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When the UK AI industry gets together later this month at AI & Big Data Expo, we expect big things about its growing influence on key issues such as cybercrime, process automation, retail, healthcare and customer experience – all areas in which we have clients actively working in.  However, amongst this anticipation to hear about new and exciting innovation, we hope to hear that ethical AI is woven throughout all aspects of the conference agenda.

This is a topic that is gaining momentum, but with AI still something of a catch-all term, many industries have not yet moved on to this crucial next stage of the debate.

To provide some context, Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, is the author and co-author of two best-selling books[1] on one theme: the fourth industrial revolution (4IA).

The first three revolutions all had some form of production as the benefit. Number one combined water and steam to create mechanical production, and the second was led by harnessing electricity to allow us to mass produce. The third mobilised electronics, computers and IT to automate production.

We have, for a handful of years, existed in the fourth revolution – and it’s one where large-scale iteration in production isn’t the single outcome. This revolution is really quite different. Professor Schwab wrote that this “is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”

It is impacting almost every industry in every country – developed or otherwise – and creating change at a speed humanity has never before experienced.

41A has opportunities with risks which need to be proactively managed, and artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly the glue that enables various technologies, devices, applications and systems to deliver the opportunities we are only just starting to realise. At the most fundamental level, AI is already showing signs of improving our world, extending to people’s lives, wildlife, as well as our climate. It’s truly democratic in its potential and applications. And they are vast. PwC research says that AI will provide $15.7 trillion in global economic growth by 2030 and in the UK it’s expected to contribute an additional £232bn by the same year.

PwC breaks down the scope of AI into four key areas:

  • Automated intelligence: Automating manual, routine tasks;
  • Assisted intelligence: Performing tasks faster and better;
  • Augmented intelligence: Helping people to make better decisions; and
  • Autonomous intelligence: Automating decision-making processes without people.

Across these four aspects of AI, commentary centres on ensuring ‘safe AI’ – where those key stakeholders I mentioned above are collectively responsible for ensuring it’s developed and implemented to align with general human values.

One of the key risks focuses on social ethics. And it’s a broad issue that is increasingly and encouragingly gaining greater traction and visibility in international discussions in the US and in an upcoming Bias review by the UK Centre for Data Ethics & Innovation. Businesses, investors, policy-makers and the public are all involved with responsibilities. We must collectively learn from the recent scandals which stick in the mind, such as Cambridge Analytica, something which author Bernard Marr has explored in a recent article for Forbes.

However, much like big data in the last decade, a lot of the talk around AI in B2B applications is what it “could do” – it’s largely hypothetical and all about the possibilities. And demand for those possibilities is high. As recently as December last year, $322 million was raised for B2B startups in just one week. Time will tell, but we now need to move on to ‘how’ it should be adopted – and I think responsibility plays a key role in this.

[1] The Fourth Industrial Revolution (January 2017) and Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: A guide to building a better world (November 2018)

Technology has become one of the key drivers of social evolution and has been embedded in every aspect of our day-to-day lives. Since the launch of the smartphone around 15 years ago, I have seen first-hand how technology has transformed the way we interact with each other, how, as just two examples, it has opened our eyes to new methods of education and how it has provided us with the tools to take healthcare into the palm of our hands with wellness apps and fitness trackers.

I must confess, for me technology is both a blessing and a curse. I have mastered the art of procrastination by mindlessly scrolling through social apps; but I have also witnessed the benefit that technology can bring to everyday living, and how this can transform the most mundane of tasks into something interactive, engaging and ultimately enjoyable.

Take dating for example – since the mid-1990s the internet has revolutionised the way we network, meaning it is possible to e-meet a potential partner through social media and online dating sites such as eHarmony and Match.com. It’s an industry that’s expected to grow even further, with predictions stating that online dating will contribute more than £265 million to the UK economy by the year 2030.

As digital social interactions become more commonplace, it means that all types of relationships can thrive with the aid of technology and topic-based communities are able to come together without the boundaries of location. It offers social satisfaction without having to leave the house.

However, like all things in life, moderation is key. According to Market Watch, on average adults spend 11 hours per day watching, reading, listening to or simply interacting with media on one screen or another. The negative effects of excessive usage continue to hit headlines on a monthly basis.

