From metaverse mania to eye-popping breakthroughs in generative AI, it has been quite a year for technology. We present some of the stories that helped shape the last twelve months, as told through eight charts—with a smattering of insights to go along with them.
At first glance, our latest AI survey shows adoption leveling off over the past few years, though it has more than doubled since 2017, and applied AI continually ranks high in our annual tech trends analyses.
Large enterprises aspire to have 60 percent of their tech environment living in the cloud by 2025. We applied our 2021 cloud valuation model to the Forbes Global 2000 and found that cloud adoption could generate $3 trillion off the back of 700 use cases for this group of companies by 2030. Use cases largely fall into three areas:
• Rejuvenation, which includes value from IT savings, operational cost savings, and digital risk reduction
• Innovation, which includes value that is mostly revenue related, accounts for the bulk of potential cloud value, and includes using technology like AI and IoT to optimize business operations and improving time to market
• Pioneering, which covers the range of emerging technologies, such as quantum computing, which are too young to accurately value
Quantum computing progress brings high expectations—and a little fear
Speaking of quantum computing, advances in the field continued this year, and, with them, excitement rose for the technology’s potential to fuel breakthroughs in important areas such as drug discovery and climate change. On the flip side, the technology’s power poses a significant cybersecurity risk: fully error-corrected quantum computers (which can provide highly accurate results) will be capable of overpowering today’s most common encryption protocols. Organizations in sectors where data has a long shelf life and systems have extended development cycles, such as in the public sector, are beginning to prepare now.
In technology, we (must) trust
We learned that digital trust truly matters to consumers when we conducted our first global survey on the topic. For example, consumers actively seek out businesses that protect customer data …
… and many will take their business elsewhere when companies fail to do so.
However, most companies aren’t putting themselves in a position to live up to consumers’ expectations. Less than a quarter of executives report that their organizations are actively mitigating a variety of digital risks across most of their organizations, such as those posed by AI models, data retention and quality, and lack of talent diversity. Companies should look to shore up their data ethics frameworks and practices, double down on cybersecurity, and de-risk AI by design, among other strategies, to ensure customer trust—and unlock a new vector of growth.
More: McKinsey – Tech highlights from 2022