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Emerging Technology Trends to Watch for in 2021

As start the year, we shall go through the the latest reports on technology trends that we should watch in 2021.

Emerging technologies as well as other young technologies have led the way businesses have taken to advance and implement their digital transformation throughout the decades. The ones that follow, are some of the trends that will shape the way we work and live next year and beyond.

Those of us who have been following industry analysis trends for over a decade know the importance of staying tuned with what is happening in all spheres of technology.

Blockchain

It’s taken a long time for blockchain to shift centre stage, but as people increasingly trust algorithms, which it’s based on, its time has come. Decentralised finance will continue to grow over the next few years because of the increased demand for online financial products, but it will need to continually address the balance between decentralisation, security and scalability.

Increasingly, government bodies are leveraging blockchain for their activities, moving from incredulity to embracing the technology. With this, we’re going to see regulation surrounding blockchain become ever more pronounced.

Rising demand for ethical AI

In the past, firms that adopted machine learning and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies paid little heed to their ethical impact. Today, however, values-based consumers and employees expect companies to adopt AI in a responsible fashion.

Over the next few years, firms will deliberately choose to do business with partners that commit to data ethics and adopt data handling practices that reflect their own values as well as their customers’ values.

Recasting of automation roadmaps

Covid-19 is changing firms’ automation agendas rapidly toward back-office processes and business resilience. Intelligent automation will represent the infusion of robotic and digital process automation with pragmatic AI and low-code tools.

These technologies will help businesses become more efficient and resilient while expanding their operations.

Moving toward hyperlocal business operations

In the next decade, large enterprises will improve their ability to operate hyperlocally, with regional mid-size businesses growing and expanding to new geographies.

Organizations will need to design architectures that can strategically distribute customer engagement and business operations systems to important geographic regions while retaining centralized technology management benefits. Zero Trust security will help clients navigate this shift.

Driving innovation everywhere using cloud-native technologies

Emerging cloud-native technologies, born from open source and incubated in public clouds, drive fast innovation –and in more locations than just the public cloud.

From 2021 and over the next five years, cloud-native technologies such as container platforms and serverless computing will herald a new era of distributed enterprise software–from cloud providers, edge providers, and software vendors alike.

Shifting cloud strategies toward the edge

Interest in edge computing has been historically tied to the Internet of Things (IoT). In 2020, innovations in next-generation communications, cloud-native technologies, and edge computing architectures have come together to create breakthroughs in cloud-to-edge integration.

Over the next three to five years, firms will shift their cloud strategy to include more edge services from more vendors, challenging public cloud vendor market dominance.

Employee experience: Remote work will permanently increase 

Employee experience in 2021 will be defined by long-term remote work and crisis management. Success will pretty much depend on the strength of an organization’s employee experience (EX) strategy as well as technology investments.

Remote work will permanently increase to 300 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Fewer than one-third of companies conduct employee experience surveys at least quarterly, and only slightly more have a voice-of-the-employee program –both of which are foundational for employee experience initiatives.

Dr. Jassim Haji is the president of Artificial Intelligence Group in Bahrain. He is an expert and researcher in technology and digital transformation. He is also the author of four books in technology and AI.

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