Emerging Technologies: The Hyper-Speed Evolution

Introduction

There is no question, the pace at which innovation is developing and maturing has seen a dramatic acceleration in the last years. The rapid technological change is something to discuss on its own, as it implies there may be new requirements to understand, evaluate and apply emerging capabilities to old problems, still waiting to be solved.

Frameworks that companies have traditionally used to navigate the tumultuous journey of emerging technologies, from their inception to widespread adoption, may need to evolve. Because tech is moving exponentially faster than ever before, we need to rethink how technologies are evaluated and applied. Further, we may need to change these methods to reflect a more consumer centric view, utilizing personas more rigorously throughout the entire product-GTM lifecycle.

As digital transformation progresses, there's growing evidence traditional models to evaluate emerging technologies do not adequately reflect the differences and nuances between capabilities, concepts and whole industries. Businesses who can effectively understand various capabilities, as well as the convergence of these technologies, will be able to take advantage of the shift to platforms, which can reveal new business models and new tactics in which to compete in the market.

While traditional models have historically been valuable for organizations, the current era, marked by rapid releases, social interconnectedness, global learning and a surge in AI-driven tools, demands a new perspective. This is not to ignore the contributions of established models, but to recognize that the process for evaluating and adopting technology is undergoing a massive transformation, which for many organizations feels more like an earthquake, than a subtle shift of the ground.

For the innovators leading the charge, the old ways of meticulous technology evaluation, prolonged testing, and gradual market introduction seem like relics from a departed era. Instead, they're embracing an agile, risk-tolerant approach that’s fueled by the desire to stay ahead in a hyper-competitive environment.

In this paper, we'll discuss the factors driving this shift, the role of digital natives, the global learning effect, a multi-generational workforce, business agility, mastering master data, the changes brought by Covid-19, and how to rethink "the why" of harnessing the power of emerging technologies to deliver exceptional experiences.

On Defining 'Emerging'

Emerging technologies, by definition, are those at the forefront of innovation, promising to deliver significant advancements over existing solutions. These are usually evaluated as a singular type of technology, versus being analyzed according to how it fits and supports other capabilities that also may be emerging.¹ Understanding when a technology is no longer emerging, but transitioning into mainstream adoption isn't always straightforward.

What is Emerging: Historically, a technology's emergence is measured by its adoption rate, moving from pioneer users to general consumption by many. Mainstream adoption is marked when the there is a clear market for the capability usually with many vendor options and a few clear leaders in the space who have proven usefulness through metrics showing business value. Users of the capabilities show an advantage in the market in two ways, by having incredible products or new services that drive revenue or by decreasing the cost of operations. The value for emerging tech for users is to lower costs to drive efficiency and/or creating new revenue streams.

When technologies are nascent, the market is defined by vendors delivering value with new capabilities that may or may not have found product market fit.³⁶ Nascent market capabilities can create new industry segments or even new industries. Depending on the capability, this process can take decades.

The Adoption Process: Factors such as cost, time, and complexity play significant roles in the adoption of emerging technology’s transition to mainstream use.³³ What we are seeing now is different.

Emerging technology is becoming foundational to various software processes, enhancing functionality while decreasing the cost, time and complexities that have historically inhibited adoption.

In essence, the technology is doing the heavy lifting allowing developers to spend time on higher order tasks and capabilities, which is accelerating development. This is lowering the general cost, development requirements and accessibility to advanced software, which is no longer just for the enterprise. In the past, the decrease in the cost of technology, Moore's Law, mainly applied to hardware.²⁷ As technology has become more affordable and generally accessible to anyone, particularly software, adoption has accelerated, removing barriers for creation of new capabilities.

Change is Hard: Historically, organizations have been conservative about adopting new technologies because of the inherent risk associated with readiness.³⁹ For many organizations, these adoption barriers look like prolonged evaluation phases sometimes resulting in indecision. Often organizations are resistant to change because implementing new capabilities sometimes mean processes, departments or responsibilities of people change. When this is the reason for indecision, it results in an organizational plague of waste and inefficiency inhibiting the transition to becoming an agile innovative organization.

