The California Gold Rush launched in 1848 when a sawmill operator stumbled upon a literal goldmine while building Sutter’s Mill in Sacramento, California. Nearly two centuries later, a figurative gold rush kicked off as individuals and companies across the globe sought to capitalize on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI).
Looking back at Technovation podcast interviews from 2023, AI and adjacent technologies were easily the most talked about trends. Mentions of ChatGPT and GenAI soared through the rankings, going from a non-existent topic in 2022 to the second most frequently discussed trend on the podcast a year later.
The focus on GenAI brought with it a growing focus on AI more broadly, as well as cybersecurity, chatbots, and robotic process automation. It also spurred conversations about the possibilities of quantum computing and new opportunities to leverage data coming from a range of IoT sensors.
Technologies like blockchain and the metaverse took a backseat to AI this year, but many executives hypothesize that widespread adoption may yet be on the horizon.
When generative AI became widely accessible to companies at the end of 2022, the possibilities seemed endless, spurring conversations about how it could reshape work.
Cisco Sanchez, SVP & CIO of Qualcomm, said he noticed an “anxiousness” within his organization to leverage that technology and show what was possible. Through the company’s Imagine platform, his team identified a number of use cases such as internal documentation search, image creation, and more.
Document summarization piqued the interest of DocuSign CIO Shanthi Iyer, who said GenAI could help clients quickly get answers to questions about their contracts, including which parties were involved, start and end dates, fiscal terms, and even potential risks.
GenAI’s rise also renewed conversations around voice assistants and chatbots. Tracy Kerrins, CIO of Wells Fargo, announced that the company completed 100% consumer rollout of a new virtual agent named “Fargo” that can be accessed through the company’s mobile app. The assistant “helps improve [the customer’s] banking experience and give them the information they may not have even known they needed when they need it,” Kerrins said. Powered by Google’s AI Dialogue Flow solution, “Fargo” is seen internally as the company’s first step toward adopting GenAI and paving the way for its expansion.
Those keeping a close eye on technology trends surely saw GenAI on the horizon, but few could have predicted the speed of its adoption. It’s safe to say that going into 2024, the topic of GenAI will remain strong, with new insights on where it makes sense to deploy the technology, what value it poses to the overall business, and what risk factors need to be considered to drive a successful AI strategy.
To take advantage of the opportunities presented by AI and GenAI, organizations noted the need for a sound data strategy and quality data management practices to act as a foundation. Kristie Grinnell, CIO of DXC Technology, emphasized the need for strong data fundamentals in the age of AI. “Is this data I can count on, take action on, make a decision on?,” asked Grinnell, “Because then, I’m going to run analytics over it to start predicting things for the future.” Without reliable data, she warned, companies could face “disastrous” results.
Filippo Catalano, CIDO of Reckitt, echoed this sentiment as well, describing GenAI as a “lens” on top of the data already collected. “You need to have your data analytics strategy in place,” said Catalano, “Frankly, if you don’t have good data practices… you will not be able to generate competitive advantage.”
Mentions of the Internet of Things and sensor-based technology have steadily declined in mentions over the last few years of podcast interviews. However, this doesn’t appear to be due to declining interest. Rather, sensors are now ubiquitous in many companies, collecting and feeding data back to the IT organization. To many executives, the more pressing topic wasn’t the implementation of sensors themselves, but the data coming from them and the value this data can deliver.
Johnson Controls CIO Vijay Sankaran remains steadfast in the use of IoT sensors in the real estate sector. The data his team collects has a wide range of applications, including mapping facilities to optimize the usage of physical space and improve employee experience. Similarly, at commercial lightning supplier Signify, CDIO Tony Thomas leverages the data about how customers use its smart light bulbs to help the company figure out how to evolve its product and service offerings.
At ConocoPhillips, real-time sensor data is giving the company more visibility into its drill sites than ever before, allowing it to more closely monitor equipment and learn about potential issues before they happen. Using IoT sensors to get real-time data “is allowing us to do deep analytics, machine learning, AI, and monitoring opportunities that we were never able to do before,” said CDIO Pragati Mathur.
Heading into 2024, data remains at the top of the CIO agenda as organizations seek new ways to collect, analyze, and act upon information to drive value.
With data being as valuable as it is, securing it is non-negotiable. The ever-present need to build consumer trust and protect enterprise data ensures that cybersecurity is a trend that will persist and evolve. “Cybersecurity is never a business by itself,” said Gili Raanan, Co-Founder of Cyberstarts. “If technology changes and you’ve got artificial and generative AI,” said Raanan, “you probably need generative AI security.”
The inevitable cyber risks and ethical questions surrounding GenAI’s implementation were not lost on executives. Rajan Kumar, CIO of Intuit, has been on a journey to mature his organization’s data strategy that powers the services offered to clients. While collecting the necessary data is one area of focus, just as important is doing so with “the right guardrails around the security and privacy.”
Alina Parast, CIO of ChampionX, reiterated the need for cybersecurity before leveraging any AI capability. “We need to find a safe and secure home for our data before we apply AI,” she said. Parast applied internal security procedures and protections integrated into the Microsoft platforms she uses to ensure any application of AI doesn’t place data at risk. Parast also explained how cybersecurity practices extended beyond IT to become part of an overall mindset. “We want people to internalize that cybersecurity is something that doesn’t just belong to a small team in the corner,” she said, “but [that] it’s everybody’s responsibility.” To drive home this mindset, she developed an internal cybersecurity training program framed as a murder mystery mini-series, providing a fun alternative to routine corporate training modules.
Juan Perez, CIO of software-as-a-service platform Salesforce, said cybersecurity has been imperative to any initiative he undertook throughout his career. When describing his top five pillars as a CIO, Perez began and ended his list with the need to protect and secure the enterprise. “None of the other [pillars] matter if, at the end of the day, we’re not prioritizing the security of our environments and the security of the information that we have to guard so closely so that we protect the business’s interests.”
