Top 10 technology trends for 2023 and beyond

“The top technology trends in 2020 will help enterprises build futuristic business models.” 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 5G are the two technologies that will disrupt businesses in 2020. These technologies will accelerate innovation and prise open a new world of opportunities for businesses. However, AI and 5G are not the only ones that will reign supreme in the year. It is expected that the year 2020 will witness dramatic changes, with respect to technologies and their adoption among enterprises of all sizes. Other factors such as the necessity to deliver superior Customer Experiences (CX), curb operational costs and gain an edge over competitors, force businesses to monitor and scrutinize other latest Technology Trends that will shape the industry.

Emerging Tech Trends in 2020

The following are the 10 top technology trends in 2020 that enterprises must embrace to remodel their businesses and thrive in an era of digital disruption.

1. 5G — The Next-gen Cellular Technology: At a time when the global markets are mobile-heavy and approximately 4.5 billion of the total world’s population (i.e., 7.6 billion) is using the internet actively, the advent of 5G is poised to revolutionize the industries beyond telecommunication. Businesses are hopeful as 5G, the next-gen cellular technology, supports ultrafast device-to-device communication that is sure to accelerate innovations led by technologies such as autonomous things, OTT, and more. According to a BBC article, the rollout for 5G services is expected to increase when compared to the last year. In 2019, 40 operators in 22 countries offered 5G services and the number is likely to reach 125 operators by the end of 2020. The 5G technology offers incredible speed, reduces communication lag, and helps businesses reap the underlying benefits. 
2. OTT — The Content Streaming Technology: For a technology new and evolving as OTT (Over the Top), it won’t be wrong to say that platforms such as Netflix and other similar models are no news. The year 2020 is expected to witness a more comprehensive expansion of the technology, wherein it will cross the entertainment boundary and enter the business town. This year businesses are eyeing on OTT to use it for smart marketing tactics and take effective media-buying decisions. The technology will lead to a radical overhauling in the way enterprises implement their brand positioning strategies. OTT helps in the better segregation of consumers, which also means that the technology will help businesses do targeted advertising. In an age, where the global enterprises, irrespective of their size, are yearning to adopt and implement practices that can bring them closer to their customers and audience, OTT proves its worth by augmenting personalization initiatives.
3. Blockchain — The Backbone of Sharing Economy in Making: Abandoning its loyalty to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, the blockchain technology is expected to transform businesses. One of the top technology trends in 2020, blockchain will be proactively used to boost the functioning of the sharing economy, where we will witness the increase in the number of connected things. It is expected to strengthen security, boost trust, and enhance transparency and traceability of all sorts of transactions. There’s no denying the fact that blockchain has not yet become mainstream, but Gartner predicts that by 2023 blockchain will be fully scalable. For now, businesses are looking to harness the potentials of this technology to support peer-to-peer transactions and ensure complete data security.  
4. AI — The Creator of Cyborgs: AI has introduced the age of non-human elements, which are laced with cognitive capabilities and are undergoing continuous training to perform considerably better than the most ingenious living being on earth, the humans. From fun, fiction to reality, AI has traveled a long way. In 2020, AI will play a critical role in delivering superior CX, an important criterion for businesses to reach their success metrics. Enterprises all across the globe are heavily investing in this technology to improve future performances as well as deliver high-quality customer interactions and experiences. With a high-level of computing and algorithmic abilities, AI supports hyper-personalization and enables businesses to become responsive to their customers’ changing needs.    
5. Hyperautomation — The Performance Accelerator: Hyperautomation augments human performance by automating tasks that are repetitive and time-consuming. In 2020, hyper-automation will be embraced by more and more businesses to streamline processes, remodel capabilities, improve visibility, and build interoperability. The technology draws its potentials from technology forces such as IoT (Internet of Things), AI, ML (Machine Learning), RPA (Robotic Process Automation), and more that together delivers intelligence, speed, and precision across tasks and functions. A matured version of the automation technology, hyper-automation is heavily relied upon by businesses for bot audit-as-a-service, enterprise content management, and making systems and processes holistically productive. Besides, eliminating business complexities, creating smart homes and smart factories, hyper-automation is considered to be a force that will win the digital race in 2020.   
