Gartner, Inc. revealed its top predictions for 2019 and beyond. Gartner’s top predictions examine three fundamental effects of continued digital innovation: artificial intelligence (AI) and skills, cultural advancement, and processes becoming products that result from increased digital capabilities and the emergence of continuous conceptual change in technology.
“As the advance of technology concepts continues to outpace the ability of enterprises to keep up, organizations now face the possibility that so much change will increasingly seem chaotic. But chaos does not mean there is no order. The key is that CIOs will need to find their way to identifying practical actions that can be seen within the chaos,” said Daryl Plummer, Vice President and Gartner Fellow, Distinguished.
“Continuous change can be made into an asset if an organization sharpens its vision in order to see the future coming ahead of the change that vision heralds. Failing that, there must be a focus on a greater effort to see the need to shift the mindset of the organization. With either of these two methods, practical actions can be found in even the seemingly unrelated predictions of the future,” he added.
Gartner analysts presented the top 10 strategic predictions during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here through Thursday. Through 2020, 80 percent of AI projects will remain alchemy, run by wizards whose talents won’t scale widely in the organization.
In the last five years, the increasing popularity of AI techniques has facilitated the proliferation of projects across a wide number of organizations worldwide. However, change is still outpacing the production of competent AI professionals. When it comes to AI techniques, the needed talent is not only technically demanding, mathematically savvy data scientists to inventive data engineers, and rigorous operation research professionals to shrewd logisticians, are needed.
“The large majority of existing AI techniques talents are skilled at cooking a few ingredients, but very few are competent enough to master a few recipes, let alone invent new dishes,” said Mr. Plummer. “Through 2020, a large majority of AI projects will remain craftily prepared in artisan IT kitchens. The premises of a more systematic and effective production will come when organizations stop treating AI as an exotic cuisine and start focusing on business value first.”
