Cloud, AI, and “datafication” predicted to make the biggest impact on future businesses

Cloud, artificial intelligence, and “datafication” are the top three technologies customers believe will have the most impact on businesses in 2023 and beyond, according to a recent survey.

The survey, conducted by Moody’s Analytics, had nearly 6000 respondents from across the world and various industries who were asked about what technologies they believe will have the biggest impact on businesses in the up and coming years.

While cloud, AI and machine learning, and datafication took the top three spots, decentralised finance, quantum computing, and virtual reality (VR) are also anticipated to make an impact, but not so much in the immediate future as the former.

Cloud migration proves to be a key priority for many, with predictions that 60% of infrastructure, security, data, and network offerings will require cloud-based platforms by 2025, which will only go up to 80% in the future for all IT hosting.

According to Statista, this share reached 30% in 2015, and has only expanded year-on-year as companies shift their resources into cloud environments with the goal to improve security and reliability.

As for AI, it is predicted to grow by around 20% yearly, with many industry sectors taking on the digital technology, whether it be advanced chatbots such as ChatGPT or product search on retail sites such as Very. Plus, financial services are also apparently keen to take on AI.

According to Moody’s report, quantum computing is expected to grow by 30% annually, with an emphasis on cyber security, optimisation, and training on quantum finance. Although they might not be the only reasons, as at the end of last year, British broadcaster BBC announced that it was to use quantum computing to help retrieve from its film archive.

VR took fifth place in the study, tying with quantum computing and the metaverse. Participants said that the metaverse would be less impactful, but scores higher for commercial real estate with the potential for new ways of remote working (including an industrial metaverse), customer engagement (such as Orange Spain’s new metaverse store), and even corporate events.