Luckily, there are functions in place on most smartphones that can help you track your screen time and apps that encourage a balanced lifestyle. The Headspace app is a winner as far as bringing the practice of meditation to the masses, with scientific studies listing mental acuity, patience, productivity and sleep as just a few of the benefits associated with meditation. Another great app, Fooducate, works by offering users a personalised nutrition and ingredient analysis by using your phone to scan product barcodes. This is an increasingly popular method used by brands to make the experience more interactive so it resonates with the user, making them part of the experience. It perfectly demonstrates how the integration of technology can fit so seamlessly into your life.

With this in mind, I think that when it comes to the effects of technology on our lives, we need to accept that the world is becoming more digitised and that it is moving forward at a rapid pace. But when we want to slow down for a second and take in everything and everyone in front of us, here are a variety of apps that will limit our smartphone use – the true exemplification of how technology can help us achieve balance after all.

Are you a value-adding brandividual utilising holistic storytelling to leverage your influence and drive agile new synergies? Or do you, like so many others, recoil at the very sight or sound of too many buzzwords?

Type the term ‘buzzwords’ into the Google news tab and you’ll find countless articles decrying their use. Many of these articles appear to be responding to LinkedIn’s ‘Buzzword Beaters Bracket’ launched earlier this month, which has generated, well, quite a buzz.

Presenting a fresh spin on the brackets used to keep track the progress of teams in sports tournaments, the Buzzword Bracket plays common buzzwords against each other to find the most annoying of the bunch. The winner (or loser) that surpassed all other contenders in irritating people the most was ‘disruption’.

For those who aren’t in the know, a buzzword is a word or phrase, often labelled as jargon, that is fashionable at a particular time or in a particular context. You could argue that ‘buzzword’ is in itself a buzzword.

In B2B tech PR, buzzwords are used often and in abundance. Once they enter the business lexicon, they represent a meaning that is universally understood. Rather than taking a whole sentence or paragraph to build context, you can do it with just one or two words.

For example, in supply chain management, the term ‘digital decisioning’ has become widely adopted as a way of referencing the process of making crucial business decisions based on insights that are informed by real-time data from various touchpoints across the supply chain network.

Imagine having to read that description every time a piece of content references the practice of digital decisioning. As the term has entered the lexicon it has become commonly used in content written around supply chain management.

In B2B content it pays to be direct. Buzzwords allow you to do this by writing more concisely while continuing to demonstrate value to the reader. However… there’s a big but…

Sifting through the countless articles that call for the banishment of buzzwords, the reason they’re so reviled becomes clear: people feel they are overused and lack originality. Of course, creativity is key to making your content original, engaging and thought provoking. But this has to be balanced with directness and functionality that gives your content purpose and drives your messaging home to the marketing personas you’ve defined.

And that’s exactly what buzzwords can be: direct and functional. Unfortunately, they’re most often overused, sending readers running and causing confusion about what the brand is really trying to convey. It’s why we ourselves recently set out to ‘break up with the cloud’ in a recent campaign we ran around Cloud Expo Europe.

Our view is that buzzwords can play a limited, focused and purposeful role in grabbing attention and signposting in virtual flashing lights what a piece of content is going to broadly be about. But when it comes to the heart of your content, use purposeful, tailored messaging that resonates with your audience instead of relying on the fallback of the buzzword.

In 2019, B2B PR and communications is less about direct corporate messaging and more about sharing an interesting, relevant and insightful story for audiences and remaining relevant to the client’s sector and area of expertise. The industry is continuing to grow in 2019 as companies use PR as a platform to give themselves a voice, but it’s also creating a lot of competition. As a result, it is now more important than ever to stand out from the crowd and have something important and relevant to say.

Image credit: Powderkeg

For instance, the news agenda is currently saturated with updates on Brexit and everyone is fed up of reading the same old stories. It’s therefore our job as PRs to think about how we can move the news agenda along and say something new using a news hook to discuss an angle that no one else is currently talking about. In this example, we have been ensuring our clients are relevant to Brexit by offering advice on how Brexit may impact the UK high street and other areas of commerce or the likely impact of stockpiling on businesses.

One of the biggest challenges for PRs currently is to balance both the client’s expectations and the journalist’s need for a brilliant story. PRs must consider how a client’s story can remain relevant and interesting without straying too far from the client’s topic of expertise and the messaging that they are trying to convey. However, you must also consider that the story should spark interest for a publication’s audience. Another big challenge within the world of PR can be quantifying the value that PR directly has to a business, and then, integrating the PR function with the rest of marketing and the business operations to ensure maximum gain from the PR efforts.