Agile methodologies¹⁸ are driving organizations to think differently about these processes, which is facilitating adoption of many technologies simultaneously in a systems thinking mindset, creating new opportunities.² New technologies that compliment one another in terms of use, value and impact reveal entirely novel concepts not before possible. In essence, this is what has driven the shift to a platform mindset for many organizations.²

Agile Methods For All: For established businesses with long complicated processes, rapid adoption poses both opportunities and challenges. For more than 100 years, IBM has proven Elephants Can Dance.³ Established organizations tend to be more thoughtful about the broad adoption of new technologies, which can throttle the impulse of being first to market. As a perfect example, recently IBM launched Watson X, a Generative AI platform with a governance and ethics-first approach.⁴ This new AI service is for the enterprise using decades of learning, proprietary data as well as the collective knowledge of IBM, though not prior to using it within their own organization at scale, going so far as to pause hiring where AI could be deployed instead.⁵ It’s bold and brave to be the first to say the quiet part out loud, which is honest leadership.⁶ Like other organizations, they are under constant pressure to evolve and continuously reinvent themselves to keep pace with their market.

Startups have the opportunity to surprise established players for many reasons. They do not have the burden or arduous processes, they have little to no technical debt, and they can be highly creative in their deployment and use of technology. A decade ago, Uber was one of the first to fully exploit the use of cloud to create a location services platform that matched a need with a resource who could fulfill the need – a ride. As the use of platforms built from many singular technologies has matured, there are many examples of how capabilities can be applied in new ways.⁷ Lyft entered the scene, then food delivery services. It only took a few more years to put a name to the platform service which DoorDash clearly communicates as a “decentralized logistics platform.”²⁸

Emerging technologies applied in a systems thinking design operating as a platform has advantages, which raises questions about traditional models for how to evaluate new capabilities and when to adopt them. In this sense, following a process that looks at technologies as singular, on a hype cycle, is like a waterfall method for decision making worth exploring in terms of the risks of completely missing an innovation cycle.

The Hype Cycle: A Reevaluation

The Gartner Hype Cycle has long been a tool for businesses to understand the maturity, adoption, and application of specific technologies or concepts over a timeframe. It provides a visual representation of the journey a technology or concept takes from its inception through inflated expectations, disillusionment, enlightenment, and eventually to a plateau of productivity. Gartner recommends use of hype cycles in the planning process for what technology to adopt and when.⁸ Some organizations use this tool to inform decision making.

What If The Compass is Wrong: While no company has a crystal ball, there have been a few brave souls⁹ to question the effectiveness and accuracy of the Hype Cycle¹⁰ with acknowledgement that Gartner spends thousands of hours talking to paying vendors and customers. One technologist points out that podcasts were deleted⁹ between the 2005-2006 cycle, now an $18 Billion dollar market,¹¹ questioning the integrity of the tool that is guiding important decisions. Another indicates, mainly, 'it’s not a cycle’.²⁹

Definitions of Emerging Tech: Sizing emerging markets and technology is difficult, mainly due to lack of consensus on what it is and is not. One of the main issues with emerging tech is in the definition alone. Some would consider Web3,³⁵ Metaverse and NFTs as an entire industry or segment, versus a specific technology. Emerging markets and new markets born from convergence, particularly complex ones like Metaverse and Web3, involve many technologies coming together as dependencies or co-accelerators. This was true in spades during the rise in cloud computing, whereby many thought of cloud computing as primarily infrastructure, while others fully understood it as enabling new business models.³³ The 2022 Gartner Hype Cycle for emerging tech is a real apples and oranges view of what is transpiring today, with a few potatoes mixed in.