As companies run bigger and faster models, the demand for compute has picked up. “You have to get the ROI out of [GenAI], and there’s a lot of compute power that is required,” said Vish Narendra, CIO of Graphic Packaging.
One such avenue is quantum computing. Douglas Lindemann, CIO of ArcBest Technologies, has a team dedicated to researching quantum. This research has informed Lindemann’s perspective on the role that quantum can play as enterprises continue their AI journeys. Through his team’s research, he was able to apply some of the learnings to ‘quantum-inspired optimization’ (QIO) that runs on classical computers to “make more efficient algorithms that can respond and provide responses in a quicker time” and “provide better, quicker model responses with some of our AI.”
Monica Caldas, CIO of Liberty Mutual, says quantum computing could change the way data is recorded and calculations are done. “I just think about the ability of the speed and the processing power that that will bring,” she said. As quantum capabilities advance, “how will that change how we do algorithms? How will that change how we process?”
Vanguard CIO Nitin Tandon agreed, citing the intersection of quantum and AI/ML tools was a trend he was particularly excited about. “We are talking about NVIDIA and GPUs today, but think about if we had qubits, GPUs and CPUs that you can harvest in whatever ratio you want to drive really powerful AI/ML engines.” However, like AI, the advent of quantum poses its share of risks. “It also has huge security implications, which we’re also cognizant of and working on.”
Cloud computing technology has been a trend often mentioned on Technovation, as many companies began their cloud journeys years ago. With strategies in place and transformations in progress, the conversation now is focused on how the cloud has and can continue to enable new processes.
Blockchain seemed poised to be a game-changing technology, but adoption has proved slower than many anticipated. Shubham Mehrish, Global VP of Mars, jokingly contrasted the successful takeoff of AI to the lukewarm response to blockchain. The rise of AI “ is not a blockchain/crypto moment. This is probably more real than that.”
Within the financial services industry, however, some see high potential for value-add use cases. Sumedh Mehta, CIO of Putnam Investments, said during a podcast interview earlier in the year that he sees blockchain as having the “potential for being the backbone of future global financial transactions.”
Lori Beer, CIO of J.P. Morgan, also sees the potential value of blockchain if it is done right. “When you think about all the processes that we have to comply with payments…there’s so many opportunities where you have to connect to other banks to understand information in that [know your customer] process to be able to know that you can go ahead.”
Co-founder and Co-chairman of The Carlyle Group, David Rubenstein, said crypto and the like are here to stay. “Crypto will be perfected at some point,” he said, “and probably it’ll be made more valuable in some ways down the road.”
While the metaverse, augmented reality and virtual reality didn’t make the most-mentioned list this year, the emerging technology may still get its day.
As companies collect more revenue from digital channels, the metaverse could serve as a new frontier for customer interactions. “Whether it is immersive environments like the metaverse, your regular eCommerce shopping, or social media shopping, you can actually put prototypes of new products and designs, and see what the interest of consumers is,” said Katia Walsh, former Chief AI Officer of Levi’s. Metaverse technologies like VR may find some early adoption outside the consumer sector. ConocoPhillips has already started deploying tools to make full use of the capability when it arrives. “Today we use VR headsets for drilling locations and to interact with the machines and people without leaving our desks,” said Pragati Mathur. “How we extend that into the industrial metaverse is something … which is exciting.”
It’s been a big year for technology, with the rise of generative AI sparking new conversations about how tech will shape the future of work and society at large. The books below offer a range of perspectives on recent developments in data and AI, as well as resources to help leaders navigate an increasingly complex and fast-moving technology landscape.
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma, by Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar
Suleyman, the co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI, has been a pioneer in artificial intelligence. Bhaskar and he believe the coming decade will bring a diverse selection of intensely capable and fast-proliferating new technologies. In The Coming Wave, they explain how these technologies present an existential dilemma as we work to control them: unregulated use on one side, and overbearing surveillance on the other.
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, by Michael Lewis
Lewis’ latest book tells the psychological story of the dramatic rise and fall of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, the world’s youngest billionaire, who became a leader in crypto almost overnight before losing it all. Lewis tells his story from the vantage point of being in the room to witness the rise and the fall first hand.
Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems, by Frances X Frei and Anne Morriss
The informal Facebook motto “move fast and break things” gained a lot of traction across businesses but in a somewhat skewed way. It implied that breaking things, no matter the cost, is simply the price organizations pay for innovation.
Best-selling authors and leadership experts Frances Frei and Anne Morriss believe this way of thinking is deeply flawed and hinders leaders from building a truly resilient company. They argue there shouldn’t have to be a tradeoff between speed and excellence, and that companies can solve difficult problems quickly and fix things at the same time. Drawing on work with leading organizations like Uber and ServiceNow, Frei and Morriss identify five key steps, one per each day of the workweek, that leaders can take to solve their organizations’ most complex problems quickly.
Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson
Acemoglu and Johnson revisit a thousand years of history and economics to demonstrate how technological progress doesn’t have to lead to a loss of human empathy. Power and Progress explores how technology was once – and could be again – brought under control and used for the benefit of most people.
All-in On AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence, by Tom Davenport and Nitin Mittal
All-In on AI is an insightful look into the magic behind the success of the technology’s leading adopters. While most companies are placing small bets on AI, a select few are embracing the technology to transform their products, processes, strategies, and customer relationships and experiences. Using examples from organizations including Anthem, Ping An, Airbus, and Capital One, Davenport and Mittal explore what AI looks like at the cutting edge and help organizations understand what’s needed to take AI to the next level.
The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI, by Fei-Fei Li
In her memoir, Stanford professor and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li describes how a Chinese immigrant living in poverty in the United States overcame adversity to become one of the leading contributors to modern artificial intelligence. Whether sharing her own journey or exploring the incredible dangers and opportunities AI poses, she tells a story Reid Hoffman describes as “a testament to the power and possibility of humanity.”
