Generative AI and new emerging technologies are resulting in major changes for several industries and businesses as the physical and digital world become more and more linked. Our recently launched Accenture Technology Vision 2023 report showcases the most important trends in technology that will shape the future of business and create radically new opportunities for leaders.
Today, we have been living in two parallel realities: the digital world and the physical world. We either shop in store or go online; we work in person or remote; we collaborate with people and computers, but rarely at the same time. The next wave of business transformation, defined by the cloud, metaverse, and artificial intelligence, will erase the demarcation between those worlds to fuse them into a new shared reality, bringing them together. This is already underway and is being welcomed by leading Irish executives with 86% of business leaders saying AI is inspiring their long-term strategy.
Right now, we are tracking the rise of ChatGPT and other large language models which have captivated the world's attention on the power it has to augment human capability, a key aspect of this new shared reality. Among Irish business leaders, 95% are inspired by the possibilities it creates and almost all (99%) agree advancements in generative AI, such as GPT-3, are ushering in a new era of intelligence.
As enterprises navigate uncertain economic and politicial times, the natural inclination of many organisations is to pull back. However, the world will only become more complex, and the way businesses will navigate this will be through technology-driven reinvention, which will give them the necessary agility to reach new performance frontiers.
Unlocking a Shared Reality: Four Key Trends
- Digital identity: Identity is the quiet catalyst of the next generation of technology disruption. With 73% of Ireland's executives viewing digital identity as becoming a strategic business imperative of their organisations, we can see that those who rise to the challenge will enjoy enhanced security and renewed confidence with consumers and partners.
- Your data, my data, our data: Driven by digital transformation efforts, there is more supply of data than ever before, however, AI cannot reach its full potential until companies get to grips with it. This means breaking down data silos and modernising data foundations. In fact, 86% of Irish executives believe data is becoming a key competitive differentiator within organisations and across industries.
- Generalising AI: 82% of Irish executives are 'astonished' by the unprecendented pace of AI innovation. The arrival of foundation models is one of the biggest changes in AI history - no enterprise can ignore them.
- Forever Frontier or Science Tech: The feedback loop between science and technology is getting faster, with each accelerating the advancement of the other, in ways that all executives in Ireland responded will have an impact on their organisations' business processes over the next three to five years.
Our Technology Vision provides insights to enable leaders and their organisations to act now to embrace technology and use these foundations of a new reality as a path towards reinvention. The goal is not incremental improvement, but total reinvention. Leaders need to ask themselves five questions to help them prepare for a future where the movement between worlds is seamless and often simultaneous.
- Strategy: Is it Digital + Physical?
- Architecture: How will Intelligence be built in?
- Work: Are you ready for Human + Machine processes?
- People: Where can you build trust as a differentiator?
- Innovation: What does convergence of IT, Operational Technology (OT) and Science Tech mean for you?
It's time for leaders to take advantage now of the next great changes in technology to build foundations of a new reality. Leaders don't wait for the future to happen; they make sure they are among the first - if not the first - to get there.
Read the full report on the Accenture website: Technology Vision 2023 | Tech Vision (accenture.com).