The Rise of New Industries: Contrary to this Hype Cycle, the Metaverse, an entire industry, forecasted to reach $280 billion by 2025¹², is alive and well today. Revenue models and forecasts tracked by Statista document the Metaverse, a huge disruptor for many industries, $55B realized in 2023 – it’s not 10 years away.¹³ Roblox has 43 million daily active users in 180 countries, and achieved $655.3 million in revenue in the first quarter in 2023.¹⁴ According to McKinsey, investments to the tune of $180B have poured into the Metaverse thus far.¹⁵ Major companies like Nike are making real money by reaching new consumers through use of NFTs, which are digital technology assets minted on a blockchain, the governance layer of Web3³⁵ for decentralized ownership and data.¹² In 2022, Nike became the world’s highest-earning brand from NFT sales, netting over $185 million according to Dune Analytics.³⁰ According to EY, in 2021 NFT sales totaled $25 billion compared with $94.9 million in 2020.³¹ Other companies like Walmart, Fidelity, Coke, Gucci and many others are building activations in the Metaverse to engage new audiences and consumers in a different way.³²

BMW made a splash with Siemens this year when announcing the build of their industrial Metaverse.¹⁶ They are actively pursuing a digital replica of the upcoming electric vehicle facility in Hungary, a digital twin that allows for full-scale testing in a sandbox environment. This virtual factory will allow BMW to put designs to the test before constructing them in the physical world, a highly efficient and effective mechanism of moving quickly while mitigating risk, showing the power of creative innovation.

Accuracy Matters, Particularly Now: It’s misleading to say in 10 years the Metaverse will be productive for companies in terms of revenue and output, as well as the sheer confusion of mixing technologies in established industries, like data services,³⁸ with nascent concepts and whole new industries - all together. The timeframe we are in is different. Web3, which is about decentralization and ownership,³⁵ is driving a massive technological shift paving the way for entirely new industries, like Generative AI, part of Layer 3 of the Metaverse, the “creator economy”. Trying to apply a model as simple as the Hype Cycle as a “catch all'' to new concepts, technologies and industries seems out of depth, particularly if facts and data from the market suggests there is more to the story.

While audacious to be critical of a business tool that is utilized by Fortune 500 companies, be warned. Traditional methods for understanding and evaluating emerging technology in terms of timeframes of maturity, adoption, as well as productivity are in short, out the window. Web3 experts understand the term Do Your Own Research (DYOR). This applies to emerging technology as well. Why do we care?

Business is vital to society and people are the fabric of business. Emerging technology can enable companies to be more competitive, through revenue or efficiency, ideally both. Companies who fail to act on opportunities, can impact people, usually negatively.

Now, what has happened in technology markets post-cloud and all things as a service? Let’s explore the what, why, and the way forward.

The Acceleration Phenomenon

As the digital age progresses, we are experiencing a new era of acceleration, worthy of discussion. The last 20 years have brought us incredible capabilities through smartphones, online everything, and just in time services. Innovations that once took decades to mature and gain widespread acceptance are now achieving these milestones in a fraction of the time. But what's driving this acceleration?

Leaders Pushing Boundaries: In the backdrop of the technological landscape, visionary leaders and organizations are tirelessly working exploring new ideas, unafraid of failure in the pursuit of business outcomes. Their endeavors are not just about adopting technologies but about reimagining their potential. By pushing the limits of how technology can provide value, they're exploring new paradigms for innovation and value by deviating from historically siloed, risk-averse methods to closer align to methods like Open Innovation 2 (OI2) in Europe. OI2 lays out principles, benefits, and requirements of a model that promotes integrated collaboration, co-created shared value, cultivated innovation ecosystems, exponential technologies, and extraordinarily rapid adoption. “We believe that innovation can be a discipline practiced by many, rather than an art mastered by few.”¹⁷

Redefining Risk and Adoption: The traditional models of risk assessment are undergoing a transformation as well. Executives are weighing the risks of early technology adoption against the potential risks of being left behind. Executives that are in their 40s and older remember the wasteland of companies who did not make the transition to cloud computing and shifts before that. They understand innovation is important for survival and competitiveness. This mindset is fostering a culture where businesses are open to experimenting, learning from failures, iterating their strategies as well as decision making, away from bureaucracies.

Agility is the New Norm: There is a shift in business towards becoming a more flexible organization who has the capabilities to change quickly. The ability to be "agile", to adjust strategies as well as operations in response to the market needs, has become a critical business competency.¹⁸ Organizations are recognizing the need to accelerate their processes¹⁸ to mitigate risks and also to seize emerging opportunities, quickly.