Elevate Your Team: Empower Your Team to Reach Their Full Potential and Build a Business that Builds Leaders, by Robert Glazer
Being a leader is a balancing act. Not only must one find and retain top talent, but he or she must also ensure those teams perform at the highest levels and deliver results while avoiding burnout. A follow up to Glazer’s 2019 book, Elevate, this book provides strategies and tools to help leaders unleash their teams’ full potential and build the leaders of tomorrow.
Data Is Everybody’s Business: The Fundamentals of Data Monetization, by Barbara Wixom, Cynthia Beath, and Leslie Owens
The authors, leaders at MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research and UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business, provide a guide to help people across organizations (not just on data teams) think more expansively about how to turn data into money. Covering approaches such as wrapping products with data and selling broader information offerings, show how leaders can drive positive outcomes and generate excitement around new data opportunities.
Think Like a CTO, by Alan Williamson
In this book, Williamson highlights the common themes CTOs should consider as they work to become the trusted leader their company needs. He also adds commentary from industry experts and veteran CTOs to illustrate the book’s focus areas, which include establishing strong relationships with C-suite peers, architecting future-proofed systems, and leading with data rather than passion.
Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification, by Gene Kim and Steven J. Spear
Drawing on years of research and insights from organizations such as Amazon, Apple, and NASA, Kim and Spear show how leaders make the “social wiring” that drives results and allows others to thrive. They describe their system for moving problem-solving from risky danger zones to low-risk winning zones and provide a playbook for leaders to rewire their own organizations.
As 2023 quickly comes to a close, here’s a look back at some of the tech stories that caught my eye in the past year. These articles deliver perspectives on the evolution of the technology landscape and the roles of the leaders guiding the way; why overlooking security has disastrous results; and how the rapid evolution of the AI arms race is evolving.
A Timeline of Sam Altman’s Firing from OpenAI – and the Fallout
By Kyle Wiggers, Tech Crunch, November 29
Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, was abruptly fired from his job. It kicked off a frenzied weekend in the tech community as observers tried to piece together what happened at what Altman’s ouster might mean for the future of the company. By the end of the weekend, the company announced plans for Altman’s return, along with a slate of new board members. The drama opened up a broader discussion about how to manage the opportunities and risks posted by AI as startups and tech giants alike race to commercialize it.
Reshaping the Tree: Rebuilding Organizations for AI
By Ethan Mollick, One Useful Thing, November 27
To explain the future of organizations, Mollick takes us back to the New York and Erie Railroad of 1855, where the need to organize a massive, distributed workforce led to the development of the world’s first org chart. Fast forward to today, and while technology has advanced, many of the challenges leaders face remain the same, namely, how to rebuild companies to adapt to a major shift in how work gets done. This piece offers organizational leaders with a few guiding principles for shaping the future of work in the age of AI.
How Jensen Huang’s Nvidia is Powering the AI Revolution
By Stephen Witt, The New Yorker, November 27
Jensen Huang has been leading the way in supercomputing since he signed the paperwork for Nvidia at a San Jose Denny’s in 1993. Today, the chipmaker provides a critical backbone for the AI generative revolution. This piece digs into the company’s history and provides a glimpse at what it has planned for the future, such as unifying the company’s computer graphics and GenAI research, anticipating that more sophisticated image generation and language processing capabilities will enable “digital twins” of the world that can be used to, for example, train robots and self-driving cars.
Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig on Why AI and Social Media are Causing a Free Speech Crisis for the Internet
By Nilay Patel, The Verge, October 24
After 30 years teaching law, the internet policy guru, Lessig, expresses concern about AI and TikTok, and he offers an interesting assessment about how to balance free speech while protecting democracy.
Chinese Spy Agency Rising to Challenge the C.I.A.
By Edward Wong, Julian E. Barnes, Muyi Xiao and Chris Buckley, New York Times, December 27
At the tail end of the year, these four Times reporters offer an analysis of the Chinese Ministry of State Security deployment of artificial intelligence among other advanced technology in competition with the United States to achieve Xi Jinping’s goal to become the world’s preeminent economic and military power. The article highlights the intersection of technology, geopolitics, global economics, and military might.
The CIO’s New C-suite Mandate
By Stacy Collet, CIO.com, February 28
Amid economic uncertainty and a rapidly evolving technology landscape, today’s technology leaders are mobilizing strategic internal partnerships and taking on the role of both business strategist and changemaker as they transform the way their organization’s drive business outcomes. CIOs must still manage core technology, to be sure, but today “…it’s more about how we drive customer expansion, how we improve margin expansion, reduce friction by improving overall productivity of the organizations, and how each of these ties into our business strategy priorities,” says Max Chan, CIO of Avnet. CIOs “need to understand all those. We need to take interest in every single strategy priority in the business. This is table stakes.”
The Mirai Confessions: Three Young Hackers Who Built a Web-killing Monster Finally Tell Their Story
By Andy Greenberg, Wired, November 14
This article takes us behind the scenes how a bored 19-year and his friends dove into the world of cybercrime, creating a network that would be used in the major DDoS attack that took down major swaths of the internet, including notable sites like the New York Times, Netflix, Twitter (now “X”), and PayPal.
How to Train Generative AI Using Your Company’s Data
By Tom Davenport and Maryam Alavi, Harvard Business Review, July 6
In the summer of 2023, technology leaders raced to figure out the best ways to bring generative AI capabilities to their organizations. This article outlined a variety of approaches for applying genAI to internal knowledge management capabilities, highlighting projects by Bloomberg, Google and Morgan Stanley.
Google: “We have no Moat, and Neither does OpenAI”
By Dylan Patel and Afzal Ahmad, SemiAnalysis, May 4
A leaked memo from a Google researcher-made waves this summer in its assertion that the tech giant didn’t have the right stuff to win in the AI arms race. The memo stated that open-source models “are lapping us,” and encouraged the company to establish itself as a leader in the open-source community and create new paths to innovation.
Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Explained: What You Need to Know
By Amanda Hetler, Tech Target, April 20
On March 10 Silicon Valley Bank was seized by state regulators due to its inability to pay its depositors, marking the biggest bank failure since Washington Mutual in 2008. Its downfall had a big impact on tech companies large and small that depended on the bank’s services and raised broader questions about the stability of the financial system.
In interviews with more than 100 digital and technology leaders on the Technovation podcast in 2022, executives shared the technologies and trends they believe have the potential to deliver significant value to their organizations in the years ahead. For the fourth year in a row, analytics, machine learning/AI, and cloud were the top three trends on executives’ radars.
A closer inspection of the interviews finds that more analytics use cases are bearing fruit across organizations as teams place greater emphasis on data strategy and governance. Developing solid data foundations enables new capabilities and opens the door for AI and machine learning at scale. We expect to see this focus continue in the year ahead.
Some new trends also began to emerge this year, including the metaverse and IT’s growing role in environmental sustainability and other ESG initiatives. There is also continued interest in the new ways of working and the tools and practices that will bring them to life. See below for more on the trends that are rising in importance in the year ahead.
Companies across industries are increasingly leveraging machine learning models to make sense of the large amount of data they collect. Today, machine learning capabilities are “not just niche to businesses that try to answer decision support-like type questions that rely on predictability,” said Neal Sample, former CIO of Northwestern Mutual. “Entire industries are being upended by better thinking around data.” What does this better thinking look like? Increasingly, it means leveraging data and analytics capabilities to deliver differentiated products and services for customers.
Anil Bhatt, Global CIO of Elevance Health (formerly Anthem Inc.), detailed how AI helps deliver better customer experiences through personalization. The symptom triage function in the company’s Sydney Health App, for example, can identify the symptoms a member is experiencing and analyze why they are reaching out for care, helping them receive personalized care more quickly and driving higher member satisfaction.
Similarly, Rite Aid’s Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Justin Mennen, notes that advances in AI and machine learning “are driving a completely different level of personalization.” Through the company’s partnership with Google, Rite Aid is using data and analytics to drive insights for the business and for customers, including tools that help customers choose the right medical products based on where they are in their journey.
The continued rise of data and analytics capabilities brings with it a continued need for talented team members to drive those initiatives forward. Ashok Srivastava, Intuit’s Chief Data Officer, began the journey to advance AI nearly five years ago by investing in skills development and recruiting. “We built this team of artificial intelligence scientists and engineers and we focused them on what matters most, and that means what is best for the end customer,” he said. One win came from merging data and AI teams. “We could see that that data platform was powering a lot of experiences and as we focused those data platforms on AI and then on analytics, we could see that tremendous benefits were coming out of it.” Some of these benefits included Intuit’s “follow-me-home” approach to personal finance, in which AI models use data to understand how the customer is using the product, automatically categorize customer transactions, and provide insights to the customer about their financial health.
Check out our compilation of other technology leaders on Technovation with Peter High speaking about how their organizations are using artificial intelligence:
A new trend that has intrigued (and puzzled) some technology executives is the metaverse. The concept has been around for a while (see Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash and the virtual world of the Wachowski sisters’ 1999 film The Matrix), but only recently has it emerged in a business context. Today, we see executives largely focused on the adoption of digital twins and augmented/virtual reality tools – two technologies often associated with the metaverse – for use cases ranging from product development to employee training.
Susan Doniz, Chief Information Officer of Boeing, says the company sees benefits of digital twin technology, noting that the combination of physical and digital worlds allows the company to efficiently iterate on new designs, to “fly the airplane thousands of times before we really fly it, and build it thousands of times before we really build it.” At Raytheon, Chief Digital Officer and SVP for Enterprise Services Vince Campisi and his team are using digital simulations of factories to optimize facility usage.
Technology leaders recognize the need to stay up to date on emerging metaverse-related technologies, from digital twins to AR/VR and Web3. “Not all of it is always relevant in the moment, but if you don’t start to get yourself up to speed and know where the opportunities lie, then I think you find yourself at the tail end,” said Cindy Hoots, Chief Digital Officer and Chief Information Officer of AstraZeneca. Her team invested in an experience-based group at AstraZeneca called ‘XR’. “Whether it’s the virtual reality or augmented reality team, we’ve got our own metaverse environment looking at how digital twins that we already have play into that, and just trying to build up some internal muscle on some of these trends.”
The metaverse, whatever form it may take, also creates new opportunities for collaboration and culture building, particularly in hybrid environments in which many work remotely. Likening the impact of the metaverse to that of ‘dilithium crystals’, the material used in the Star Trek universe to power warp-speed faster-than-light space travel, Cummins CIO Earl Newsome said the technology can act as a “transporter” of sorts, bringing people together from across the world. “I think we’re going to be able to leverage the metaverse to do some of that,” he explained, “especially when the metaverse gets to be really mixed reality.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, cybersecurity remained top of mind for business technology leaders in 2022. As attacks grow more prevalent and sophisticated, CIOs continue to focus on mitigating risk and building a culture of cybersecurity awareness across their organizations.
At Cummins, Earl Newsome is training his team to minimize the number of preventable cyberattacks through the CyberSMART program, which equips “cyber soldiers” with the tools needed to sniff out phishing schemes, be more aware of their surroundings, and improve password management. “The issue is either on two legs or two wires,” Earl joked. “The two legs issue is the one that we need to focus on because 82% of all cybersecurity issues have a human element in them.”
The other 18% of cyberattacks may pose trickier to prevent, but CIOs are looking to new technologies and tools to help identify when attacks are occurring and mitigate the risk of exposure. Mike Feliton, CIO of Crocs, sees an opportunity with machine learning and RPA to quickly detect when an attack is occurring. “Noticing when a brute force attack is hitting your organization and being able to shut that down before any of your employees have to get engaged is essential because we can cut it off before anything starts to explode.”
