Skip to main content

Cognitive Collaboration: People and Smart Tech Unite

Smart machine technologies learn on their own and can produce unanticipated results. That said, by working together, smart machines and people can make each other smarter -- and protect each other from their inherent weaknesses.

Smart machines will enter mainstream adoption by 2021, with 30 percent adoption by large companies, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner.

New and evolving technologies such as cognitive computing, artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent automation, machine learning and deep learning are all considered to be part of the smart machines ecosystem.

Smart Machine Market Development

"The use of smart machines by enterprises can be transformative and disruptive. Smart machines will profoundly change the way work is done and how value is created. From dynamic pricing models and fraud detection, to predictive policing and robotics, smart machines have broad applicability in all industries," said Susan Tan, research vice president at Gartner.

For professional service providers, smart machines represent opportunities to help enterprises assess, select, implement, change and adapt talent. They can also help transform IT and business processes, in order to successfully adopt smart machines for commercial benefits.

The opportunity for consulting and system integration (C&SI) services will range from advising enterprises to help them with strategic design, training of the smart machines, deployment and integration to expansion and ongoing refinement.

These opportunities will help drive ongoing spending on smart machine C&SI services from $451 million in 2016 to nearly $29 billion in 2021.

Gartner analysts believe that the spectrum of sub-technologies within smart machines will be adopted at different speeds and timings, with the majority of smart technologies being mainstream adopted in the 2020 through 2025 time frame.

Outlook for Cognitive Consulting Services

According to the Gartner assessment, the anticipated enterprise investments into smart machines will span more than a decade, implying that the smart machine C&SI service market will be a long-term one.

"Over time, the increased C&SI opportunity created by the growing number of companies implementing more complex smart machine programs is expected to be counter-balanced by the a reduction in costs of adoption, as every subsequent adoption of the same smart machine solution will be less expensive and faster," said Ms. Tan.

In the long term (that's about 10 years), smart machines will be an integral set of tools in the toolkit of C&SI service providers and infused into all next-generation services offerings.

Popular posts from this blog

How Online Video Exceeded Pay-TV Revenue

The global streaming industry has spent the better part of a decade chasing subscriber counts as the primary metric of success. That era is now formally over. New market data from Omdia confirms that the industry has crossed a decisive threshold; one that shifts the competitive playing field from growth-at-all-costs to monetization discipline. For senior executives navigating media, advertising, and technology strategy, the implications extend well beyond entertainment. A Historic Revenue Crossover Online video revenue increased 13.5 percent to $176 billion in 2025, while pay-TV revenue declined 4 percent to $170 billion; marking the first time in the industry's history that streaming has surpassed legacy pay-TV in revenue terms. This is not a rounding error or a statistical artifact; it represents the culmination of more than a decade of structural disruption to the traditional broadcast and cable TV model. Global subscriptions to online video services reached 2.24 billion by the ...