The Startup Mentality Is Not Just for Start Ups: Today's startups are emblematic of this acceleration phenomenon. Many founders born in the digital era, are fearless in their approach, aggressively adopting technological advantages at their disposal. They can do more with less, literally because of AI. Their ethos is not just about survival but about redefining market standards. And it's not just startups; even established companies that exemplify this mentality, viewing technology as a competitive advantage, are finding themselves at the forefront of their industries, like BMW delivering the ultimate “consumer focused” driving experience or Fidelity teaching kids finance through play.¹⁶ The digital natives are inherently more comfortable with technological change, willing to embrace, explore and fail fast as their approach to innovation.

The acceleration phenomenon is not just about technology moving faster; it's a fundamental shift in how businesses perceive, evaluate, and utilize technology. A sea change encompassing a leadership mindset, culture, and strategic approach.

Business Adaptability is Evolving

Businesses are confronted with rapid accelerations of technological change with many capabilities like AI, which for some, was not even on the roadmap. Even companies that are not core technology companies can assume other companies are embedding generative AI capabilities into every business process to gain an advantage in sales, marketing, product, engineering, legal etc. They are asking, 'how can we be competitive or get the edge in such a dynamic environment'? The answer lies in understanding the changing paradigms of business adaptability.

Resource Constraints as Catalysts: Historically, resource constraints were viewed as limitations. Though with generative AI, the playing field is more level for those who understand the advantages. Necessity is the mother of all invention. This is true and can be a catalyst for innovation. Startups and established businesses with limited resources are often the ones pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Their constraints force them to think differently, adopt unconventional approaches, and be more agile.

Fearless Adoption of Technology: The startups of today differ significantly from those a decade ago. They're characterized by a fearless approach to technology adoption and are also confronted now with an economic environment where access to capital is more difficult and the cost of money is high. Whether it's blockchain, AI, or any other emerging tech, these companies are quick to explore and integrate them into their operations, seeking an advantage. Some founders are following a Founders AI-First Playbook,³⁴ utilizing AI as part of their founding team to protect equity and precious capital.

The Competitive Advantage of Tech Mastery: It's no longer just tech companies that view technology as their competitive advantage. The sentiment that every company is a software company has become well known. To compete and grow in a digital world, traditional companies are realizing they must look, think, and act like a software company.¹⁹ Across sectors, many companies recognize mastering and leveraging the latest technologies can set them apart in their respective markets.

The Role of Digital Natives: A new generation of leaders, employees, and consumers, who've grown up as digital natives, are driving business into the future where technology mirrors our everyday lives. Their comfort with technology, combined with an inherent willingness to adapt and evolve, is driving businesses to be more agile and forward-thinking. Because we have four generations in the workforce, and older generations may work well into their 70s, we need to up-skill the workforce³⁷ to embrace technology to make our jobs easier and more productive, particularly AI.³⁴

The Global Learning Effect

The digital revolution has not only accelerated technological advancements but has also fostered an environment of global learning and collaboration. While global digital work was pioneered with the rise of IT outsourcing 20 years ago,²⁰ it became normalized for many during the Covid-19 pandemic whereby people worked behind a screen from anywhere in the world. Some became digital nomads. This interconnectedness and normalization of a global workforce has reshaped the use of technologies in the new world of work, most importantly, through social networks. The discovery and learning process has become decentralized across industries and regions.

Social Media and Interconnectedness: Platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and various tech forums have become melting pots of ideas, innovations, and discussions. On these networks, there is a culture of group learning, sharing of knowledge, particularly in emerging tech. Professionals from diverse backgrounds and expertise convene to share insights, challenge conventions, and collaboratively push the boundaries of what's possible. There is an intensity to learning with healthy competition. In late July, a scramble roared across social media to replicate the creation of a material dubbed LK-99, thought to be a superconductor that did not have the need for supercool or high pressurized conditions.²¹ While determined to not be a superconductor, the information made available to replicate the process was transparent and for anyone with background to try.

