2018 was like the Ninja Warrior TV series for emerging technologies, with artificial intelligence (AI), automation, data and blockchain the key competitors trying to surmount the many challenges in their way.
Sutherland: Tech will be transformative
And, like the programme, so far these technologies have played hard and achieved much, but failed to win the big prize.
So, as 2019 begins, which will become the overall champion? In fact, will there be an overall champion? Here are our predictions for 2019.
AI, stealth adoption: Artificial intelligence will be key -- but only if companies can tame this data athlete, and understand how to apply it within the confines of the business.
The recent Ovum ICT Enterprise Insights Survey indicated that 60% of organisations will have an enterprise-wide strategy for AI in 2019. As more companies look for practical ways to bring AI into the business, a key path will be through having AI embedded into their applications. This gives them a way of bringing AI to the masses through means they already feel comfortable with rather than fearing the "rise of the robots".
We are already seeing applications change before our very eyes. Back-office applications are being reinvented with innovative front ends and aggressive commercial automation. This transformation is only going to become more widespread.
Doubling down on productivity: One of the key arguments for AI adoption is its immense power to increase human productivity and business efficiency. And, with ongoing improvements to its cognitive AI capabilities, those gains are only going to get bigger.
In fact, we've already seen customers such as the Spanish football club RCD Espanyol turn to AI to increase its finance team's productivity levels by 20% -- leaning on it to help make business decisions that don't need human input.
Looking ahead, we predict that by 2025, the productivity gains delivered by AI and augmented experiences could be as high as 50% compared with today's operations. That's nothing short of transformational.
Automation moves data mountains: Given levels of data now at hand that are too much for humans to handle, a new approach is needed. What if the complex data management systems that turn data to insights could be made self-driving, self-repairing and self-securing? What if it could be made as easy as the concept of the self-driving car?
Oracle has already taken the next step in extreme automation with the Oracle Autonomous Database. We expect a huge proportion of businesses to explore similar capabilities.
In fact, we believe automation will start to permeate business, with 70% of IT functions completely automated, enabling companies to shift away from spending billions of work hours per year on routine IT tasks and instead focus on innovation and business development.
Many security tasks will have to be automated, given that the number of security events is predicted to rise exponentially. McAfee's 2019 Cloud Adoption and Risk Report showed that the average organisation will find only one out of 100 million events to be a threat; but with the volume so high, finding the needle in the haystack will be impossible without automation.
Furthermore, customer experience and automation will go hand-in-hand, with 70% of customer interactions automated and AI-enabled chatbots ushering in a new era of experiences. Already today, 89% of people use voice assistants for customer service, and 69% of customer service functions use chatbots for easy, frictionless, anywhere, anytime engagement.
Increasingly, this will move from being a "nice to have" to becoming a basic customer expectation. For that reason, we predict 85% of all interactions will be automated.
Blockchain becomes a cornerstone of trust: Scepticism about blockchain because of its association with cryptocurrency is finally giving way to the realisation that it can be used to do far more than validate monetary transactions.
Already we're seeing the technology used to certify the ethical production of extra virgin olive oil, for tracking solar energy usage, and to bring a single source of truth into the documentation processes underpinning the global shipping industry.
In 2019, we'll see blockchain being used in even more broad contexts: from verifying the authenticity of precious stones, to tracking the source of food contamination and confirming that drugs are produced in accordance with stringent industry regulations.
It will also, like AI, creep into day-to-day business as it too becomes integrated into business applications.
So, which will win? All will fare well, and 2019 will definitely be the year when we see some of the industry's biggest buzzwords go from hype to fulfilment, but really they will only prove their worth if they gain true traction in the market.
Gone are the days when AI or blockchain were seen as separate entities within the infrastructure; instead, they will be added into applications for organisations to realise the real benefit.
In the context of our emerging tech Ninja Warriors, their coach will take the form of a completely integrated cloud that unifies control, security and innovation, enabling organisations to run their operations effectively regardless of workload or future trends, offering them the opportunity to deliver the products and services that keep them agile and competitive.
(Cloud and other transformational technologies will be demonstrated and discussed at Oracle OpenWorld Asia in Singapore from March 26-27. To register, visit https://www.oracle.com/sg/openworld/)
Andrew Sutherland is senior vice-president for cloud services in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Oracle.