More sophisticated attacks are likely to trouble some companies as computational capabilities advance. As research and development in quantum computing evolves, it is time for organizations to plan for post-quantum cryptography, said Kevin Stine, Chief of the Applied Cybersecurity Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Information Technology Laboratory. With the rise of quantum computers, even the most secure systems today could be at serious risk of being breached without new forms of protection.
Yet while quantum computers create the risk of more advanced cyberattacks, they also offer the benefit of more advanced cybersecurity measures. Sangy Vatsa, Global Chief Technology & Digital Officer of FIS, is excited about the possibilities quantum can bring to the cybersecurity landscape.
While not a “tech trend” we have typically tracked across podcast episodes, sustainability appeared much more frequently this year as executives contemplated IT’s role in contributing to enterprise ESG initiatives.
Consumers are now, more than ever, concerned with how a company is addressing these issues, particularly in the energy sector. “Customers are paying attention to what companies are doing […] in terms of sustainability,” said Dak Liyanearachchi, Head of Data and Technology at NRG Energy. He noted “the decarbonization of our economy” as a trend that stands out.
“It really doesn’t matter what you think about climate change and sustainability, you are going to deal with it,” said Edward Wagoner, CIO of Digital at JLL. For technology leaders, the focus is on how best to do it. To name one example, Edward noted opportunities organizations have to use IoT and sensor technology to measure water and energy usage and reduce waste.
Companies are pursuing other technology-led sustainability solutions. Earlier this year, Frank Cassulo, Chief Digital Officer at Chevron, discussed Chevron New Energies, a business unit launched late last year that aims to produce low-carbon solutions (e.g. hydrogen) and reduce carbon emissions for both customers and internal operations. “We’re really looking at where we have competitive advantages and how we can help accelerate that energy transition,” he said. “It’s exciting for us to both think about how we continuously improve delivering the products today, but also transitioning to a lower carbon future that we’re going to play a large part in.”
While the energy industry is put under the microscope when it comes to sustainability, it certainly isn’t the only industry that is looking at lowering carbon emissions. Avery Dennison CIO Nick Colisto has been the primary driver of sustainability both within IT and within the business. In his view, IT is uniquely positioned to be a driver of sustainability at a company. “We incorporated [sustainability] as one of our strategic priorities in IT,” Nick said. “It’s essentially about innovation in building products that satisfy recycling, composting, and reuse of single-use consumer packaging and apparel in our products and in our solutions.”
At Avery Dennison, a low-code technology system called AD Circular makes it easier for customers to recycle used paper and filmic label liners across Europe. The company also introduced atma.io, a cloud platform that uses connected-product technology to track products through the value chain.
In addition to the topics noted above, other trends show signs of gaining traction in 2023:
Stay tuned to Technovation in 2023 for more discussions about the transformative technologies driving organizations forward.
To some, the term artificial intelligence evokes images from The Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or, for the more optimistic, WALL-E. But today AI might isn’t as far out as many might think. Today, machine learning and AI applications are being used to personalize customer experiences, predict behaviors, and improve processes across industries.
On the Technovation podcast, Metis Strategy President Peter High asks tech executives about the trends that excite them and the new projects making their way onto their roadmaps. This year, artificial intelligence was often at the top of the list. In this video, executives from Elevance Health, ServiceNow, Whirlpool, Guardian Life, Levi Strauss, Upstart, and Intel share how they are embedding artificial intelligence into their organizations and ponder AI’s future trajectory. For more insights into how today’s technology leaders are adopting artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, be sure to check out the full podcast episodes and YouTube channel.
Gartner Inc. announced its top ten strategic technology trends for 2023 at their Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2022 in Orlando this week. The ten trends are broken into four themes: optimize, scale, pioneer, sustainability.
The top ten trends are:
Theme 1: Optimize
Digital Immune System
As CIOs increasingly take on revenue generating responsibilities, antiquated development and testing approaches are no longer sufficient for delivering robust and resilient business-critical solutions that also provide a superior user experience. A Digital Immune System (DIS) combines several software engineering strategies such as observability, automation, and extreme testing to enhance the customer experience by protecting against operational and security risks. By 2025, Gartner predicts that organizations that invest in building digital immunity will increase end-user satisfaction through applications that achieve greater uptime and deliver a stronger user experience.
Applied observability
The path to data-driven decision making includes a shift from monitoring and reacting to data to proactively applying that data in an orchestrated and integrated way across the enterprise. Doing so can shorten the time it takes to reach critical decisions while also facilitating faster, more accurate planning. Gartner notes observable data as an organization’s “most precious monetizable asset” and encourages leaders to seek use cases and business capabilities in which this data can deliver competitive advantage.
AI Trust, Risk and Security Management (AI TRiSM)
As artificial intelligence algorithms grow increasingly sophisticated and complex, leaders increasingly must bake governance, trustworthiness, fairness, reliability, efficacy and privacy into AI operations. AI TRiSM includes tools and processes that make AI models easier to interpret and explain while improving overall privacy and security. By 2026, companies that operationalize AI transparency, trust, and security will see AI models achieve 50% result improvement in terms of adoption, business goals and user acceptance, Gartner says.
Theme 2: Scale
Industry cloud platforms
Gartner predicts more organizations will use industry-specific cloud platforms to drive agility, speed to innovation and accelerated time to value. This includes incorporating cloud software, platform and infrastructure services traditionally purchased a la carte into pre-integrated yet flexible tools that are suited to meet the needs of specific industry verticals. The packaged capabilities can serve as building blocks on which organizations can build new and differentiating digital initiatives, Gartner says.
Platform Engineering
Modern software architectures are continuing to grow in complexity, and end-users are often asked to operate these services with a non-expert level knowledge. As a response to this growing friction, platform engineering has emerged between the service and the end-user to deliver a curated set of reusable self-service tools, capabilities, and processes, optimizing the developer experience and accelerating digital application delivery. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 80% of software engineering organizations will establish platform teams with 75% of those including developer self-service portals.
