It is that time of year again in which we look back and reflect upon what we learned from the previous year, and look forward to what technology trends await us in the coming twelve months. Whichever direction you choose, it translates into the creation of some type of list, for example, the top ten movies of 2019 or the ten most anticipated movies of 2020. At Xcelacore, we tend to look towards the future rather than dwell on the past, so we took the initiative and listed what we think will be eight technologies that will have the biggest impact on companies in 2020.
More Emphasis on Edge Computing
While some people may enjoy living on the edge, the day is coming in which the majority of your data will be created on the edge as well. While 10 percent of enterprise-generated data was created and processed outside of a traditional centralized data center or cloud, this figure will reach 75 percent by 2022 according to Gartner. As real-time data will drive more of the decision process, there will be no time to send all data to the cloud by default. Rather than sending data across the internet to be batch processed at a central store, it will instead make the short hop to servers that reside locally and can analyze it quickly. This is especially important for distributed IoT systems. Edge computing not only reduces latency but also creates a secure environment that enables greater autonomy at the edge.
5G finally comes to Fruition
The concept of 5G continues to be heralded as the next-generation cellular standard that will totally transform the world and how it stays connected. We have heard that for a while now, but 2020 may be the year that we finally see it implemented on a scale that truly impacts our lives. What makes 5G so anticipated is the promise of significant boosts in speed, coverage and responsiveness. 5G will bring us next-generation connectivity that will be 10 to 100 times faster than typical cellular connections today, with download/uploads speeds in the milliseconds. As a result, companies will be able to take full advantage of other data-driven technologies and will serve as the backbone for the smart city of tomorrow. Qualcomm, the largest smartphone chip vendor, expects some 200 million 5G smartphones to be shipped in the coming year. This will accentuate the demand for 5G across the country.
Expansion of AI
There is nothing new about AI and we certainly witnessed its presence in 2019. However, we have only just begun to witness the power of AI. Retailers will turn to AI as a primary source of marketing insights that they can use to make decisions concerning just about anything, including inventory capacity, pricing and merchandising. We will see AI integrated at a massive scale in the form of AI-based chatbots and virtual assistants that will streamline business transactions and enhance customer experiences. Voice-enabled AI will continue to explode as well. Until now, the implementation of voice-enabled AI devices such as Alexa and Google Assistant have been just slightly more than gimmicky. The next stage, however, will be in 2020 in which voice queries will become a principle way to interact with AI. AI will also move beyond the stage of simply mimicking human abilities and will be directed to help solve meaningful problems that until now have proved elusive to human capabilities.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Those of you who read our company blog are familiar with RPA as it is a technology highly promoted by Xcelacore. RPA is all about automating repetitive tasks traditionally performed by humans. Often this means using the same interface that humans do. For instance, you may associate an action such as logging onto an authenticated website as something only a human can do, but think again. An RPA software robot can do it too and never type in an incorrect password. It also never takes a break or sleeps so it can work 24/7. It also costs a fraction of what humans cost. What can they do once they are logged on? Just about anything including copy and paste data, move folders, retrieve log files and scrape browsers. In other words, they do tedious sorts of things so that your creative human workers can then focus on utilizing the data accessed, created and analyzed by these software robots. RPA is not about replacing human capital; it is about expanding the utilization of human potential.
Hyper Automation
If you not yet familiar with this technology trend, you need to. Gartner identifies Hyper Automation as the #1 technology trend of 2020. Think of packaged software, AI, machine learning and RPA as all subsets of hyper-automation. Gartner defines hyper-automation as a combination of these and other automation tools to deliver work. While no single one of these included technologies can replace human capability by itself, the synergy of all of them working collectively will take automation to the next level. Eventually, this will mean taking over the complete decision process, involving itself in not only the data collection and analytical processes, but sharing the discovered insights across the organization. Think of this technology as the coming age of human enhancement.
Happy New Year from Xcelacore
We hope that 2020 proves a year of expanded opportunity for you and that we at Xcelacore can help you achieve your objectives for the coming year. Xcelacore continues to be at the forefront of leading technology trends and solutions and we will always strive to incorporate new technologies that we think can add real value to our clients. Let us help show you the doorway to endless possibilities in 2020. Happy New Year.
