Nowadays, nothing impacts our present and future more fundamentally than the way technology does. It influences our choices, our interpersonal relationships and our behavioural patterns. The role of technology in day-to-day human activities have expanded to an extent where the sum of our actions can have real time impact on the economy and drives consumer trends. Because of the significance of its function, businesses now require technology that is perceptive, intelligent, and adaptable.
Technology and innovation are enabling the emergence of new types of businesses, evolving business approaches, production efficiency, and viewing markets as integrated spaces that embrace cultural nuances. Around this diverse setting, artificial intelligence and machine learning have found their use in such an all-encompassing way that we see an accelerated adoption of AI technology.
According to a UNESCO report, the Indian AI market is expected to reach USD 7.8 billion by 2025. Thus, as we enter the new year, it becomes imperative to trace the most remarkable developments in AI and machine learning space and analyse the trends influencing the technology sector.
The Future of Consumer Experience
The year 2022 saw the consumer space flooded with AI Bots that supported customer relationship management services offered by businesses. From banks to fashion brands AI bots became the go to technology for addressing the basic information needs of existing and potential customers in an efficient and economical manner.
We also saw an increased use of AI-based algorithms and consumer data analytics to customise customer experience, especially by e-commerce platforms. Virtual assistants became increasingly more adept at offering personalised experiences. As AI bots continue to learn with time and experience, the consumer space will see its far wider adoption and more sophisticated algorithms and AI can be expected to emerge in newer roles in the near future.
AI Integrated Systems
The AI technology kick-started IoT integration in various industries. It allowed businesses to unlock the true potential of IoT by enabling networks and devices to learn from past decisions, predict future activity, continuously improve performance and facilitate decision-making capabilities.
We already see a growing trend of applying AI-based technologies across industries like e-commerce, consumer durables, manufacturing, heavy industries, defence, logistics etc. It must also be noted that the introduction of 5G in India will accelerate IoT adoption (enabled by AI) across industries. This domain will see remarkable growth, especially in the context of increasing efficiency, process automation via machine learning and reduction in energy consumption.
The Future of Decision Making
AI-led machine learning algorithms can use data analytics to identify patterns and trends. It is allowing businesses to achieve organisational agility. We see an increase in the use of AI forecasting technology to help businesses stay ahead of the competition, anticipate customer needs, and make informed strategic decisions.
Predictive AI technology, which can identify patterns and forecast future trends, are being increasingly used by OEMs, logistics and transportation, financial services, healthcare, and media and entertainment industries. It is continually improving automation while reducing the labour-intensive, time-consuming aspects of forecasting and prediction analysis.
Some of the most popular machine learning algorithms for trend forecasting include neural networks, support vector machines (SVM), random forests and Bayesian networks.
The Future of AI Technology
The evolution of AI has taught us that we should not think of it as a single technology but rather as an ecosystem of interdependent systems. The power and reliability of 5G and 6G network connections will further support this ecosystem. Innovation in product and service design using AI solutions is expected to amp up in 2023. The start-up sector and business incubation hubs have already started experiencing a staggering influx of AI-led businesses and this trend will continue to grow in the coming years.
The future of the internet, Web 3.0 – the third generation of web technology evolution – will be increasingly shaped by Ai and machine learning. Fostering new types of decentralised applications that use blockchain technology to enable greater ownership of digital assets, provide greater safety, build trust, and catalyse new business models. Overall, the tech industry is becoming more innovative, vibrant, and collaborative, and it is no longer limited to leveraging and correcting the constraints imposed by sociocultural, geo-political disruptions, rather, it has transcended them.