Each year, the American research and consulting firm delivers actionable and objective insights for CIOs and IT leaders to help them stay ahead of the curve and push their businesses further.
While no-one can predict the future, some have a better track record than others when it comes to trying. With its expertise in research and consulting, the US-based IT consulting firm Gartner could certainly be considered as one of them.
This year’s report comes at an opportune time, as companies are trying to decide how to position themselves and which technologies to invest in as economies head into the recession.
“To enhance their organisation’s financial position during times of economic turbulence, CIOs and IT executives must look beyond cost savings to new forms of operational excellence while continuing to accelerate digital transformation,” said Frances Karamouzis, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner.
This year’s strategic technology trends for 2023 are built around three themes: optimise, scale and pioneer. As puts it Frances Karamouzis: “technologies can help organisations optimise resilience, operations or trust, scale vertical solutions and product delivery, and pioneer with new forms of engagement, accelerated responses or opportunity.”
Underlying these three themes are the everpresent ESG expectations and regulations. We are heading into a future where we can no longer deny the environmental, social or governmental impact of innovation and where “sustainable by default” will become the norm.
According to Gartner’s research, these are the top strategic technology trends for 2023:
Sustainability
In a recent Gartner survey, CEOs reported that environmental and social changes are now a top three priority for investors, after profit and revenue. This means that executives must invest more in innovative solutions that are designed to address ESG demand to meet sustainability goals. To do this, organisations need a new sustainable technology framework that increases sustainability on all fronts.
Pioneer
Metaverse
By 2027, Gartner predicts that over 40% of large organisations worldwide will use a combination of Web3, AR cloud and digital twins in metaverse-based projects aimed at increasing revenue.
Superapps
A superapp combines the features of an app, a platform and an ecosystem in one application. It not only has its own set of functionalities, but it also provides a platform for third parties to develop and publish their own mini-apps on. By 2027, Gartner predicts that more than 50% of the global population will be daily active users of multiple superapps.
Adaptive AI
Adaptive AI systems aim to continuously retrain models and learn within runtime and development environments based on new data to adapt quickly to changes in real-world circumstances that were not foreseen or available during initial development.
Optimise
Digital Immune System
Digital immunity combines data-driven insight into operations, automated and extreme testing, automated incident resolution, software engineering within IT operations and security in the application supply chain to increase the resilience and stability of systems.
Applied Observability
Observable data reflects the digitised artifacts, such as logs, traces, API calls, dwell time, downloads and file transfers, that appear when any stakeholder takes any kind of action. Applied observability feeds these observable artifacts back in a highly orchestrated and integrated approach to accelerate organisational decision-making.
AI Trust, Risk and Security Management
Many organisations are not well prepared to manage AI risks. A Gartner survey in the US, UK and Germany found that 41% of organisations had experienced an AI privacy breach or security incident. However, that same survey found that organisations which actively managed AI risk, privacy and security achieved improved AI project results.
Scale
Industry Cloud Platforms
Companies can use the packaged capabilities of industry cloud platforms as building blocks to compose unique digital business initiatives that provide agility, innovation and reduced time to market.
Platform Engineering
Platform engineering is the discipline of building and operating self-service internal developer platforms for software delivery and life cycle management. The goal of platform engineering is to optimise the developer experience and accelerate product teams’ delivery of customer value.
Wireless Value Realisation
While no single technology will dominate, businesses will use a spectrum of wireless solutions to cater for all environments, from Wi-Fi in the office, through services for mobile devices, to low-power services and even radio connectivity. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 60% of organisations will be using five or more wireless technologies simultaneously.
For a deeper dive into Gartner’s top tech trends for 2030, see here.