Top Technology Trends To Look Out For In 2021
Artificial Intelligence as a Service
Artificial Intelligence or AI is the most revolutionary technology trend going on. It is a computerised system built to mimic human behavior and intelligence to perform tasks such as image recognition, speech with decision making and finding patterns. AI can do these more accurately and faster than humans!
AI has received a lot of buzz in recent years, and it continues to be a 2021 trend because of the way it affects how we live our lives.
Did you know that 5 out of 6 people use AI services daily in one way or another? If you use navigation or map apps, streaming online services, personal assistants on smartphone and smart home devices, and more you’re using an AI-powered service.
With increasing use by different industries, AI is being used to schedule flights, forecast business risks, assess maintenance, improve power efficiency, and much more.
IoT- Internet of Things
Multiple “things” are now using the internet, connecting through WiFi or cellular connectivity. Hence, these things are called the Internet of Things, or IoT. In fact, 5G, the latest cellular data technology is optimised for IoT.
The Internet of Things has already allowed devices, home appliances, super-cars and more to be connected to and shared over the Internet.
This technology trend will also allow better security, efficiency, and decision making for businesses as information is collected and analysed through the internet. It can enable forecasting maintenance, speed up healthcare, improve customer support service, and benefits for other various industries.
In 2021 the IoT possibilities are said to shift to augmenting & automating and showcase how people experience the connected world.
Predictive & Personalised Medicine
Technology is moving medical care forward on an expanding rate. The potential to receive data about lifestyle from smartwatches (like Apple Watch, Fitbit, Samsung Active.) is providing medical professionals the ability to forecast and even treat possible health issues before a patient even has any symptoms.
In-fact, American insurance companies stated in early 2019, that they wish to stop selling traditional life insurance and will rather adopt interactive insurance schemes that can track data about fitness and health via wearable devices and smartphones.
This means the medical status of every customer will be tracked and considered by insurance companies only when the risks associated with their lifestyle and habits are determined.
When it comes to treating these patients, this technology trend will help doctors prescribe more personalised medicine, often referred to as predictive medicine. The info-driven understanding of how useful some treatments are on people will boost the healthcare market forward in 2021.
Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality or AR means adding a blend of digital elements to real-life through visuals. It is being explored for many applications, from entertainment to medicine and education.
It is one of the most fascinating top technology trends in recent years. While Microsoft has been a pioneer in the field with its Holo Lens, Apple has only recently adopted AR with an integration into its iOS operating system in 2019. This will allow immersive visual content to be a part of everyday browsing seamlessly.
The fact that the Google search for “Apples” will show 3D models on smartphones in place of simple 2D images in the coming year, is one of the many solid applications of AR.
Even in healthcare, this revolutionary technology trend is helping in reconstructing tumors in 3D so surgeons can view x-rays in real-time and avoid any harmful radiation exposure to the patient.
A study predicts that the augmented reality market will grow to nearly $50 billion by 2021.
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity does not seem like an emerging technology trend, as it has been around for a while now, but it is evolving at the same pace as other technologies.
Hackers who try to illegally access data are not going to stop attempting to steal your personal/sensitive information anytime soon. They will continue finding exploits to get through the toughest security measures.
Therefore, you will always have evolving cybersecurity as a new technology trend, adapted to strengthen security to defend you against those hackers.
The number of cybersecurity jobs is growing three times faster than other tech jobs, as proof for a serious need for cybersecurity professionals. But, the market is falling short of skilled people to fill in these positions. As a result, it’s predicted that there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021.
The world is sure to see an increase in investment, training, and education on this technology trend over the next few years and with personal data at risk, cybersecurity is more important than ever.
Blockchain
Blockchain has the significant capacity to digitally transform businesses, specifically for the financial institutions. While present in only a few industries right now, by the end of 2021, the world will experience its mass adoption.
An important Blockchain element - cryptocurrencies is seeing more and more adoption every year. Even though China recently banned all digital cryptocurrencies (except their own creation), it only mildly affected digital currencies across the board where a similar crackdown a few years ago sent prices spiraling for several months.
77% of fintech firms are planning to adopt Blockchain as a part of an inside-production process by 2021.
According to a study, by the year 2025, the business value added by Blockchain will engage more than $176 billion, then rush to exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030.
Blockchain is growing at an aggressive rate due to which it is one of the significant technology trends in 2021. Blockchain’s futuristic technology is definitely here to stay!
Edge Computing
Edge computing assists computation and data storage together closer to the collection device, instead of depending on one major location that can be miles away.
It is done so that real-time data, does not suffer storage issues that can affect an application’s performance and output. It also helps companies save money by allowing the processing done locally, deducting the amount of information that needs to be processed in a cloud-based location.
Edge computing is specially designed to help resolve some of the latency problems caused by cloud computing and getting data to a data center for processing. In those situations, edge computing can work as mini data centers to process time-sensitive information with limited or no connectivity.
Eventually, edge computing will increase with the increasing use of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
The global edge computing market is expected to reach $6.72 billion by the year 2022. Like any other growing market, It will also create various jobs, especially for software engineers.
Machine Learning
Machine learning or ML is a central element of Artificial Intelligence, but there are many divisions in the world of machine learning, including graphic models, natural language processing (NLP) and deep learning.
ML is capable of turning a vision of self-driving cars into reality, machine learning has already proven to be revolutionary for the transportation industry. Even the most conventional and traditional businesses such as the supply chain have been able to transform to a turbo speed with the help of machine learning.
This technology trend is also helping people to lead safer lives by carrying out jobs that could be extremely dangerous, like drones, and robots powered by ML have taken over highly risky tasks like bomb-defusing and testing gas pipelines.
According to a study by Forbes, machine learning is set to create a total revenue of $2.6 trillion in marketing and coming top technology trends by 2020, and a value of $2 trillion in manufacturing and supply chain industry.
Voice Search Technology
Voice search allows users to speak into a device rather than typing keywords for a search query to generate results. This technology trend uses speech identification to understand what a user is saying with high accuracy. It then delivers the result through voice to the user.
Voice search technology has been in the tech market for a while. Software like speech-to-text and voice dialing are some great examples of voice search and as we discussed earlier devices like Amazon Echo use voice search as its main functionality.
Due to these extensive features, this technology trend improves the user experience to the fullest– and because of that, last year 30% of all online searches was made through voice search technology.
Today, search engines like Google are placing more importance on voice SEO, in fact, a study shows that voice search eCommerce, is said to improve online purchases, website revenue, and brand awareness.
Thus, if you optimise your website for voice search, you will be ahead of your competition and see solid voice search rankings that will successfully grow your brand.
Conclusion
These top technology trends the center of attention for the tech world as 2021 is a year of innovations and possibilities, much of which has been driven by the Corona virus pandemic.
These trends are bound to offer promising career potential now and for the coming future.