Top strategic technology trends for 2023 according to Gartner
Analytical company Gartner has drawn up a list for 2023 ten technology trendsthat will strategically influence the outcomes and initiatives of organisations around the world. Their selection is again influenced by the societal situation. Many organisations have adapted their plans to the expected post-pandemic growth, but instead inflation, the threat of recession, the energy crisis and war conflict have arrived. Although the future is uncertain in many industries, technology remains key and embracing technology trends can be a critical element that will determine your future success.
Among Technology trends of 2022 included, for example data structure, native cloud platforms, generative AI or hyper-automation. Many of them have moved in 12 months to the level of essential technologies for modern business. We assume that it will be no different with technology trends for 2023, although some of them may from the point of view of Slovak companies that are just starting to Digital or cloud transformation sound like science fiction. But the speed of adoption of new technologies today is unprecedented, and the writer Stewart Brand's dictum holds true: "When new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you become part of the journey."
Gartner has classified the trends for 2023 into three main themes - optimization, scaling and pioneering. Optimizing in terms of optimizing IT systems for higher reliability, improving data-driven decision-making and maintaining the integrity of AI systems' values in manufacturing. Scaling in terms of speeding up vertical offerings, increasing the pace of product delivery and enabling connectivity from anywhere. A Pioneering in terms of enabling business model change, redefining employee and customer engagement and accelerating strategies to exploit new virtual markets.
Technological trends in optimization
Digital immune system (DIS)
"Organizations that invest in building digital immunity will reduce downtime by up to 80 % by 2025, thereby increasing customer satisfaction." (Gartner)
Digital Immune System (DIS) combines practices and technologies for the design, development, operation and analysis of software to mitigate business risks. It is designed to detect, identify and respond to cyber-attacks and other security issues in real time. This makes applications and systems more resilient, operations more continuous, and the customer user experience better.
Like the human immune system, the digital immune system should be complex, responding to potential threats and "viruses" at multiple levels, and learning from attacks it has overcome to gain immunity. An ideal DIS should be designed to continuously monitor systems and activities, looking for patterns and anomalies that indicate a potential threat.
DIS can provide companies with a more proactive and adaptive approach to security, it also has a significant impact on the attractiveness of your products or services, making them more resilient and secure, leading to increased business value. Like Gartner, we at Aspect anticipate that in the context of the inevitability of cybersecurity in the use of digital technologies, digital immunity systems will sooner or later become a standard part of security for most companies.
Applied Observability (AO)
"By 2026, 70 % organizations that successfully apply "observability" will achieve shorter decision latency, giving them a competitive advantage for target business or IT processes." (Gartner)
"Observability" in IT is often mischaracterized as a "rebranding" of system monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM), and network performance management (NPM). In reality, it is the next stage in the natural evolution of APM and NPM data collection methods that better adapts to the dynamic nature of cloud-native applications. Observability does not replace monitoring, but complements it.
Applied observability is thus the ability to understand the state of a system by measuring its externally visible outputs. This concept applies to both software and hardware systems. It works with the data that an organisation is sending out, using AI to analyse and make recommendations that enable the business to make faster and more accurate future decisions.
By systematically applying observability, organizations can increase responsiveness and optimize business operations in real time. Its business value lies in 'observable data'. These are not based on intentions, commitments or promises, but on the confirmed actions of stakeholders, making them a truly valuable resource for decision making.
AI Trust, Risk and Security Management (AI TRiSM)
"Organizations that operationalize AI transparency, trust, and security by 2026 will achieve 50 % improvements in outcomes in terms of business goals and user adoption." (Gartner)
OpenAI and the tool ChatGPT, Dall-E or Midjourney at the end of 2022 rolled social networks. It's just the tip of the iceberg of how artificial intelligence has evolved in recent years. That's why many consider 2023 as the year of artificial intelligence. However, with the massive development of this field, AI also requires new forms of trust, risk and security management. It is AI TRiSMs that ensure the reliability, trustworthiness, security and privacy of AI models.
AI TRiSM (Trust, Responsibility, security and privacy in AI) is a framework that addresses the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). It aims to ensure that the development and deployment of AI and ML are carried out in a responsible and trustworthy manner. AI TRiSM supports the governance of AI models, their trustworthiness, fairness, reliability, robustness, efficiency and privacy.
AI TRiSM is a relatively new framework and its implementation and adoption is still ongoing. However, particularly in heavily regulated industries such as healthcare, finance and government, its adoption is particularly timely. If you use AI in any way, implementing AI TRiSM can build credibility with your customers, partners while ensuring the security, privacy and accountability of AI systems.
Technological trends in scaling
Industry Cloud Platforms (ICP)
"By 2027, more than 50 % enterprises will be using industry cloud platforms to accelerate their business initiatives." (Gartner)
Industry Cloud Platforms are designed to meet the specific needs of vertical industry segments that are underserved by generic solutions. They combine SaaS, PaaS and IaaS with features tailored specifically to the needs of a particular industry, such as IT, automotive, telecommunications, banking or insurance. These can be used by organisations to more easily adapt to changes in their industry of operation.
Industry-specific cloud platforms can also be seen as separate building blocks to assemble unique and differentiating digital products. This ensures agility, innovation and reduces time to market. ICPs can help streamline operations and increase efficiency, they can be easily expanded or adapted to meet changing industry needs.
Their biggest advantage from our perspective is that they significantly accelerate cloud adoption even by organizations that are not early adopters of cloud infrastructure and platform technologies, as they offer customizable and industry-relevant solutions.