Wireless-Value Realization
By 2025, Gartner expects 50% of enterprise wireless endpoints will use networking services that deliver additional capabilities beyond communication, up from less than 15%. Wireless-value realization refers to the expanding range of next-generation wireless protocols and technologies that will deliver value beyond connectivity, ranging from location tracking, to radar sensing, to ultra-low-power energy harvesting.
Theme 3: Pioneer
Superapps
In the age of smartphones and a digital-native generation, demand has grown for mobile-first experiences that provide a host of various services with a user-friendly interface. This demand has caused a trend of organizations embracing superapps, a composable application and architecture that provides end-users with a set of core features and access to independently created “miniapps” that allow for a consistent and personalized user experience within a single app. Gartner predicts that more than 50% of the global population will be daily active users of multiple superapps by 2027.
Adaptive AI
Adaptive artificial intelligence enables models that can self-adapt in production or change post-deployment using real-time feedback from past human and machine experiences. This is increasingly important as decision making is rapidly becoming more connected, contextual, and continuous. By 2026, Gartner predicts that enterprises that adopt AI engineering practices to build and manage adaptive AI systems will outperform their peers in the operationalizing AI models by at least 25%.
Metaverse
Gartner defines the metaverse as a combinatorial innovation, as opposed to a singular technology, that joins multiple trends in technology into a collective virtual environment where people can enhance the physical reality. This innovation transforms the physical world or extends it into a virtual world where organizations can improve employee engagement and collaboration. Although Gartner warns that the metaverse is still in its nascent stages and the viability of long-term investments are uncertain, it predicts that by 2027, over 40% of large organizations worldwide will be using Web3, spatial computing, and digital twins to increase revenue through metaverse-based projects.
Theme 4: Sustainability
Sustainable Technology
Sustainable technology is an area that has risen to the top of priority lists for many company executives and should be looked at as a framework of solutions that increase the energy and material efficiency of IT services, enable sustainability of both the enterprise and its customers, and drive environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes. Through the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation, advanced analytics, and shared cloud services, among others, companies can improve traceability, reduce environmental impact, and provide consumers and suppliers with the tools to track sustainability goals. By 2025, Gartner predicts that 50% of CIOs will have performance metrics tied to the sustainability of the IT organization.
Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written two bestselling books, and his third, Getting to Nimble, was recently released. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter @PeterAHigh.
As someone who released a book over the past year, I have been keenly aware of the great works of others published in 2021. The many great contributions reflecting rising trends in technology, the acceleration of digital transformation, the sancitity of customer-centricity, and the importance of remaining aware of the relevance of various trends to the evolution of one’s business all were represented across numerous tomes of consequence in the year that has passed. Here are ten that stood out.
AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future, by Kai-Fu Lee
Artificial intelligence is perhaps the most important technology of our time. How will it change the world over the next 20 years? In his latest book, Kai-Fu Lee, author of the bestseller “AI Superpowers” and former head of Google China, provides an immersive vision for how AI will transform aspects of our daily lives.
Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire, by Brad Stone
In a follow-up to his 2013 bestseller The Everything Store, Bloomberg News’s Brad Stone offers a perspective on how the company’s innovation and acquisition strategy have propelled it to be the world’s largest e-commerce company.
The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism, by Hubert Joly
As Chairman and CEO of Best Buy from 2012 to 2019, Hubert Joly led the immensely successful transformation of the electronics retailer. In his latest book, The Heart of Business, Hubert gives a look into his philosophy of “human magic” to illustrate how the people of Best Buy created a customer-centric company, and competed successfully against some of the most successful digital native competitors in the process.
Play Nice But Win: A CEO’s Journey from Founder to Leader, by Michael Dell
Successfully navigating a firm through a rapidly changing business landscape requires a good dose of grit and a leader ready to face some setbacks. From dorm-room CEO to leader of a global technology giant, Michael Dell charts the evolution of his eponymous computer company and shares his perspectives on the corporate struggles that defined him as a leader.
The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics and Society, by Azeem Azhar
We are living through a period of unprecedented technological change, and the pace of change is only accelerating. Azeem Azhar, creator and host of the popular Exponential View newsletter and podcast, explores the widening gap between the pace of change and our ability to adapt, and offers a new framework for understanding the impact of technology on the economy, politics, and the future.
Risk: A User’s Guide, by General Stanley McChrystal and Anna Butrico
General Stanley McChrystal understands risk at his core, having served at the highest ranks of the American military. In recent years as a business consultant, he has advised executives on how best to apply what he has learned on the topic to the business world. He and his co-author, Anna Butrico, define ten dimensions or controls of risk that we can adjust at any given time. The authors provide the mechanics to develop a healthy Risk Immune System to anticipate, identify, analyze and act upon the possibility that things will not go as planned.
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, by Adam Grant
To succeed in today’s fast-changing world, we must not only be continuous learners, but also un-learners and re-learners. We must develop this capacity and inclination in ourselves as well as in our teams. In Think Again, Wharton professor and bestselling author Adam Grant gives us tips and tools to question our assumptions, stay curious and develop nimbler and and more flexible mindsets.
The Age of AI: And Our Human Future, by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher
How will AI transform our society? In this book, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Dean Daniel Huttenlocher explore how economics, politics, security and even knowledge itself is being re-imagined in the age of AI. They draw upon their diverse experiences as a statesman, a CEO, and an academic to highlight the dramatic changes that AI will usher in, ultimately transforming how we all experience reality.
Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, by Kevin Roose
With the rising influence of AI and algorithms, some fear that automation will threaten jobs. In Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose presents a hopeful future where humans can successfully thrive in the AI age, shares what skills are necessary in a world increasingly influenced by algorithms, and argues that we should focus on being more human rather than becoming more like machines.
