Navigating the last few years has been a considerable challenge for businesses across all sectors. There is a silver lining, however. Thanks to recent technological advancements, enterprises can face these challenges and take the steps necessary to futureproof their businesses against future shocks.
According to Gartner, several technology trends, including data fabric, cybersecurity mesh, privacy-enhancing computation, cloud-native platforms, composable applications, decision intelligence, hyper-automation, AI engineering, distributed enterprises and total experience strategies, dominated 2022. So, what will 2023 hold for technology? This article explores Gartner's top 10 technology trends that need to be on your radar this year.
Digital Immune System
One of the themes that Gartner explores in this year's report is trends that will optimise IT systems for greater reliability. Enterprises that fail to address the stability and security of their products, either due to a lack of skills or substandard systems, may risk losing revenue. The best way to avoid this is to create a 'digital immune system', which protects against cyber attacks by combining several software engineering strategies to reduce risk.
Applied Observability
Businesses should focus on applied observability across the entire stack to optimise operations. Applied observability uses AI to analyse data and make recommendations for better efficiency and accuracy. But why does Gartner believe it to be a trending technology? Applied observability has the power to increase enterprises' speed of response and optimise operations in real-time. By 2026, Gartner expects 70 per cent of organisations successfully applying observability will achieve faster decision-making, allowing them to have a competitive market advantage.
AI TRiSM
With AI proliferating at breakneck speed, it would be wrong for Gartner to leave it off the 2023 list. The AI technology trend that will dominate this year, according to Gartner, is AI TRiSM. So, what is it? AI TRiSM, which stands for AI trust, risk and security management, ensures AI model governance, trustworthiness, fairness, reliability, robustness, efficacy and data protection. The framework ensures there is governance and appropriate safeguards in place to deter the inappropriate use of AI.
Industry Cloud Platforms
Next on the list is industry cloud platforms, which add value to enterprises by facilitating scalability, allowing them to respond to the changing requirements of their specific sectors. Vertical cloud platforms, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, offer industry players a more agile solution for workload management. The transition to industry cloud platforms has already begun—a recent Gartner survey found that 40 per cent of respondents had started adopting industry cloud platforms.
Platform Engineering
Platform engineering is an emerging approach that accelerates the delivery of applications at the pace they produce business value. The approach improves developer productivity and experience by offering self-service capabilities with automated infrastructure operations. By 2026, Gartner expects that 80 per cent of software engineering enterprises modernise software delivery by establishing platform teams as providers of reusable services, tools and components for application delivery.
Wireless-Value Realisation
Up next on Gartner's list is wireless-value realisation, a term used to describe the ways in which generation wireless technologies will eventually deliver new and improved services to reduce capital costs. The benefits of wireless technologies working together on a single infrastructure include better developer experience, a more cost-efficient and reliable technical foundation reducing capital costs and unified network connecting that provides a migration path for operational and informational technology.
Superapps
Superapps combine apps, platforms and digital ecosystems in one application, replacing multiple apps for customer or employee use. Superapps are growing in popularity because they offer better scalability, as they are made up of mini-apps that can be removed or added when required. Gartner expects that by 2027, over 50 per cent of the global population will use superapps daily.
Adaptive AI
The crises of the last three years have shown organisations that it is necessary to be able to adapt quickly. As a result, more businesses are embracing adaptive AI. Adaptive AI, unlike traditional AI systems, can revise its own code to adjust for real-world changes that didn't affect previous versions. It does this by bringing together a set of methods and techniques, including agent-based design and reinforcement learning to allow enterprises to adapt quickly to any unforeseen changes and disruptions that occur.
The Metaverse
You've probably heard quite a lot about the Metaverse lately. For those who don't know, the Metaverse is a virtual reality space where users interact with each other in a computer-generated environment. Despite the Metaverse being in its discovery stage, the potential benefits to the workforce alone could be significant, including cost savings on logistics and travel expenses, interactive training and onboarding, to mention a few. Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Meta, said: "Metaverse isn't a thing a company builds. It's the next chapter of the internet."
Forward-thinking organisations are already considering building Metaverse applications. Frances Karamouzis, Group Chief of Research and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, recently explained that organisations that build Metaverse applications would be seen as making a reputation for innovation.
Sustainable Technology
The final trend on Gartner's list is sustainable technology. As technology proliferates, tech companies invest more time and money into sustainable solutions, Gartner labels this as environmental, social and governance (ESG). However, it's important to note that sustainable technology doesn't have a single objective. Instead, it's a framework of solutions that allow companies to strengthen their ESG propositions in a meaningful way. But it's not only ESG concerns driving sustainable technology—it also optimises costs and asset utilisation.
In Summary
Gartner's top ten technology trends for 2023 focused on three key themes: optimisation, scalability and pioneering change. Enterprises should work to integrate some of these technologies into their business operations to ensure it is ready to adapt to real-world circumstances and, vitally, confront future challenges.