Gartner's top tech trends for 2021

From hyper automation to using tech to influence human behaviour in the workplace, the analyst house lays out its predictions for the top tech trends for next year

As companies seek for growth drivers through the COVID-19 pandemic, they should be exploring technology trends that focus on people-centricity, location independence and resilient delivery, according to Gartner.

The analyst house has laid out nine strategic technology trends it is tipping for take-off in 2021 and they are all catered to the changing workplace dynamic instigated by the pandemic.

"The need for operational resiliency across enterprise functions has never been greater," said Brian Burke, research vice president at Gartner.

"CIOs are striving to adapt to changing conditions to compose the future business. This requires the organisational plasticity to form and reform dynamically. Gartner's top strategic technology trends for 2021 enable that plasticity.

"As organisations journey from responding to the COVID-19 crisis to driving growth, they must focus on the three main areas that form the themes of this year's trends: people centricity, location independence and resilient delivery.

"Taken together, these trends create a whole that is larger than its individual parts and focus on social and personal demand from anywhere to achieve optimal delivery."

Here are the nine strategic technology trends Gartner is predicting will drive disruption and opportunities over the next five years:

Internet of Behaviours

The Internet of Behaviours (IoB) is emerging as many technologies capture and use the "digital dust" of peoples' daily lives, according to the analyst house.

The IoB combines existing technologies that focus on the individual directly, such as facial recognition, location tracking and big data, and connects the resulting data to associated behavioural events, such as cash purchases or device usage.

This data is then used by organisations to influence human behaviour, for example, organisations might leverage IoB via computer vision to assess whether employees are wearing masks in order to monitor compliance with health protocols during the pandemic.

By the end of 2025, over half of the global population will be subject to at least one IoB programme, either commercial or governmental, Gartner added.

Total Experience

Total experience (TX) is the evolution of the concept of multi-experience development platforms, which are used in developing chat, voice, augmented reality and wearable experiences in support of the digital business, Gartner explained.

As interactions become more mobile and virtual, TX strategies are required by companies to are recovering from the pandemic and need differentiation via new digital disruptors.

"Last year, Gartner introduced multi experience as a top strategic technology trend and is taking it one step further this year with TX a strategy that connects multi experience with customer, employee and user experience disciplines," said analyst Burke.

"Gartner expects organisations that provide a TX to outperform competitors across key satisfaction metrics over the next three years."

Privacy-Enhancing Computation

As organisations around the world try to adapt to increasing levels of data compliance and protection, privacy-enhancing computation provides protection for data in use while maintaining secrecy.

Gartner believes that by 2025, half of large organisations will implement privacy-enhancing computation for processing data in untrusted environments and multiparty data analytics use cases.

It recommended that organisations should start identifying candidates for privacy-enhancing computation by assessing data processing activities that require transfers of personal data, data monetisation and fraud analytics for highly sensitive data.

Distributed Cloud

The distribution of public cloud services to different physical location while the operation, governance and evolution of the services remain the responsibility of the cloud provider is known as distributed cloud.

This model provides a "nimble" environment for organisations that need low-latency, data cost-reduction needs and data residency requirements, noted Gartner, adding that distributed cloud also addresses the need for customers to have cloud computing resources closer to the physical location where business activities occur.

The analyst house predicted that most cloud service platforms will offer some distributed cloud services by 2025.

"Distributed cloud can replace private cloud and provides edge cloud and other new use cases for cloud computing. It represents the future of cloud computing," stated Burke.

Anywhere Operations

Anywhere operations is an IT operating model designed to support customers everywhere, enable employees everywhere and manage the deployment of business services across distributed infrastructures.

This model delivers "unique" value-add experiences across five areas: collaboration and productivity, secure remote access, cloud and edge infrastructure, quantification of the digital experience and automation to support remote operations, according to Gartner.

The analyst house predicted that 40 per cent of organisations will have applied anywhere operations to deliver optimised and blended virtual and physical customer and employee experiences within the next three years.

Cybersecurity Mesh

Cybersecurity mesh enables anyone to access any digital asset securely, no matter where the asset or person is located. It works by decoupling policy enforcement from policy decision making via a cloud delivery model and allows identity to become the security perimeter.

The cybersecurity mesh will support over half of digital access control requests by the end of 2025, stated Gartner.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the multi-decade process of turning the digital enterprise inside out," said analyst Burke. "

We've passed a tipping point — most organisational cyber assets are now outside the traditional physical and logical security perimeters. As anywhere operations continues to evolve, the cybersecurity mesh will become the most practical approach to ensure secure access to, and use of, cloud-located applications and distributed data from uncontrolled devices."

Intelligent Composable Business

An intelligent composable business enables access to better information for decision-makers, allowing them to respond "more nimbly" to it. This will set the course for new business models, autonomous operations and new products, services and channels.

"Static business processes that were built for efficiency were so brittle that they shattered under the shock of the pandemic," stated Burke.

"As CIOs and IT leaders struggle to pick up the pieces, they're beginning to understand the importance of business capabilities that adapt to the pace of business change."

AI Engineering

IT decision-makers find it difficult to scale AI projects due to lack of tools to create a pipeline, Gartner said, noting that only 53 per cent of AI projects make it from prototype to production.

To improve these odds AI engineering focuses on the governance and lifecycle management of a wide range of operationalised AI and decision models, such as machine learning. It stands on three pillars: DataOps, ModelOps and DevOps.

"A robust AI engineering strategy will facilitate the performance, scalability, interpretability and reliability of AI models while delivering the full value of AI investments," noted the analyst house.

Hyperautomation

Hyperautonaomtion is "inevitable" as automation becomes more integral to business operations, according to Burke.

Hyperautomation is the approach taken by organisations to rapidly identify, vet and automate as many approved business and IT processes as possible. This approach has been accelerated by the pandemic as businesses seek to implement a "digital first" strategy.

"Hyperautomation is now inevitable and irreversible. Everything that can and should be automated will be automated," stated Burke.