I share an article about Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies each year. Here’s last year’s.
It’s one of the few reports that I make sure to track every year. Gartner’s Hype Cycle explains what technologies are reaching maturity and which technologies’ ascents are being enhanced by the cultural zeitgeist (hype, momentum, great timing, etc.).
Strangely, “Technology” has gone beyond the technical – and it has (in part) become “Cultural”... because Technology now impacts and influences almost every aspect of everyday life.
Identifying which technologies are making real waves (and thus will impact the world more) can be a monumental task. Gartner’s report is a great benchmark to compare with your perception of reality.
2021 saw the inclusion of NFTs and advancements in AI. It also focused on the increasing ubiquity of technology.
2022 builds on that – and is best understood by where things are placed on Gartner’s framework called the “Hype Cycle.”
What’s a “Hype Cycle”?
As technology advances, it is human nature to get excited about the possibilities ... and to get disappointed when those expectations aren’t met.
At its core, the Hype Cycle tells us where in the product’s timeline we are – and how long it likely will take the technology to hit maturity. It attempts to tell us which technologies will survive the hype and have the potential to become a part of our daily life.
Gartner’s Hype Cycle Report is a considered analysis of market excitement, maturity, and the benefit of various technologies. It aggregates data and distills more than 2,000 technologies into a succinct and contextually understandable snapshot of where various emerging technologies sit in their hype cycle.
Here are the five regions of Gartner’s Hype Cycle framework:
- Innovation Trigger (potential technology breakthrough kicks off),
- Peak of Inflated Expectations (Success stories through early publicity),
- Trough of Disillusionment (waning interest),
- Slope of Enlightenment (2nd & 3rd generation products appear), and
- Plateau of Productivity (Mainstream adoption starts).
Understanding this hype cycle framework enables you to ask important questions like “How will these technologies impact my business?” and “Which technologies can I trust to stay relevant in 5 years?”
That said - it’s worth acknowledging that the hype cycle can’t predict which technologies will survive the trough of disillusionment and which ones will fade into obscurity.
What’s exciting this year?
Before we focus on this year, it’s important to remember that, in 2019, Gartner shifted towards introducing new technologies at the expense of technologies that would normally persist through multiple iterations of the cycle. This change is indicative of more innovation and more technologies being introduced than in the genesis of this report. Many of the technologies from the past couple of years (like Augmented Intelligence, 5G, biochips, the decentralized web, etc.) are represented within newer modalities or distinctions.
It’s also worth noting the impact of the pandemic on the prevalent technologies.
For comparison, here’s my article from 2019, and here’s my article from 2015. Click on the chart below to see a larger version of this year’s Hype Cycle.
via Gartner
This year, the key technologies were bucketed into three major themes.
- Evolving/Expanding Immersive Experiences which represents the increasing ubiquity of sensors and technology into the human experience. It includes more control over our digital identities and data, and expands the range of experiences in virtual ecosystems - while also integrating with digital currencies. Technologies you’d recognize in this section include the Metaverse, NFTs, and Web3. Many of these technologies have launched only to fall precipitously. Nonetheless, there is still a long lifecycle for these technologies.
- Accelerated Artificial Intelligence Automation is a reference to the growing maturity and relevance of AI in evolving businesses. AI’s growth is not only accelerating but also becoming more specialized and more accurate, resulting in faster benefits and more enticement for businesses to bite the bullet. It’s freeing up humans to do more of what makes them human ... and happy. One key innovation that Gartner mentions is generative design AI which involves AI-augmented user flows, content, and more. Tangentially related to pop-AI tools like DALL-E. It also includes causal artificial intelligence, where systems go beyond correlation-based predictive models and start understanding cause and effect. That results in actions that are more effective and autonomous.
- Optimized Technology Delivery represents technologies focused on building a digital business. They provide insight to optimize your and help deliver your products and services. While there are numerous interesting technologies in this space, the ones that caught my eye were cybersecurity mesh architecture, platform engineering, and data observability. When I talk about Turning Thoughts Into Things, this is what I’m talking about. In many respects, the future of a business increasingly depends on its ability to leverage data - both internally and externally - to take a capability and make it into a platform (and to do it securely, consistently, and repeatably).
If we compare this year’s list to last year, I think we’ve seen a massive increase in the adoption of emerging technologies. All three of Gartner’s major themes focus on the ubiquity of technology and AI in all facets of life. While some of the key technologies in immersive experiences (like digital currencies, NFTs, and the metaverse) are experiencing inflated expectations and disillusionment, the space, as a whole, is moving forward rapidly.
Of course, I’m always most interested in the intersection of AI and other spaces. Last year, AI felt like the underpinning of broader trends. This year, it’s become a lighthouse for businesses to work toward. In my opinion, this points towards the increasing maturity and adoption of AI. The opportunity cost of adopting AI into your business is continuing to decrease. Meanwhile, these systems are also becoming more autonomic, self-managing, and self-learning. I’m excited to see Gartner emphasizing what this does for humans - not what it takes away from them. Remember, the heart of artificial intelligence is human - and it continues to free us up to be more human.
As we reach new echelons of AI, you’ll likely see increasing examples of over-hype and short-term failures. You often miss a rung on the ladder as you reach for new heights, but it doesn’t mean you should stop climbing. More importantly, it doesn’t mean failure or even a lack of progress. Challenges and practical realities act as force functions that forge better, more robust, resilient, and adaptable solutions that do what you want (or something better). It just takes longer than you initially wanted or hoped.
To paraphrase a quote I have up on the wall in my office from Rudiger Dornbusch ... Things often take longer to happen than you think they will, and then they happen faster than you thought they could.
Many of these technologies have been hyped for years - but the hype cycle is different than the adoption cycle. We often overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in ten years.
I say it often ... we live in interesting times!
Which technologies do you think will survive the hype?
Let me know what you think.
Onwards!