The Cloud Revolution: How the Convergence of New Technologies will Unleash the Next Economic Boom and a Roaring 2020s, by Mark P. Mills
There are many pundits who write compellingly about a dystopian future brought on by technology advances run amok, with worries about how companies and the technology they unleash will continue to change our society for the worse. Mark Mills of the Manhattan Institute offers a counter-point to that perspective, positing that we are the cusp of a second “roaring ‘20s” brought on by radical advances in three primary technology domains: microprocessors, materials, and machines. Accelerating and enabling all of this is the Cloud, history’s biggest infrastructure, which is itself based on the building blocks of next-generation microprocessors and artificial intelligence. With a historian’s ability to connect dots across the last century as well futurists pluck to articulate big bets on the future, Mills offers perspectives that are worth contemplating.
Another year has passed, and technology and digital remain on the ascent, as companies focus on each as sources of new revenue streams and resilience. The innovations were represented well in a variety of pieces throughout the year. Though it is impossible to fully represent the breadth of that writing, here are ten noteworthy pieces that provide greater context to advances made and issues faced in 2021.
The Cost of Cloud: A Trillion-Dollar Paradox
By Sarah Wang and Martin Casado, a16z.com, May 2021
Sarah Wang and Martin Casado of the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, argue that while cloud delivers significant value early in a firm’s growth, the costs it puts on the business may eventually outweigh the benefits. While primarily focused on startups, this article has been a useful thought starter for enterprise technology leaders as they continue to explore the long-term business implications of the cloud.
Why Computers Won’t Make Themselves Smarter
By Ted Chiang, The New Yorker, March 30, 2021
The notion of ‘the singularity’ has been tantalizing the tech community for decades, heralding a future with infinitely powerful artificial intelligence capable of independently improving itself. Even with the phenomenal computing advancements of the 21st century, it seems we are nowhere closer to actualizing this intelligence explosion. Is it truly possible for a computer program to surpass the intelligence of its human creators? Chiang offers an interesting counter-point to those who say yes.
The Technopolar Moment: How Digital Powers Will Reshape the Global Order
By Ian Bremmer, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2021
For centuries, nation states have been the primary actor in global affairs, but that is beginning to change as massive technology companies begin to rival them for geopolitical influence. Technology giants are increasingly shaping the global environment and wield tremendous influence over the technologies and services billions of people interact with daily. This piece explores the sovereignty tech giants wield over the digital space and beyond.
Moore’s Law for Everything,
By Sam Altman, SamAltman.com, March 16, 2021
As the CEO of OpenAI and former President of YCombinator, Sam Altman has a unique perspective on the future of artificial intelligence. In a recent essay, Altman explores the intersection between rapid progress in AI, politics and the economy, including global AI governance, wealth inequality and how AI could change the geopolitical balance of power. He ultimately concludes on an optimistic note, noting that the AI revolution “will generate enough wealth for everyone to have what they need, if we as a society manage it responsibly.”
The Outsider: How CEO-For-Hire Frank Slootman Turned Snowflake Into Software’s Biggest-Ever IPO
By Alex Konrad, Forbes, February 1, 2021
Former ServiceNow CEO Frank Slootman has branded himself as an unstoppable force in the tech industry, leading companies with an iron fist and demanding excellence from his constituents. Taking the reins as Snowflake’s CEO in 2019, Slootman has ignited another aggressive transformation to shift the cloud-based data warehouse to a multifunctional data hub capable of outracing the industry’s largest competitors. In this piece, Alex Konrad unravels Slootman’s playbook for turning Silicon Valley’s next cautionary tale into the fifth largest tech-listing in the United States.
How to Negotiate with Ransomware Hackers
By Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, June 7, 2021
This piece offers a clear-eyed look at the evolving cyber extortion industry through the eyes of the rare ransomware negotiation specialist. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a company gets hit with a ransomware attack, this article provides insights into how to fight (or, rather, negotiate).
Students Who Grew Up with Search Engines Might Change STEM Education
By Monica Chin, The Verge, September 2021
A generational divide in how we use computers is showing up in classrooms around the country. In an age where Google-like search interfaces are ubiquitous, many students today have little knowledge of, or seeming need for, file folders and directories. This is a compact but meaningful story about the confusing, though often humorous, situations brought on by technological progress.
What Ever Happened to IBM’s Watson?
By Steve Lohr, New York Times, July 16, 2021
A decade ago, IBM’s Watson supercomputer defeated Ken Jennings, the best human “Jeopardy!” player ever. IBM executives said that their artificial intelligence would transform industries, generate fortunes for the company, and start a technological revolution. In What Ever Happened to IBM’s Watson? New York Times Technology Reporter Steve Lohr traces the company’s missteps with Watson that have led IBM to settle on a far less ambitious AI strategy, suggesting that “the march of artificial intelligence through the mainstream economy, it turns out, will be more step-by-step evolution than cataclysmic revolution.”
For an Agile Transformation, Choose the Right People
By Rob Cross, Heidi K. Gardner, Alia Crocker, Harvard Business Review, April 2021
Researchers from Babson College and Harvard Law School find that while Agile methods can improve processes and increase speed to market, many Agile teams are not organized for long-term success. This piece examines where many Agile efforts go wrong and offers a revised approach to building strong Agile teams.
Epic Games Believes the Internet is Broken. This is Their Blueprint to Fix It.
By Gene Park, The Washington Post, September 28, 2021
The ‘social media era’ of the internet has stifled consumer engagement with commerce, leaving users’ brand exploration limited to the interests of social media moguls. Championing the internet’s freedom from exploitative herd advertising, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney lays out his plan for the metaverse, a revolutionary online ecosystem where users and brands can freely collaborate and seamlessly interact to transform the digital consumer experience.
Wesley Story has been named Chief Information Officer of Genesys, a global cloud leader in customer experience orchestration. As CIO, he will balance the day-to-day needs around operational efficiencies and scaling challenges that come from surges of rapid growth with new investments and the build-out of new capabilities that help the company position itself for continued future growth.