We tackle each of these challenges by being proactive with content creation from the start, staying on top of the news agenda and creating an effective campaign that links to our clients’ area of expertise but is also impactful on the publication’s audience. We use content in several other creative ways, such as endorsing clients’ customer success through case studies and writing thought leadership pieces. This is in addition to creating e-books and whitepapers that can be used across the company for integrated marketing campaigns and as supporting information for our clients’ sales teams. Further to this, we also ensure that results from PR can be clearly demonstrated and maximum ROI is achieved by setting clear deliverables for our clients at the start of each campaign.

Whiteoaks International works collaboratively within our teams across content, media and social media to ensure that the power of PR is maximised through each channel. For example, the core PR team will work closely with the social media and digital team when a piece of great coverage has been achieved to ensure that this is being shared with the right messaging via the client’s social channels to reach an even wider audience. By working to our 360̊ Framework, we generate interesting and relevant content for our clients and ensure we deliver on all fronts.

 

  1. What’s your career background, in brief?

I’d always wanted to have a career in writing but wasn’t quite sure what that might be. So after university, I interned for a while at a publishing house before bagging a role as a Publishing Assistant at Xbox. I then decided to give agency life a try so moved into the world of content marketing and SEO for five years before joining Whiteoaks tech PR agency last summer.

  1. What’s the most challenging job you’ve ever had?

During the summer between school and college, I worked at a nursery a couple of days a week. That was probably the most challenging job I’ve had as I was sixteen and had very little experience of being around small children. It was rewarding and a lot of fun at times, but definitely not for me.

  1. What apps, technology items and gadgets can’t you live without?

I couldn’t live without WhatsApp; my family doesn’t live locally so us all having WhatsApp means I get daily photo updates of my niece and nephew and can video call them once a week. Also, we swapped our TV for a projector a few years ago and I couldn’t live without that now — having a big screen experience for absolutely everything is pretty cool.

  1. What’s the best advice you’ve been given?

While it wasn’t given to me personally, I really like this piece from Dolly Parton: “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one”.

  1. Name one thing about your job that gives you a sense of satisfaction or makes you leave the office smiling…

I get a real sense of satisfaction when something I’ve written gets good feedback from a client or journalist – it’s nice to get that little confidence boost.

  1. Do you personalise your workspace?

I don’t, but I’m a big list writer so my desk is often littered with Post-it notes of things I need to pick up from the shops on my way home.

  1. What’s the first thing you do in the office in the morning?

I tend to get in fairly early so once I’ve turned my laptop on, I head straight to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and my breakfast.

  1. What are you reading, watching or listening to at the moment?

I’ve just started re-reading one of my all-time favourites, Persuasion by Jane Austen. I’m really interested to see if thirty-year-old me reads it differently to teenage me.

I’m the first to admit that I watch a lot of TV; at the moment I’m loving series 2 of Fleabag and am excited to watch the latest series of Queer Eye on Netflix. I’m a big fan of true crime podcasts so always have one of those on the go and enjoy listening to the weekly episode of pop-culture podcast The High Low on my drive to work.

At Cloud Expo Europe, the UK’s biggest and most attended technology event, I had the chance keep up with the latest innovations in the ever-changing B2B tech landscape by attending the jam-packed speaker programme. Cloud Expo Europe covers everything from FinTech to DevOps, giving me the opportunity to listen to speakers and watch demos and exhibitions. Here are my three biggest takeaways from the event…

Technology is still revolutionising banking

The banking and finance industry has been one of the most disrupted sectors in the last five years due to the number of technology companies that are challenging the traditional banks. It was interesting to hear from HSBC and Allianz – their experiences are that it’s not only well-funded start-ups which are threatening their place in the market, but it’s also the likes of Amazon and Google who are looking to take a bite out of the traditional banks.

So, how are they adapting to keep up with the Fintech specialists? Axel Kotulla, Head of Enterprise Architecture at Allianz and James Bickerton, Global Head of Operational Strategy at HSBC both talked about maximising how they use data so that they can close the gap between what the customer wants and what the banks are offering them. At the moment only 0.5% of data is analysed so it’s no surprise that banks are focusing on investing in technology that will help them interpret data that is currently sitting there unused. Data allows banks to get closer to their customers, so they can give them a personalised experience, not just a one size fits all approach. This is where the FinTech companies have had the edge on banks in recent years: companies like Monzo gave their customers an end of year review, which gave people a snapshot of where they spent their money. It turned out to be a real hit, with many users sharing their review on Twitter, shocked at how much money they had spent eating out, for example. But by utilising this data banks have a chance of fending off the challengers in finance, but at the moment they still seem to be playing catch up to the newcomers.

