Singapore's central business district area as seen from 'the future of us' exhibition pavilion
Gartner has revealed its top technology predictions from 2019 to 2023, spanning three fundamental effects of continued digital innovation.
Specifically, the advisory firm believes market change will centre around artificial intelligence (AI) and skills, cultural advancement, and processes becoming products that result from increased digital capabilities and the emergence of continuous conceptual change in technology.
“As the advance of technology concepts continues to outpace the ability of enterprises to keep up, organisations now face the possibility that so much change will increasingly seem chaotic,” said Daryl Plummer, vice president of Gartner. “But chaos does not mean there is no order.
"The key is that CIOs will need to find their way to identifying practical actions that can be seen within the chaos. Continuous change can be made into an asset if an organisation sharpens its vision in order to see the future coming ahead of the change that vision heralds.
"Failing that, there must be a focus on a greater effort to see the need to shift the mindset of the organisation. With either of these two methods, practical actions can be found in even the seemingly unrelated predictions of the future."
1. Through 2020, 80 per cent of AI projects will remain alchemy, run by wizards whose talents will not scale widely in the organisation
In the last five years, the increasing popularity of AI techniques has facilitated the proliferation of projects across a wide number of organisations worldwide.
However, change is still outpacing the production of competent AI professionals. When it comes to AI techniques, the needed talent is not only technically demanding, mathematically savvy data scientists to inventive data engineers, and rigorous operation research professionals to shrewd logisticians, are needed.
“The large majority of existing AI techniques talents are skilled at cooking a few ingredients, but very few are competent enough to master a few recipes — let alone invent new dishes,” said Plummer.
“Through 2020, a large majority of AI projects will remain craftily prepared in artisan IT Kitchens,” added Plummer.
“The premises of a more systematic and effective production will come when organisations stop treating AI as an exotic cuisine and start focusing on business value first.”
2. By 2023, there will be an 80 per cent reduction in missing people in mature markets compared with 2018 due to AI face recognition
Over the next few years, facial matching and 3D facial imaging will become important elective aspects of capturing data about vulnerable populations, such as children and the elderly or people who are otherwise impaired.
Such measures will reduce the number of missing people without adding large numbers of dramatic discoveries in large public crowds, which is the popularly imagined environment.
The most important advances will take place with more robust image capture, image library development, image analysis strategy and public acceptance.
Additionally, with improved on-device/edge AI capability on cameras, public and private sectors will be able to prefilter necessary image data instead of sending all video streams to the cloud for processing.
3. By 2023, US emergency department visits will be reduced by 20 million due to enrollment of chronically ill patients in AI-enhanced virtual care
Clinician shortages, particularly in rural and some urban areas, are driving healthcare providers to look for new approaches to delivering care.
In many cases, virtual care has shown it can offer care more conveniently and cost-effectively than conventional face-to-face care.
With a rising ageing population, controlling healthcare costs and alleviating staff shortages in the healthcare sector has been a concern for Singapore in recent years. In response, Singapore has rolled out a number of initiatives, including most recently the launch of a regulatory sandbox to support the development of telemedicine.
The new Licensing Experimentation and Adaptation Programme (LEAP) has been designed to enable new and innovative models and services to be developed and refined in a safe and controlled environment.
Those providers who participate in this sandbox will work with Singapore’s ministry of health to develop clear boundary conditions, data governance measures and risk mitigation strategies.
Gartner research shows that successful use of virtual care helps control costs, improves the quality of delivery and improves access to care.
Without change, the traditionally rigid physical care delivery methods will increasingly render healthcare providers noncompetitive. This transition will not come easily and will require modification of cultural attitudes and healthcare financial models.
4. By 2023, 25 per cent of organisations will require employees to sign an affidavit to avoid cyberbullying, but 70 per cent of these initiatives will fail
To prevent actions that have a detrimental impact on the organisation’s reputation, employers want to strengthen employee behavioural guidelines (such as anti-harassment and discrimination norms) when using social media.
Signing an affidavit of agreement to refrain from cyberbullying is a logical next step. Alternatively, legacy code of conduct agreements should be updated to incorporate cyberbullying.
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