The company is going through what it refers to as its “Experience as a Service evolution,” and Story believes that IT has a significant role to play in the transformation to come. “Our Experience as a Service evolution…will be a central area of focus for me,” he said. “That means fostering and supporting our company’s cultural transformation that started a couple of years ago so that it’s genuinely baked into the DNA of our organization. Many companies have ‘values’ that are often printed on the back of their badges, posted on the walls in conference rooms, and perhaps used in annual performance reviews. But that can be a blind spot for an organization when it’s not baked into daily interactions. To me, that’s the goal. Our everyday decisions and behaviors should embody the culture.”
Genesys’ Experience as a Service is a new business model for the company. It was featured prominently in the announcement of the company’s most recent funding round of $580 million for a valuation of $21 billion. The round was led by Salesforce Ventures.
Story also noted the sanctity of data in this transformation, as data drives customer and market insights, providing a deeper understanding of how customers use Genesys’ products, fostering growth through better insights. “It’s one thing to have the data and perform analytics on it,” he said. “It’s another to be able to action the data by presenting it in the appropriate context for our employees, or, in some cases, use the data in a cognitive model to automate decisioning. Actions like this require intimacy with our cross-functional business processes like quote to cash, acquire to retire, and procure to pay, as well as customer experience metrics and business pain points so we can unlock value.” Story underscored that IT is a critical enabler in this regard, and he noted that IT will continue to forge tight relationships with the various functions and business units.
Story will report to Genesys Chief Financial Officer Brian Swartz, who noted in reference to Story, “Wesley is a proven leader with a deep understanding of business process improvements and building high-performing organizations grounded in customer experience and collaboration. As part of his responsibilities, he’ll work closely with product marketing, product engineering and many other functions as we grow and scale our business.”
Most recently, Story was an Enterprise Strategist at Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he was responsible for providing strategy guidance at the Board of Director, C-suite and IT leadership levels to advise clients on their transformation efforts. Prior to AWS, he was the interim global CIO at Sysco Foods, a leader in food distribution.
The automobile is one of the most important innovations of the last century. It has not been an unmitigated blessing, however, as it has led to millions of deaths through accidents, and it is among the biggest sources of pollution.
Mamatha Chamarthi is the Software Business and Product Management Leader at Stellantis, a post that she took on in April of 2021. Stellantis was formed in 2021 on the basis of a merger between the Italian-American conglomerate Fiat Chrysler and the French PSA group. The combined entity has a bit more than $200 billion in annual revenue.
It is refreshing to speak with Chamarthi about the car industry because she does not wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to the issues that the industry has had, just as she is inspired and energized by the role that technology can play in rectifying those issues. “Millions of people are seriously injured every year in car crashes [around the world]. Last year in the U.S., there was a 7% increase [in serious injuries],” she said. She recognizes that autonomous driving is the key to driving down these issues because 95% of the fatalities are due to human error. Her goals is to augment human intelligence to reduce this radically. “There is a bigger, broader purpose and a societal challenge that we are going after with autonomy. That is why the technology industry is also so fascinated with this area of autonomy.”
To solve autonomy requires the development of an ecosystem around Stellantis, and, here again, Chamarthi is part of the solution. “We are creating an ecosystem, partnering with technology companies like Amazon and Waymo,” noted Chamarthi. “We partnered with Waymo for autonomy, and we are also partnering with BMW, another traditional automaker just like us, to create our level two-plus [autonomy, out of five levels ] with enhanced autonomy to level three, which is where your hands are off the steering wheel, your eyes are off the road for some time and your feet are off the accelerator and the brake.” The company has developed adaptive cruise control, emergency braking and Traffic Jam Assist, as three components to help get from level two-plus driving to level three and beyond.
Chamarthi notes the necessity of partnering with pure-play technology companies, as they have technology budgets that dwarf those of automotive companies. A company like Stellantis can offer industry expertise and loyal customers, and technology companies can develop a portfolio of technologies for the Stellantises of the world to leverage as it climbs the rungs toward greater levels of autonomy.
Global warming is another major issue for the automotive industry to solve. Chamarthi admits that transportation is one of the biggest contributor to air pollution. The United States Environmental Protection Agency notes transportation as the third biggest contributing industry to greenhouse gas emissions. Again, she believes digital innovation should drive better outcomes on that front, as well. “We have to find an answer to reducing the carbon footprint because that is part of our responsibility to leave a cleaner, greener planet for future generations,” said Chamarthi. This will be enhanced not only through autonomy, but also through greater levels of electrification and shared mobility.
Chamarthi asked a rhetorical question. “What percentage of the time do we use [a car]? 7% maybe at best. 93% of the time it is sitting on a driveway or in a garage or a parking lot. In our digital economy, what happens with an underutilized asset? We find some creative, innovative ways of using that asset and that is what gave birth to ridehailing shared mobility.” To fill this need, Stellantis launched Free2Move, which provides customers the option to lease or own a mobility experience for a few minutes through to multiple years in duration. This mobility as a service offering will not be limited to Stellantis’ automotive portfolio. The company will provide the products and services to bring this to life for competitors’ portfolios, as well.
Beyond the virtuous aspects of digital innovation, Chamarthi is also excited about the experiences that can be brough to life through the connected automobile. “Can I personalize the driving experience of the customer?,” she asked. By way of example, she noted, “I can provide a Jeep for an off-road trail [for a customer], planning an end-to-end trail experience for my customer.” She likens this to excursions for a cruise line. If a customer signs up for Free2Move, they can have access to multiple vehicles for different kinds of experiences, each with a level of education and curation to make them safe and interesting at the same time.
Prior to her current role, Chamarthi was the Chief Digital Officer and Chief Information Officer of Stellantis. She sees her evolution from CIO and CDO to running a profit center for the company as representative of the ascent of technology and digital across businesses more generally. Increasingly, “Technology is front and center,” she said. “It is exciting to be driving and shaping the automotive industry in these macro trends of autonomy, electrification, connected services and shared mobility. All of them are enabled by software, are all enabled by technology. It only makes complete sense to me that technology leaders are being asked to come lead from the front [rather] than leading from behind.”