Cybersecurity is more important than ever in financial services

There has been an unprecedented level of cyber attacks in the UK this year and the finance industry is still high on the list of targets for hackers. Listening to talks in the Future of Finance Theatre, it was clear that the complexity in the industry means that breaches can come from many different sources. The extra threat of attack is on apps, with 71% of hacks in the finance and insurance industry coming through apps. Companies need to plug every hole in their system because hackers don’t wait for the go ahead. A point made by a leading security expert was that the average timeline from identifying a weakness in a company’s system to hacking the system is one week, giving little to no time for the company to thwart the attack.

Whilst finance brands are still focused on strengthening their security infrastructure, there’s no reason why other industries should be complacent. Other industries including retail and healthcare still have too many vulnerabilities.

Digital Transformation is a dangerous buzzword

The most interesting speaker slot and the topic that most resonated with me was about ‘dangerous buzzwords’ by Lindsay Herbert who is an author and the Inventor & Senior Technology Leader at IBM. She talked about the ongoing megatrend: Digital Transformation and how much it is misunderstood. Here are some of the myths and misconceptions about Digital Transformation, according to Lindsay:

  • “We need a major budget for a Digital Transformation project to be successful”: Some of the most successful had low budgets.
  • “We have consensus within our organisation on what Digital Transformation means” Real-world evidence shows that this is far from the case.
  • “Business will revert to Business as Usual after a Digital Transformation”: it is a one-way trip with a single-minded strategic objective: make an organisation more adaptive to change.

She goes on to say that real Digital Transformation is about the organisation’s ability to react to using new processes, technologies and ways of working not about how much they have spent on new technology.

With so many expert speakers and exhibitions to enjoy at Cloud Expo Europe, it was impossible to take everything in, but these were some important points that stuck with me. If you want to get ahead of the curve, explore how we can support your business to break away from the overused buzzwords – and then there’s always the work we’ve done with the UK’s leading secure hybrid IT provider Pulsant.

Technology has become such a staple of everyday life, it’s almost impossible to imagine life without it — I speak from experience as a so-called ‘millennial’ who doesn’t know a world without internet. We’ve come a long way since the mechanical age in the late 1400s. In fact, we’ve come a long way since the invention of the internet and that was only about 30 years ago (not that I’d remember!). Today we use technology without even thinking about it; setting a timer on your phone, tracking your steps on your Fitbit, buying clothes, even turning on the radio in your car… it’s everywhere.

Image Credit: Luxe Digital

As consumers we almost take this for granted. But for businesses, it’s all about making sure they’re staying ahead of our expectations and their competitors. In fact, some businesses only exist today because of technology. Amazon is the obvious example, but fashion brands such as ASOS and Burberry have exploded in the last five years in particular, due to their online presence and general digital developments. All the big names in fashion are competing with one another to capture a bigger share of the market, attract new customers and retain their existing ones, increasingly using technology to achieve these goals. As a result, consumers are spoilt for choice and most make full use of this technology-enabled approach.

Take ASOS for example; founded in 2000, this online phenomenon has smashed through all the tech barriers and taken the online shopping world by storm. While it has experienced a few lows in its history, the trajectory has been undoubtedly up – and it reported a 26% increase on sales in 2018 over the previous year, with a whopping 18 million customer base worldwide. Every year there is something new that this company releases to keep its customer base interested, excited and most importantly, loyal. From video catwalks to virtual models demonstrating a variety of sizes per product, digital personal shopping via a camera on an app or same day delivery, ASOS has mastered how to keep its customers constantly wanting more.

The two worlds of fashion and technology have come together once more and made perfect harmony in-store with fast fashion giant, Zara. Its Westfield London store has an entire digital floor dedicated to purchase and collection of online orders. Shoppers simply enter a QR code that they received with their online order into the iPads available around the floor, and pick up their purchase within minutes – no human interaction required. One might wonder when the time will come whereby human shop assistants won’t be necessary at all. If that wasn’t good enough, Zara has now introduced self-service checkouts to help bid farewell to those long queues and say hello to new and intrigued customers. I’m sure you’re familiar with the blood curdling phrase, “unexpected item in bagging area”, yes? Well gone are those days because not only does the customer operate the till themselves, they just simply hold up the product to the screen and it will recognise it, no scanning or beeping or making sure you find that teeny tiny hidden security tag.

