OpenAI – a research group founded by Elon Musk and funded by, among others, Microsoft, recently unveiled Codex, a programming model that can generate code from natural, spoken human language. No-code interfaces will become more popular as a lack of programming knowledge, or a detailed understanding of statistics and data structures, will cease to become a barrier to bringing a world-changing idea into reality. In 2022 we will continue to see companies deploying AI and IoT infrastructure without owning a single server or proprietary piece of cognitive code.

Ready-built AI solutions exist for everything from marketing to HR, project management, and planning and design of production processes. Not every company needs to hire an army of computer geniuses to build their own 'digital brain' when they can simply lease one for the work they need doing. Innovation has been curtailed in some areas by the skills crisis, which sounds like a problem but has been a driver behind the explosion of self-service and “do-it-yourself” solutions. Hybrid solutions – for when public cloud services aren’t entirely appropriate, for example when dealing with very private or valuable data – have matured to the point where a “best of both worlds” solution is often viable. Cloud solutions for storage, network and processing mean costs, and risks of setting up expensive infrastructure in order to try out new ideas are heavily mitigated.

In recent years an entire industry has emerged which aims to put the skills and tools necessary for tech-led innovation in the hands of as large a proportion of society as possible, regardless of their expertise or experience. Growing data volumes, faster network and processor speeds, and the “democratization” of data (more on this below) are coming together and will affect society in a way that is much more than the sum of their parts.Įverything-as-a- service and the no-code revolutionĪnother increasingly powerful driver will be the ongoing democratization of data and technology. This highlights the fact that on a longer timescale than the one we are specifically looking at here, the most impactful trend of all will be convergence. This broad trend encompasses AI, the internet of things (IoT), and newly emerging super-fast networks like 5G, all of which are coming together to augment us with capabilities we didn’t have just a few years ago.

New technologies 2022