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AI will join the next-generation sensors to create a new type of business automation in 2019. Digital twins will help companies see their businesses again, with shared simulations that offer investment security and product development. And the blockchain loses its negative perceptions, emerging as an enabling factor, not as a disruptor. 2019 will cover new perceptions and possibilities.
In 2019, AI and IoT will begin to merge to produce a new type of automation
They are everywhere … But they are changing. The fact is that sensors are incorporated into every part of our daily and work life now. Register and adjust our fast, often brash world whether we are in the office or out on the field. But they are changing. The sensors no longer collect one-way data: they can now receive instructions and activate them.
In 2019, we will see sensor-enabled IoT technology begin to merge with artificial intelligence technology to produce a new wave of autonomous business processes. And the most advanced and competitive companies will actively begin to explore new ways to allow their physical devices, both in their systems and in their customers, to be powered by autonomous capabilities driven by artificial intelligence, causing a permanent and growing trend.
AI and IoT: a new type of automation is coming
AI and IoT together will create fluent, proactive and automated functions. If you think "robot" when you think about automation, think again. This type of automation will be fast, reactive and much faster and more agile than the automation of rigid programming. Take autonomous vehicles. They are already in full development with many major car manufacturers. The speed, safety and fluidity of the automated driving experience goes beyond "robotics". Acting algorithmically on real-time GPS and weather data, connecting on-board sensors, cameras and clouds, these "next generation" vehicles combine AI and IoT in a stand-alone action ballet. It's no wonder Gartner predicts that by 2021 10% of new vehicles will have autonomous driving capacity, compared to less than 1% in 2018.
The first autonomous business processes led by the IA to appear in 2019
Today artificial intelligence stops at the point where actions are to be taken. It collects data, compares it with historical data and suggests a change of course. In 2019, we will begin to see the first IA business engines to overcome that final hurdle to achieve huge efficiency gains. Likewise, autonomous vehicles have helped reduce car accidents and deaths.
The opportunities for improvement of efficiency and savings in terms of time and money will guide the automated commercial decisions of AI / IoT. Gartner predicts that by 2022 at least 40% of new application development projects will have artificial intelligence co-developers in the team. I believe we will see the first real and effective examples of AI / IoT automation in 2019. In particular in the area of management of company resources (EAM) and field services management (FSM), where we will see the types of sophisticated AI currently in use in financial services are starting to appear.
Automated operational and operational processes will reduce decision-making times and make business processes more complex and faster. The questions we should ask ourselves are how companies will be able to maintain control of this speed and complexity? How will they be able to simulate complex and precise business models? How will they know what their real business reality is – in a world where many of their processes and decisions may not even be made by humans?
Digital twins will open up new landscapes and perspectives, helping many companies to see their entire business for the first time
In an AI / IoT automated world, how can you be sure your company is really doing what you think it is doing? How do you know exactly how you are behaving, in each market, unit and connection of your supply chain?
Digital twins are digital simulations of processes, machines, components or entire companies. They have already been developed by GE, Siemens and Philips to design and simulate everything from large-scale energy networks to e-cars, to medical conditions and diagnoses. Globally, many industries and companies can be confident that if they do not implement digital twins, their competitors will. I see digital twins developing in two phases.
Phase 1: the time of a-ha
Imagine actually seeing, for the first time, how your company is. Every last feature and detail are rendered with hyper-real digital precision. Digital twins reveal landscapes, possibilities and exciting prospects for businesses. For many, they reveal the discrepancy between the way their business actually works and the way they think it works. They also offer insights on how it will work over time.
Phase 2: simulation = action
For CFOs and CTOs, digital twins significantly reduce risk through waterborne simulations that can deceive new investments and product development. Not surprisingly, Gartner predicts that by 2021, half of all large industrial companies will use digital twins, resulting in a 10% improvement in effectiveness. I believe that in 2019 we will see asset-intensive industries such as energy and fast-moving utilities and industries such as logistics and supply chains that increase their use of digital twins.
Current business applications such as Enterprise Operational Intelligence are already enabling digital twinning today at a highly sophisticated level with powerful mapping, monitoring and business management capabilities. And in 2019 we will see more applications and concrete cases implemented.
But in an industrial scenario, where simulations proliferate, often between companies, continents and systems, how will companies definitively know the whole truth, the state and the history of a system or a component? Well, this brings us to the three forecast.
The popular perception of the blockchain will change significantly in 2019, as more companies realize that it is not a disruptor but an essential enabling factor
Think back to 20 years ago. At that point, companies would have believed that if you told them that one day they would file and have access to all the financial information and customers in the cloud, on the same servers as their competitors?
Or, take the internet itself. His first seeds appeared in the early 60s with the birth of packet switching. A first prototype was already operational at the end of the 60s, funded by the US Department of Defense. So it often happens that the most transformative technologies slowly approach us from the periphery. And then suddenly they are there, changing everything. So it's with blockchain.
Technologically, the blockchain has already been proven. In fact, he has been with us for a long time. But in 2019, other cases will come into operation when we see the perception exchange rate for blockchain. Because it is mainly the perception that currently holds the blockchain blocked.
Blockchain: it is as real as it becomes
Blockchain has already been adopted much more than many believe it. Companies cancel it at their own risk. It is already widely used in the financial and banking sectors, accounting for 30% of all current operational blockchains. And in 2018 the largest banks have proven decentralized technology and blockchain.
Other sectors are also implementing blockchain, including air transport. But the less known sectors such as the production of food and beverages have long seen the improvement of the food traceability that the blockchain can offer. In December 2017, IBM, Walmart and the Chinese super retailer JD.com launched a Blockchain Food Safety Alliance to promote monitoring and food security in China. In September 2018, Walmart announced that all green leafy suppliers for their Sam and Walmart stores must upload their data to their new food safety blockchain solution by September 2019.
In particular, in the supply chains, blockchain promises to be huge, with many cases already implemented, including strong competitive players in China and applications based on proven technologies that have been doing successful business since 2013. So, in 2019, we'll see the increasing number of successful blockchain cases. Although it believes that the spread occurs between 2020 and 2021, 2019 will be the crucial year when the broader business community will understand the true nature of the blockchain.
As we approach technologies and scenarios such as the two previous ones (AI / IoT automation and digital twinning), blockchain will emerge not as a disruptor. But as an essential facilitator. In 2019, we will see blockchain start to free itself from its associations with deregulated and unsafe cryptocurrencies. More and more people will see blockchain for what it really is: a solid, 100% reliable tool for product verification. In a constantly evolving market of automated processes and simulated models, blockchain will offer real and unattainable value.
Christian Pedersen, Chief Product Officer, IFS
Image credit: Sergey Nivens / Shutterstock