The Pandemic's Silver Lining: The COVID-19 pandemic, despite its challenges, played a role in breaking down geographical and organizational barriers. Remote work became the norm, leading to collaborations that were previously challenging or impossible. This flexibility has catalyzed a global approach to problem-solving, where the best minds, irrespective of location, come together to innovate. While there is corporate pressure to return to office (RTO), a new HR term, many understand it is motivated by companies to fulfill lease obligations for long term commercial real estate (CRE). Innovators will figure out the balance and support people to be productive wherever they are.

Open Technological Competition: The spirit of open-source and shared technological platforms has intensified competition, but in a constructive manner. Many companies and individuals are no longer working in silos though in virtual innovation hubs; building upon each other's work, leading to rapid iterations and advancements. T-Mobile, powered by its Open Telekom Cloud, hosts experts who work together as a team and often playfully on the technology trends of tomorrow. Customers can also participate in interactive workshops as 3D avatars. T-Systems, together with the start-up "doob group", recreated the rooms virtually, making around 400 3D avatars of T-Systems employees using data from scans.²²

Systems Thinking: The focus is shifting from individual technological components to holistic systems as well as how people solve complex problems for an organization. The integration of cloud computing, APIs, and shared tech stacks exemplifies this trend. It's not just about having the best individual technology but about how they can be easily integrated to deliver value. Systems thinking also helps organizations like Google²³, to solve complex problems enabled by technology. Managers can use systems thinking in the workplace to help their team become more effective and efficient.

Data Privacy and Control: While there's a collective push towards open collaboration, data remains a contentious point. As technologies become more intertwined, the discourse around data control, privacy, and access intensifies. Recent decisions by Zoom to harness user data, confidential or otherwise, to train their AI systems received a backlash of criticism as well as presumably drove customer attrition, to use customer information for private use through a forced software update.²⁴

The global learning effect, propelled by interconnectedness and collaborative spirit, is a testament to humanity's collective pursuit of progress. While technological advancements are at the forefront, the underlying narrative is about people, from different walks of life, coming together to shape the future. It's this human element, combined with cutting-edge technology, that promises an exciting era of innovation.

Mastering Master Data: The Heart of Emerging Tech

Data, in its essence, represents the collective digital footprint of humanity. As we stand at the cusp of a new era, AI everywhere, the importance of data cannot be overstated. Data loss can bankrupt a business in days. In fact 93% of companies who suffered data loss filed for bankruptcy within a year.²⁵ Businesses, innovators, and leaders recognize data is the heart of the business, requiring full control of the enterprise use of data. Getting the benefit of emerging technologies is much harder when companies do not have control over their data, use or governance. Companies need to “master their master data” as a core competency to be able to deliver exceptional customer experiences, delivering the right information to the right person in context of the business process.

The Ubiquity of Data: Every digital interaction, a simple click on a website or a complex AI-driven analysis, generates data. This data, when harnessed effectively, offers insights that can shape business strategies, drive innovations, and create excellent user experiences. Similarly, delivering in context information to a user whether that is a customer or an employee of a business can mean everything for decision making, as well as if that experience is positive or negative.

Data-Driven Decision Making: Modern businesses no longer rely solely on intuition or experience. Data-driven insights provide a more objective, accurate, and actionable perspective. While experience from individuals cannot be undervalued, this experience combined with intelligence empowers individuals to take more informed actions. While data offers value in decisioning, it also presents challenges making sure the access to specific data is appropriate. Data privacy concerns, regulatory constraints, and the ethical implications of data usage are becoming central to the discourse. This is a major obstacle in generative AI adoption by some large companies.

An Amazon attorney warned, “inputs may be used as training data for a further iteration of ChatGPT, and we wouldn’t want its output to include or resemble our confidential information.”²⁶

Data is the heart of a business. Mastering data is a core dependency to getting the most out of emerging technologies. However, this should not stop a company from implementing these technologies where there is lower risk and not part of a critical operations process. For instance, many companies can take steps to incorporate Generative AI into their creative processes supporting sales, marketing and product development.⁴⁰

Last, if traditional frameworks may not be as applicable for making decisions on emerging technology given the speed at which i's moving, how should companies evaluate capabilities to implement and why?