6. Extended Reality (XR) — The Experience Builder: It won’t be wrong to say that extended reality combines the potentials of wearable devices, smartphones, Virtual Reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and more to offer immersive, simulative user experiences. Today XR is ripe to disrupt businesses across industries such as retail, travel, healthcare, and manufacturing. From enhancing skills of the disabled students, diagnosing brain injuries to augmenting products and boosting customer engagement, XR is expected to have multiple use cases in 2020. According to a report published in BusinessWire, by 2022, the US plans to invest $11 billion to innovate the military systems using technology forces such as AR, VR, and mixed reality. The same report informs that the market for this technology is expected to grow at 65% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) between 2019 and 2024.  
7. Conversational AI — The Customer Service Enhancer: AI-powered conversational solutions enable computers to simulate natural conversations with customers, offering them humanized experiences. Conversational AI, one of the top technology trends in 2020, is designed to learn and evolve continuously from databases and ongoing customer engagements as well as interactions. The technology is gaining traction among businesses and attracting investments from across the globe. The service industry such as BFSI and IT, for instance, are adopting conversational AI for better customer profiling and offering personalized services to customers. Reports suggest, by 2024, the global market value for this technology is expected to reach $15.7 billion.     
8. Edge Computing — The Local Data Manufacturer: Edge computing is another tech trend that will gain traction in 2020. It uses IoT to allow smart devices and business applications to process large volumes of data locally and make it accessible in real-time. The technology helps accelerate decision-making, reduce internet bandwidth and dependency on the public cloud, and improve performance as businesses don’t have to depend on the remotely located data centers and servers. Edge computing also reduces data latency to a greater extent and is expected to significantly spur innovations in the years to come.  
9. Cloud — The Mobility Enabler: Cloud is undeniably one of the strongest pillars of the digital-driven, sharing economy. It will see widespread adoption in the years to come. Cloud technology has completely transformed the way enterprises shift workloads as well as store and access data. Businesses have started to leverage this technology for integrating SaaS-based applications with their legacy product suites and the existing IT landscape. Many among them are approaching distributed cloud service providers for their requirements. With the emerging data security protocols such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the cloud is being seen as a facilitator that will reduce latency and help deal with data sovereignty challenges.
10. Autonomous Things — The True Disruptor: Drones and self-driving cars are perhaps the most familiar innovations triggered by autonomous things, but that’s not the end to it. According to a recent article published by Forbes, IT (Information Technology) is the topmost industry that will harness the autonomous things technology in the next five years, followed by manufacturing, transportation, banking & finance, agriculture, and healthcare. In fact, the Forbes article also informs that, in an extended use case, autonomous things is helping governments to identify the most suitable communities for refugees. A top technology trend in 2020, autonomous things is predicated on ML (one of the branches of AI) that follows an iterative approach to learning from data that is being generated continuously. It uses data for instant decision-making and initiates the required action without involving the human brain. 

​​​​Top Technology Trends in 2020 Will Help Businesses Reach New Success Metrics

Technologies are deeply ingrained into our lives. The way technology has been able to facilitate convenience, innovation, reinvention, and more, we seem to be more than willing to allow this entrenchment.

Until last year, technologies were mostly considered as elements of digital transformation. Decisions to make digital the mainstream, perhaps, were taken in a haste. Experiments with technologies succeeded but created some loopholes too. For instance, technologies such as IoT was leveraged to create a connected world, but measures to control cyber-bullying were not successfully put in place. On the other hand, technologies such as big data, analytics, and AI started to turn data into valuable business assets, but digital-driven innovations jeopardized the most precious asset of the contemporary world, i.e., data.  

But unlike the past years, the emerging tech trends in 2020 brings hope to pursue growth, innovation, and success more comprehensively and steadily. Gartner informs that 2020 onwards technologies will start maturing and will help enterprises think beyond just transformation.