the crowd with another question: "If you found out your boss was an android, would you still follow her orders?"
Smart bossing is already happening. Amazon uses routing software to give orders to warehouse employees. Automated dispatch and traffic control is, or soon will be, a reality in transportation. Another possibility is that AI trained to understand emotions could actually be better at managing humans than human managers. Human managers sometimes don't adjust to managing different types of people. An AI might prove more flexible and tolerable in the end, though that scenario is a far cry from a robot that can figure out how to deploy human resources in a warehouse.
By the end of 2018, 20% of smart buildings will have suffered from digital vandalism.
"Connected systems offer more openings for attack," Plummer said. "The economics of connectedness means that when you connect things to things you open them to attack. You never thought you'd have to protect your computing systems from your HVAC, but recent breaches show us you do."
This is a relatively clean fix for CIOs compared to the other predictions. Plummer suggested, "You have to start thinking about algorithms. They will help you. [A rule] as simple as 'No words can be put on a sign until checked by an algorithm' can work."
By 2018, nearly 50% of the fastest growing companies will have fewer employees than instances of smart machines.
"We're not saying organizations will fire people," Plummer said. "We're saying smart machines will multiply. They will show up on the shop floor and the assembly lines. There will be machines assisting you on how to do your job. Today it is just Siri, tomorrow she will be much more. The ideal would be a Siri frontend with a Watson backend."
That seems to describe what Microsoft is trying for with Cortana. At any rate, the rise of the smart machine was a major aspect of all of Gartner's predictions during this year's Symposium. It seems clear that smart machines are on the rise. The only real question regards the timetable. CIOs need to prepare to evaluate and deploy smart machines alongside people in a way that is sensitive to the needs and safety of humans.
By the end of 2018, customer digital assistants will recognize individuals by face and voice across channels and partners.
Windows 10 is already using your face as a password. There's no reason, Plummer said, that this technology couldn't be applied across all computing devices, from your personal computers to those used inside a business. "Face and voice access allow us to connect one service, like shopping online, with another service, like shopping in the store," Plummer said. It all has to be opt-in, Plummer stressed. Otherwise it is creepy. In fact, all smart machines, smart agents, and robots need to be opt-in going forward, according to Plummer, or you risk losing a customer.
By 2018, 2 million employees will be required to wear health-and-fitness tracking devices as a condition of employment.
It's outrageous to think that an enterprise would force an employee to submit to constant health monitoring. But Plummer pointed out two benefits.
The first is that companies already conduct health screens (such as drug tests) and adhere to certain safety requirements (such as making sure loading dock workers wear back support belts) in order to get lower insurance rates. It is a small leap to imagine enterprises willing to do the same for desk workers by using wearables, such as Fitbits.
Second, as Plummer so eloquently put it: "You have no privacy. Get over it. You walk down the streets of Manhattan and you're on 15 different cameras all the time."
By 2020, smart agents will facilitate 40% of mobile interactions, and the post-app era will begin to dominate.
Cortana, Siri, Google Now, Amazon's Alexa, and other devices not yet on the market are going to change the way we deal with mobile devices and apps. Instead of saying something like "Siri, find the closest tuxedo rental shop," we'll say "Siri, rent a tuxedo for me for this weekend." Siri will send your measurements to the tuxedo shop and select an ensemble based on your tastes and prior shopping habits.
Instead of having to prompt Cortana by saying "Cortana, remind me it is my wife's birthday next week," Cortana will simply review your wife's tastes from her previous Amazon purchases and buy the perfect gift. At least, that's how Plummer said he sees it. Regardless of whether we can trust our phones to make final decisions for us in the future, the idea of using smart agents to replace discreet apps that only accomplish a single task is certainly the aim of those who make digital assistants.
Through 2020, 95% of cloud security failures will be the customer's fault.
"Stop blaming cloud security," Plummer said. "Start growing your cloud-security responsibility." Plummer was adamant that the cloud is more secure than other options, but -- as with everything else related to security -- people remain the weak link.
"What have you done to secure your active directory?" Plummer asked, "What have we done to secure employee passwords?" All of this doesn't mean you ignore your cloud provider. Rather, Plummer said, "Make sure you check yourself as aggressively as you check them. Make yourself stronger, instead of having a knee-jerk reaction against the cloud."
While we're at it, I'll make a few predictions. I think way more than 3 million of us will have a "roboboss" by 2018. I also think more than 6 billion things will be asking for support by 2018. The cyber-vandalism prediction seems like a slam dunk. On the other hand, it will probably take consumers longer than three years to trust smart agents, and the app era will last a little longer than Plummer expects. Which Gartner predictions do you think are right? Which are wrong? Did any of them jump out as a huge surprise? Let's talk in the comments section below.
While we're at it, I'll make a few predictions. I think way more than 3 million of us will have a "roboboss" by 2018. I also think more than 6 billion things will be asking for support by 2018. The cyber-vandalism prediction seems like a slam dunk. On the other hand, it will probably take consumers longer than three years to trust smart agents, and the app era will last a little longer than Plummer expects. Which Gartner predictions do you think are right? Which are wrong? Did any of them jump out as a huge surprise? Let's talk in the comments section below.
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