The Competitive Edge of Mastering Personas

We discussed earlier that evaluating technology with a waterfall approach is slow, often bureaucratic, and can take companies down the wrong path of understanding how to get started in emerging technologies that could positively impact the business aligned to the company strategy. Since technologies are interwoven across platforms it no longer makes sense to have a discrete capability mindset because many of them are dependent on one another and support each other. As an example, NFTs are a key technology that is part of Web3 using blockchain services and is often used in marketing activations in the Metaverse to drive revenue, customer loyalty and acquire new customers through digital collectibles in a new experience.³⁵ For this reason and other complex examples, using discrete capability framework may be why a trough of disillusionment exists.

Customer Experience at The Center: In a digital first competitive business landscape, shifting capabilities aligned to the customer or employee experience makes a lot of sense. This design thinking process is persona driven, defining needs of the persona, what they care about and the moments that matter to get crystal clear about the “jobs to be done” to support delivering that moment. These consumer or employee processes are intuitive, dynamic, sensing of not just the next best action, though anticipating what the next best need for that consumer should be.

A Product and Platform Mindset: This type of design thinking is called a product and platform model that ensures the technology is aligned to the strategy and relative properties to generate significant business value, innovation, and improve the customer employee experience.² McKinsey documents this decreases the time to market up to three times and reduces product defects by 50-70 percent. Often companies buy technology and create a business process that mandates a standard for use of the capability, even if it does not meet the experience requirements, because they already have it “laying around the house”. This is not a persona based mindset, though a scarcity one, that leaves companies stuck in a trap of using the same vendors, same technology driven by vendor management, with potentially dire consequences to the customer experience with potential impact to revenue. While rationalization of technologies and vendors make sense, it stops making sense when technology is the priority over the consumer experience. Consumers have many choices in how they spend their time and money.

Reimagining Persona Development: A persona driven development process puts the persona in the middle of the requirements of a system which can be done more efficiently and effectively with expert use of AI. Personas are used in product marketing, though are often not pulled through in every aspect of the development or go to market plan. Personas, both buyers and users, are not consistently used in these processes though are critical in informing value messaging used in strategic marketing. The consequences show up in lack of product market fit³⁶ and inconsistency in marketing and sales messaging to a company's ICP. Sometimes personas are never done prior to product being developed because it is time consuming and requires discipline. This is where Generative AI can also support this process in enabling it to be 50% faster.

Putting it all together, designing expert systems with emerging tech that delights users starts with design thinking methods focused on deep persona work to create rich experiences that drives retention and excellent experiences for consumers and employees.

Conclusion: The Imperative of Embracing Change

The hyper-speed evolution of technology is not just a trend; it's the new normal. Businesses that cling to traditional models of technology evaluation and adoption risk being left behind. The future belongs to those who can anticipate change, adapt swiftly, and harness the power of emerging technologies to drive value for consumers and employees.

The market is undergoing a seismic shift, one that is redefining the very fabric of business operations, strategies, and value propositions. The rapid pace of technological advancements, coupled with the global interconnectedness of today's digital age, presents both challenges and opportunities for leaders. Traditional models of technology evaluation and adoption are being examined, necessitating a new agile approach that is experience driven and factors in the interdependencies of capabilities.

We recognize the profound implications of this shift. We believe that to navigate this complex landscape, businesses need more than just technological solutions; they need partners who can provide expert insights, guidance, and niche expertise in harnessing the power of emerging technologies. Our team at StartStak is uniquely positioned to offer strategic consulting on emerging tech strategy, advisory, and product development. We understand the nuances of today's technological innovations. More importantly, we know how to translate this knowledge into business value for a competitive advantage.

The call to action is clear; embrace change, challenge the status quo, with partners who can guide you through this journey. StartStak is committed to being that trusted partner, helping businesses not just survive but thrive in this new age of innovation. The journey ahead is filled with challenges, but also with opportunities for those willing to embrace the future with an open mind and a fearless spirit.

References

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Figure 1: Gartner: "What’s New in the 2022 Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies", cited in August 2023 (Source)