And it’s not just the fashion industry that technology is seeping into; world renowned cosmetics brand L’Oréal has introduced augmented reality makeovers in its Chinese and Korean stores. Shoppers can now walk right up to a concession stand and see exactly the product they want on themselves without even having to swatch it – its AR technology applies digital makeup through the mirror and even recommends products suited to you. Now that’s clever!

Technology is ever growing and constantly impressing all of us. We know technology today won’t be the same in a year’s time which I think is really exciting. Who knows, maybe my dream of being here the same time as flying cars really isn’t that far away…

Discover the Whiteoaks Difference

Technology is powering significant change across industries that were once seen as established pillars of society.

Financial services, healthcare and energy are just three that have experienced transformational change over the last decade or so. Naturally there are significant external factors such as industry regulation, macroeconomic trends or global initiatives, but it is technology, the data revolution and various offshoots that are enabling change.

Image credit: iStock

And what do all these industries have in common? There are an increasing number of disruptive firms willing to make things better and easier for consumers, breaking down and reimagining complex market problems at the same time.

The energy sector is a prime example of a once monopolised industry that is undergoing structural changes. Whether energy production, distribution, storage or usage, they are all highly important and often with high growth, with a shifting vendor landscape inevitably looking to grab their share and navigate the precarious and confusing political winds.

Related to various aspects of the energy market comes the numerous dependencies and links that it has with a more sustainable Built Environment industry. Whether as a result of initiatives like BIM Level 2, the heart-breaking disaster at Grenfell Tower or the enhancements to the places we live and work to ensure we can better withstand floods as our climate changes, both industries are now full of companies with a common mentality.

Unseating incumbents, unsettling the establishment, empowering change; it’s now par for the course for the disruptors and makes for great PR as part of an integrated marketing mix.

If there is one thing we understand, it is how to take firms that are catalysts for change in their markets and tell their story to the world so their users can experience what ‘better‘ is. Whether it’s Glasswall Solutions in the sphere of cyber security or Fraedom in Fintech, we understand the demands of innovative, agile firms and what PR can and should achieve for them.

We find these types of fast-growth organisations understand that beating the competition will never be achieved by doing things the same old way. This in turn requires a new way of looking at communications.

Signing up to a monthly retainer and buying hours on a timesheet, simply won’t move the needle for these disruptive firms, and this applies to the energy and built environment industries now more than ever. Understanding these markets is vital for their agencies, but at the same time, it’s in the agency’s interest to burn through those hours “straaaategising”, then asking for more money when it comes to actually deliver something of value.

Fast-growth firms need context, action, a clear strategy and defined goals.

We are deliberately different, having ditched retainers long ago, we build bespoke campaigns consisting of specific deliverables, all up front and agreed at the outset. Against this activity, we agree strict performance commitments to judge success against – and underpin them by a formal Service Level Agreement offering a pro-rata fee rebate if we fail to hit these targets. There’s more about this here.

Suddenly the barriers to success are removed. Firms have confidence in what they are receiving for their money, knowing that we are incentivised to deliver proactive and effective campaigns which bring about changes in perception and in life, or risk giving them money back!  Our client roster is packed with firms that have benefitted from our unique approach, including those in the built environment such as Kone, UK BIM Alliance and Autodesk.

Disruptive firms require disruptive PR and communications – and that is something we can confidently offer.

‘Mission Possible’ is one of the themes for this year’s Cloud Expo Europe. However, many businesses, I think it’s fair to say, haven’t yet received their orders from Mission Control.

The trouble with “the cloud”, just like “big data” or any other technology megatrend, is that it means many different things to many different people.

For some, DevOps agility is an absolute must, in order to accelerate application delivery. Others need to enable a more secure and compliant IT environment with the combination of root and branch cyber security solutions laid on top of their cloud-based infrastructure. For others, the question is still as fundamental as “should I look at cloud computing at all?”

And after answering that question, then there are the multitude of buzzwords, acronyms and often generic references to the vast and deep capabilities of cloud computing that are hard to navigate – especially when trying to choose suppliers and partners, and calculate the TCO (total cost of ownership) of everything you need.

