Introducing Gartner's list of the top 10 strategic predictions for 2019 and beyond, managing vice president and chief of research Daryl Plummer stressed that "practicality exists within instability." While the world may seem chaotic, order does emerge from the chaos, even if it's not always easy to see. Plumer told attendees they need to focus on vision, the effort required to do things the right way, and most importantly, emphasized taking a practical approach when it comes to responding to new trends and implementing new technologies.
The research firm presents a similar list each year (here's last year's list). It's meant to serve as a supplement to its list of big trends in the industry. Whereas the other list specifies clear trends, this list is a bit more speculative, although Plummer did note that Gartner has an 85 percent accuracy rate, which he thinks is too high, because if you don't make mistakes in your predictions, "you aren't trying hard enough."
For each category, Plummer (above) gave a prediction, explained the background, and listed one "near-term flag"—a shorter timeline prediction that should indicate the accuracy of the longer-term prediction.
This year's list was grouped into three big areas: augmented intelligence and analytics, culture and privacy, and products and markets. Here is the list:
Augmented Intelligence and Analytics
1. Through 2020, 80 percent of AI projects will remain alchemy, run by wizards whose talents won't scale widely in the organization. By that time, Plummer said that 85 percent of CIOs would be piloting AI programs through a combination of build, buy, and outsourcing efforts—and most of these programs will be done by "wizards who are "locked in a bottle." It is essential to have an "AI Skills roadmap," he argued, and distribute AI skills and enhancements to all, mostly via automation. Organizations should focus on specific things like computer vision, language processing, and machine learning. To make this practical, you need to first rally your data scientists, computer engineers, and devops teams. By the end of next year, Gartner expects research in data science automation will have increased faster than AI data complexity, allowing skills to begin to catch up.
2. By 2023, there will be an 80 percent reduction in missing people in mature markets compared to 2018 due to AI-powered facial recognition. Plummer believes facial recognition solves the problem of scale in finding missing people and said that in the US, the average person is captured by 15 cameras on every city block. Facial recognition will continue to improve, because of an increase in the number of samples and collection points. Plummer quoted Scott McNealy—to the effect that you have no privacy—and said we need to address privacy concerns by being more transparent about the rules. This extends to living things beyond humans, and he said that in Africa people are using facial recognition to find animals who are in places they shouldn't be. Through 2019, Gartner predicts that a fear of mass shootings will reduce the outrage over public surveillance.
3. By 2023, emergency department visits will be reduced by 20 million due to the enrollment of chronically ill patients in AI-enhanced virtual care. A lot of this will be done via devices on the body, such as wearables. Plummer said that 130 million people visit emergency rooms every year in the US, but only 35 percent of these visits are for accidents—the majority of visits involve chronic illnesses. AI will drive care for chronic patients, he said, and "virtual care" based on devices and apps will connect patients and care providers, and become part of integrated healthcare systems. Existing wellness and preventive care programs will need to scale. By the end of next year, Gartner predicts an accountable care organization will have acquired an artificial-intelligence-based mobile trainer/coach company.
Culture and Privacy
4. By 2023, 25 percent of organizations will require employees to sign an affidavit to prevent cyberbullying, but 70 percent of these initiatives will fail. Plummer described cyberbullying as anytime somebody says something bad about you or your organization online; under this definition, just about everyone is a victim. Cyberbullying will degrade your health, satisfaction, and stability, and he noted that 52 percent of all cyberbullying actually comes from managers, and presents an easy way of doing "anti-social networking." However, 75 percent of all employees will downplay this idea of cyberbullying, so organizations will need to teach cyberbullying recognition first, and ensure leaders are modeling respectful behavior, which will then trickle down. By 2019, Gartner predicts there will be 44 percent more federal lawsuits related to workplace harassment than in 2017.
5. Through 2022, 75 percent of organizations with frontline decision-making teams that reflect diversity and an inclusive culture will exceed their financial targets. Plummer noted studies that demonstrate how much inclusive and diverse cultures impact corporate performance, and when a team leader has at least three inclusive behaviors, people feel more welcomed, more included, and freer to express their views. He said only 50 percent of organizations are training for inclusive leadership, and only 40 percent of employees agree managers foster an inclusive environment. "We have a lot to do," Plummer said, beginning with creating a scorecard to measure diversity and inclusion. By 2020, 15 percent of large enterprises will be recognized as inclusive workplaces through consistent identification of related behaviors.
6. By 2021, 75 percent of public blockchains will suffer "privacy poisoning"—inserted personal data that renders the blockchain noncompliant with privacy laws. Plummer said that privacy may be the Achille's heel of blockchain if we don't address it. We have to lock down free text fields and automate privacy regulation to restrict access to personal data within the blockchain, he argued. Blockchain auditability must happen, and more importantly, organizations should focus on "privacy-by-design" as opposed to blindly trying to preserve "blockchain purity." He said that European companies are expected to spend an average of $1.4 million to comply with GDPR, and US companies are setting aside $1 million to $10 million for this compliance. He predicted that active enforcement of ePrivacy regulation will become a reality before the first quarter of 2020.
7. By 2023, ePrivacy legislation will increase online costs by minimizing the use of "cookies," thus crippling the current Internet ad revenue machine. Plummer said this will make it hard for vendors to offer targeted advertising, and consumers will no longer give away personal information for free. ePrivacy will expand compliance requirements, and he noted that "cookies" are only one mechanism to examine. On the practical side, he said he believed ad-based revenue will decline, and we'll see more direct pay models for premium content and features. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2019, ad revenue for five major commerce marketing technology companies will be down 10 percent.
Products and Markets
8. Through 2022, a fast path to digital will convert internal capabilities to external revenue-generating products using cloud economics and flexibility. Good processes created in-house can become products that can be sold to others, Plummer explained. As examples, he said that if your company developed expertise in areas such as retail as a service delivery or stock trading, you could then sell that to others. Less than 10 percent of companies are doing true digital transformation, he said, because it's hard—and many organizations will fail. To succeed, you need to identify external prospects who benefit from your data and algorithms and consider an analytics acquisition. By 2019, Gartner predicts that top performers will shift IT from a cost-cutting to a revenue-building organization.
9. By 2022, companies leveraging the "gatekeeper" position of the digital giants will capture 40 percent global market share, on average, in their industry. In any market, Plummer said, the top four players will have 40 percent of the market, controlling more of your money. Digital ecosystems are expanding, and at the same time as the digital giants have built their systems and are moving into B2B (business-to-business). The "top four" market share is rising globally, and the pervasive adoption of digital technology will deliver network effects. Instead of dealing with one such system, you are likely to have multiple partners and need to balance interoperability with single-ecosystem risks. In particular, you need to curate and manage your own data. By the end of 2019, Gartner predicts market concentration will spread from a national to a global trend.
10. Through 2021, social media scandals and security breaches will have effectively zero lasting consumer impact. Plummer noted that while many companies have had short-term impacts on usage or their stock prices from security breaches, these effects rarely persist. Organizations need to learn from consumers, which will reduce your anxiety amid risk. "You've got no privacy," he said, "give it up." While recognizing that security remains important and that the risks are real, we shouldn't overreact. "Sometimes it's okay to fail," he said, and you need to balance risk with reputation. We have to recognize what the real impacts will be, and plan for these. Unsecured but popular devices are not going away, and unsecure processes and business models will continue to exist. Gartner predicts that the number of people using social media every day will increase steadily through 2019.
Summing up all of these predictions, Plummer returned to order, which "always emerges from chaos, if you have the right perspective."