Gartner drew up a list of its predictions for the top 10 technology trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2016.
These are defined as entailing a high potential for disruption to the business, end users or IT, the need for a major investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.
One, the device mesh such as mobile devices, wearable, consumer and home electronic devices, automotive devices and environmental devices — such as sensors in the Internet of Things (IoT). Garner expects connection models to expand and greater cooperative interaction between devices to emerge.
Two, ambient user experience, which preserves continuity across boundaries of device mesh, time and space. Designing these advanced experiences will be a major differentiator for independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprises alike by 2018.
Three, 3D printing materials, the growing range of which will drive a CAGR of 64% for enterprise 3D-printer shipments through 2019. These advances will necessitate a rethinking of assembly line and supply chain processes to exploit 3D printing.
Four, the Information of Everything addresses data influx with strategies and technologies to link data from all the different data sources. Advances in semantic tools such as graph databases as well as other emerging data classification and information analysis techniques will bring meaning to the often chaotic deluge of information.
Five, advanced machine learning, where deep neural nets (DNNs) make it possible to address key challenges related to the information of everything trend. Organizations must assess how they can apply these technologies to gain competitive advantage.
Six, autonomous agents and things like virtual personal assistants (VPAs). IT leaders must recognize that smart agents and things are a long-term phenomenon that will continually evolve and expand their uses for the next 20 years.
Seven, adaptive security architecture, which will be fulfilled with help from application self-protection, as well as user and entity behavior analytics. IT leaders must focus on detecting and responding to threats, as well as more traditional blocking and other measures to prevent attacks.
Eight, advanced system architecture that enables running at speeds of greater than a teraflop with high-energy efficiency. This will allow advanced machine learning capabilities to be proliferated into homes, cars, wristwatches and even human beings.
Nine, mesh app and service architecture which enable web-scale performance, flexibility and agility. App teams must create new modern architectures to deliver apps with agile, flexible and dynamic user experiences that span the digital mesh.
And ten, Internet of Things platforms that complement the mesh app and service architecture. These constitute the work IT does behind the scenes from an architectural and a technology standpoint to make the IoT a reality.