The Tech Trends That’ll Catch Fire in 2022

Allied Business Intelligence, AKA ABI Research, a technology business research firm, has its high-tech oriented, “70 Technology Trends That Will — and Will Not — Shape 2022,” available. It’s a bit deeper and more specific than Jeane Dixon‘s advice.

Stuart Carlaw, chief research officer for ABI Research sets the direction: “The year 2021 was a tumultuous one full of challenges. It is clear that 2022 will continue along that vein and perhaps see some of the trends of 2021 become further exacerbated.” He adds, “The year 2022 will be challenging, but it also holds great promise and great opportunity.”

It consists of 35 things they believe will happen and 35 that they think won’t happen; at least not yet.

Unlike some “year ahead” predictions which can be so amorphous as to be useless, e.g. “Lots of people will buy smartphones in 2022!,” the ABI researchers are sometimes almost too detailed, choosing a very specific subset of technology inside a larger set and limiting it to a select time frame, “HaLow Will Build Success but Will Not Become the Major Wi-Fi IoT Technology Overnight,” is an example. But this dope isn’t too inside baseball to be ignored. 

A reading of the report gives one a sense that the often seemingly disparate, bewildering elements of digital, computer, network, wireless, consumer, industry technologies we hear about on a daily basis are not growing chaotically, but rather, are being cultivated with an awareness that they need to work together, eventually, if they are to be fruitful and multiply. Of course, that time might be some years ahead. 

PREDICTIONS FOR BROADCASTERS

For the broadcast community there are few specifics to write home about.

The report says; “The role of AI and ML [machine learning] in the media & entertainment industry will increase significantly in 2022, with revenue forecasted to surpass US$ 9.5 billion in 2022 when video ad tech is included. Due to competitive pressures from direct-to-consumer services, it has become a necessity for incumbents (i.e., pay TV operators, broadcasters) to reduce costs, limit churn, and extract as much value from existing customers. AI/ML’s role here will increase to better target households with promotions, automate more workflows, and better secure the operators’ content and services.”

It also adds, “AI/ML will also play a growing role in the ad tech space to improve personalization and contextually aware advertisements, and serve as grounds for differentiation. This is especially critical following changes to third-party tracking devices (i.e., Identifier for Advertisers [IDFA] and third-party cookies) and increasing focus on privacy. The corollary of these trends is that the ad market will not suffer as severely as some had feared due to the changing privacy landscape.” 

In addition, ABI thinks that virtual and augmented realities will increase momentum on many fronts, which would seem likely to include entertainment; this is courtesy to increased artificial intelligence capability and usage. However, more within the entertainment domain, they predict that Apple’s attempts to mainstream the technology will not come to fruition, yet, due to supply chain problems holding up products. 

Less specific, the take home is that computer technology, in its many phases and applications, is pushing forward, if it seems to be at an inevitable tectonic direction and pace. 

5G AND WIRELESS

Not surprisingly for a company that performs a lot of technology and market research focusing on 5G and other wireless technologies, the report sees a strong 2022 for 5G. The term 5G appears in more than two dozen predictions, mostly positively, but there will be struggles. 

According to ABI, 5G will increasingly filter into all aspects of business, computer networking and life via an increasing ubiquity of its signal. More people and items will be communicating via 5G and those communications can include large amounts of data due to 5G’s wide bandwidth and throughput capabilities.

This will be turbocharged by the growing number of wireless internet of things devices wanting to talk to each other and use the cloud. Most of this will be taking place without the average person knowing or aware of it as it will be happening on unseen networks, virtual machines and IoT whatnot running in the background. Ironically, it is the cloud, 5G’s eventual public face, where it might be having its biggest problems in 2022. 

Not surprisingly, ABI sees the internet of things growing like a kudzu vine in the year ahead as specs are worked out. Not just for the home consumer, it will be a helpmate for businesses, as well. Though avoiding the term “metaverse” for the most part, it looks like IoT will be a root for that on more fronts than can be imagined. 

Much the same can be said for software as a service as a business model and pan-industrial automation as a solution, especially as hardware solutions are caught up supply chain headaches. On the other hand, the report sees robots research as undermanned and underfunded. Its time is still beyond the horizon. 

And in the least surprising predictions, computer networking technology and artificial intelligence will improve and be more functional. 

Interestingly, ABI thinks that 2022 might be the year when autonomous driving gets off the starting line, although that still may not be apparent to the average driver, but rather in a below-the-radar background way, through semi-autonomy such as robotaxi projects moving forward and business models, such as subscription services for smart car owners appearing. 

Bad news, according to ABI, is that supply chain disruptions across the globe, especially in the chip production sector, will continue in 2022.

Read ABI Research’s complete “70 Technology Trends That Will — and Will Not — Shape 2022” whitepaper for more information on these predictions.

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