Wind the clock back a few years and cloud computing seemed inaccessible to the vast majority of B2B businesses – a malevolent and confusing presence lurking in the corner of a virtual IT closet. Now there is much broader awareness and understanding of the complexity, capability, power and scale of the cloud – and the wider democratisation of technology is accelerating this.

For instance, the silos between business units are steadily breaking down, with non-IT departments in back and front office now far more empowered to implement solutions that meet their very specific goals.

For vendors operating in this space, it’s a hugely exciting time. Organisations recognise the myriad threats and opportunities of cloud computing – these extend beyond the IT department’s responsibilities – increasing opportunities to engage stakeholders across the business. Did you know, it’s now recognised that the average number of individuals in a B2B technology buying decision can be as many as six or more?

When it comes to external communications, I think the focus must be on education. With so many B2B stakeholders now attuned to and involved in cloud computing solutions, talking only about the features and functions, bits and bytes will doubtless fall on deaf ears.

Instead, conveying the benefits, problem-solving and efficiencies simply and clearly, is what will resonate – and too often this can be a failing of technology vendors who are great at talking within their bubble, but less adept at why their audiences should care.

That’s why today, we’re launching a new campaign: ‘We’re breaking up with the cloud’. Our extensive experience with international clients at the forefront of the cloud and cyber security industries is varied but with one guiding principle for all of them applies. We help exciting brands, including Pulsant, Kaseya, Enghouse and ASG Technologies, to break free from tired padlock images, stereotype acronyms, the features and functions – so they can instead educate and inform their prospective and current customers about how they can help their clients achieve their very individual and specific goals.

With 600 suppliers, 800 speakers and senior executives from organisations as diverse as the National Crime Agency and John Lewis, next month’s event at the ExCel in London is sure to be a hugely engaging and informative one. And I’m really looking forward to changing mindsets about how cloud computing can be better communicated. If this sounds like something you’d like to achieve too, please contact me for an informal chat.

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Any idea what the top data trend is for 2019? Three years ago, Gartner said blockchain was “near the peak” of its hype cycle for emerging tech — however, it has since been downgraded to number nine. With Gartner announcing the latest data and analytics top ten this week, it’s an opportune moment to see what will be making the headlines. Let’s run down the list:

Trend No. 1: Augmented Analytics

Augmented Analytics is the next wave of disruption coming our way. It uses machine learning (ML) and AI techniques to transform how analytics content is developed, consumed and shared.

Trend No. 2: Augmented Data Management

Augmented data management leverages ML capabilities and AI engines to make enterprise information management categories, including data quality, metadata management, master data management, data integration as well as database management systems (DBMSs), self-configuring and self-tuning.

Trend No. 3: Continuous Intelligence

Continuous intelligence is a design pattern in which real-time analytics are integrated within a business operation, processing current and historical data to prescribe actions in response to events.

 Trend No. 4: Explainable AI

Explainable AI in data science and ML platforms, for example, auto-generates an explanation of models in terms of accuracy, attributes, model statistics and features in understandable, real language.

Trend No. 5: Graph

Graph analytics is a set of analytic techniques that allows for the exploration of relationships between entities, such as organisations, people and transactions.

Trend No. 6: Data Fabric

Data fabric enables frictionless access and sharing of data in a distributed data environment.

Trend No. 7: NLP/ Conversational Analytics

By 2020, 50 percent of analytical queries will be generated via search, natural language processing (NLP) or voice, or will be automatically generated.

Trend No. 8: Commercial AI and ML

Gartner predicts that by 2022, 75% of new end-user solutions leveraging AI and ML techniques will be built with commercial solutions rather than open source platforms.

Trend No. 9: Blockchain

The core value proposition of blockchain, and distributed ledger technologies, is providing decentralised trust across a network of untrusted participants. The potential ramifications for analytics use cases are significant, especially when leveraging participant relationships and interactions.

Trend No. 10: Persistent Memory Servers

Persistent memory represents a new memory tier between DRAM and NAND flash memory that can provide cost-effective mass memory for high-performance workloads.

While some of the trends are easier to comprehend, for non-data specialists, than others, it’s essential for business leaders to at least know what they are and consider how one or more could improve their business processes. Doing so will help them determine what skills sets and infrastructure they require to run successful operations.