Platform Engineering (Platform Engeering)
"By 2026, 80 % software engineering organizations will establish platform teams as internal providers of reusable services, components and tools to deliver applications." (Gartner)
Platform Engineering is a new discipline aimed at increasing developer productivity by reducing the complexity and uncertainty of delivering modern software. It addresses some of the biggest challenges in the use DevOps at scale, including aligning development practices with merchants and reducing the burden of managing a complex network of tools and infrastructure across the application lifecycle.
The goal is a seamless, self-service development experience that allows developers and others to create valuable software with as little overhead as possible. Organizations benefit from this approach by increasing developer productivity along with reducing cognitive load. The platform should contain everything that development teams need and present it in a way that best suits the team's preferred workflow.
Wireless-Value Realization
"By 2025, 50 % of enterprise wireless endpoints will use network services that provide additional functionality beyond communications, up from less than 15 % to date. (Gartner)
Realisation of value is the ability to track the quantified value that a business or stakeholder will gain from a solution implemented within the company. Gartner uses the term "realising the value of wireless technologies" to describe the many ways in which next-generation wireless technologies will provide new and improved services and reduce capital costs.
Wireless technologies provide a much broader range of tasks than in the past, while at the same time pushing their use beyond simple connectivity and serving as the basis for digital innovations in the areas of location tracking, radar sensing, IOT, etc. Wireless connectivity is moving from a communications technology to a broader digital innovation platform.
New ways of wireless connectivity will increase business value and offer new digital opportunities. In addition, the integration of different wireless technologies will allow companies to save money when building technical infrastructure.
Pioneering technological trends
Adaptive AI
"By 2026, enterprises that have adopted AI engineering practices to build and manage adaptive AI systems will outperform their peers in operationalizing AI models by at least 25 %." (Gartner)
Adaptive artificial intelligence is a concept where AI systems are able to change their behaviour and respond to changes in the environment based on experience and learning. These are AI systems that are able to adapt and optimize their outputs for specific applications or situations. Unlike "traditional AI," it can modify its own code to adapt to changes in the real world that were not known or anticipated when the code was first written.
By learning patterns of behaviour from past human and machine experiences and within runtime environments, adaptive AI delivers faster and better results. Adaptive AI is the next step in the journey of leveraging AI and its potential for use in business across industries in the coming period will be huge.
Superapps (Superapps)
"By 2027, more than 50 % of the world's population will be daily active users of multiple super apps." (Gartner)
Superapp is an application that provides end users (e.g. customers, partners or employees) with a set of core functions along with access to independently created widgets. Superapps can merge and replace multiple applications to support a complex business ecosystem, and Gartner likens them to a Swiss Army knife.
Superapps, on the other hand, are more than just composite applications that aggregate different services. At their core, they combine the features of an app, platform and ecosystem and provide platforms for third parties to develop and publish their own widgets.
Superapps are popular especially in Asia, a typical example is the Chinese communication platform WeChat. It currently has more than 1 billion users, who can chat, stream, shop, order food or transport... Similarly, well-known apps such as Spotify and Uber are starting to follow suit, and there is interest in creating Elon Musk and Microsoft's own superapp has also shown. This trend is going to be very strong in the coming years and in our opinion it will have a significant impact on the enterprise application market.
Metaverse
"By 2027, more than 40 % large organizations worldwide will use a combination of Web3, spatial computing and digital twins in metaverse-based projects aimed at increasing revenue." (Gartner)
Technically, it is metaverse A collective virtual shared space created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality. It is also a combinatorial innovation composed of multiple technological themes and trends. Individually, these trends are expected to provide both new opportunities and challenges for organizations across a wide range of industries and use cases.
What makes the metaverse a strategic technology trend are the 4 innovations it brings with it: Web3, spatial computing, digital twin of person (DToP) and digital twin of customer (DToC).
Gartner envisions that the metaverse will provide enduring, decentralized, collaborative, and interoperable opportunities and business models that enable organizations to scale their digital businesses.
Sustainable technologies
"By 2025, 50 % CIOs will tie performance metrics to the sustainability of the IT organization." (Gartner)
Gartner's technology sustainability umbrella covers all 2023 trends. Sustainability becomes even more important in the context of the current social situation and the energy crisis. Sustainable technology is a framework of solutions that improve the energy and material efficiency of IT services; enable enterprise sustainability through technologies such as traceability, analytics, renewable energy and others; and help customers become more sustainable through applications, software, marketplaces and more.
Investments in sustainable technologies have the potential to create greater operational resilience and financial performance, while providing new growth opportunities.
The most promising technology trends according to Aspecta
We asked our IT professionals which of the presented trends are the most promising from our company's point of view. The answers were mainly dominated by sustainable technology, superapplications and in the context of cloud services and cloud transformation trend industry cloud platforms and, in the context of AI in particular, its safety and ethical use covered AI TRiSM.
Our experts see the potential of technology sustainability as a trend in particular in resource efficiency (human, material, energy), less error in processes (manufacturing, business) while emphasizing that the future will not go not only about the development of new features, but also about the sustainability of the proposed solutions. In connection with the trend of superapps, the spin-off Aspecty has often been mentioned - Solvediowhich has the potential to develop as a superapp platform covering a complex business ecosystem.
The next period will show which of the technological trends will ultimately have the greatest impact on business and the direction of digital technologies. What is certain, however, is that implementing any of them before your competitors do will help you meet your business needs optimize, scale and last but not least, pioneer. If you are interested in any of the trends and would like to talk about how to implement their potential in your business do not hesitate to contact us..