Digital Lifescapes

Most CIOs recognize the essential role that emerging technology has in enabling digital business transformation. However, what they often don't know is how prepared their employees, IT systems, and internal processes are to embrace change. Gartner has highlighted the six key trends that will have a significant impact on enterprise IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) organizations over the next 12 to 18 months. "I&O leaders have little time, skills and budget to track emerging trends and the full impact of those on I&O," said Jeffrey Hewitt, vice president at Gartner . Savvy leaders should apply the top trends within I&O for 2024 to identify which are most likely to impact their organization, and then implement effective actions in response. According to Gartner's research, the top trends in 2024 are as follows: Machine Customers Machine customers are non-human economic actors that obtain goods or services in exchange for payment, such as virtual per...

Enterprise leaders with large customer care organizations are exploring Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications to improve their online customer experience, increase operational efficiency, and reduce costs to improve profitability. Trained AI can be used to automate tasks, such as answering routine questions, freeing up contact center agents to focus on more complex inquiries. AI can also be applied to personalize the customer experience by recommending new offerings. Additionally, AI can be deployed to analyze vast amounts of existing customer data to identify support trends and patterns, which can be used to improve the overall customer experience. Customer Care AI Market Development Worldwide Contact Center (CC) and Conversational AI, including virtual assistant end-user spending is projected to total $18.6 billion in 2023 -- that's an increase of 16.2 percent from 2022, according to the latest market study by Gartner. "Near-term investment growth rates for CC and CC Con...

When the world was disrupted by a global pandemic during 2020, many CEOs and their board of directors were consumed by reacting to immediate problems. Meanwhile, a few forwarding-thinking enterprise leaders also paused to invest in accelerating their prescient digital transformation agenda. What enables executives to envision an opportunity while others see only challenges? Strategic foresight, and a willingness to embrace the apparent changes that are transforming the legacy status quo. During this period of uncertainty, hyper-automation investment has gained new momentum. Hyperautomation is the application of advanced technologies that augment humans by helping to streamline processes in new ways that are significantly more impactful than the legacy approach. Hyperautomation Market Development The global market for technology that enables hyperautomation will reach $596.6 billion in 2022, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. This is up from $481.6 billion in...

Voice-enabled user interfaces have reached mainstream adoption. The value chain for voice assistants is rapidly expanding to include emerging applications. Device vendors, system integrators, software app developers and cloud providers will offer solutions for a growing list of voice assistant use cases. Juniper Research estimates that voice assistants will be in use on over 4 billion devices by the end of 2020. The mass adoption of artificial intelligence, and chatbots in particular, is fueling the rapid shift towards voice-activated services. Voice Assistant Market Development Internet of Things (IoT) devices and more practical applications are enabling voice assistants to deliver tangible value. Microphones are everywhere and access to voice assistants has become ubiquitous, with more technology companies eager to monetize this trend. Voice communication isn't the only method of interaction with artificial intelligence (AI) software. For example, Google Assistant also su...

While much of the prior interest in automation has focused on very limited worker categories and related tasks -- such as traditional manufacturing -- there's now a growing interest in exploring the potential to automate all types of repetitive work. Artificial intelligence (AI) applications -- as an example, virtual personal assistants and chatbots -- are being adopted rapidly within the global workplace. By 2024, Gartner predicts that these technologies will replace almost 69 percent of the typical manager’s workload. AI Applications Market Development "The role of manager will see a complete overhaul in the next four years," said Helen Poitevin, vice president at Gartner . "Currently, managers often need to spend time filling in forms, updating information and approving workflows. By using AI to automate these tasks, they can spend less time managing transactions and can invest more time on learning, performance management and goal setting." According...

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are already very sophisticated. Gartner predicts that by 2022, AI-enabled personal devices will know a lot more about that person's emotional state. Moreover, AI is a disruptive force that will reshape the way we interact with many personal devices. "Emotion AI systems and affective computing are allowing everyday objects to detect, analyze, process and respond to people's emotional states and moods to provide better context and a more personalized experience," said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner . "To remain relevant, technology vendors must integrate AI into every aspect of their devices, or face marginalization." Emotion AI Market Development The current wave of emotion AI systems is being driven by the proliferation of virtual personal assistants (VPAs) and other AI-based technology for conversational systems. As a second wave emerges, AI technology will add value to more and more customer experie...

More telecom service providers will invest in emerging technologies that enable them to improve operational productivity via automation, and introduce new capabilities for their customers. Virtual assistant applications are emerging, as telcos start to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). While the telecom network operators are prioritizing these virtual assistants primarily to improve customer engagements and consequently reduce churn rates, they are also positioning themselves to compete directly with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana. Telco Virtual Assistant Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, the virtual assistants will enable telecom service providers to save $1.2 billion on customer care management by 2022, resulting in a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17 percent over the next five years. "The recent introduction of virtual assistants in customer service sig...