Featuring:
Michele Goetz, VP, Principal Analyst, Craig Le Clair, VP, Principal Analyst, Lee Sustar, Principal Analyst, and Abhijit Sunil, Analyst
Show Notes:
Digital transformation. Semiconductor shortages. Remote work. Hiring challenges. And a growing digital trust crisis. 2021 had its share of challenges, and enterprise technologies helped ease these challenges and were impacted by them. In this episode of What It Means, four Forrester analysts review the role AI, automation, cloud, and IoT played in 2021 and provide their predictions about these technology areas for 2022.
The episode starts with VP and Principal Analyst Michele Goetz discussing two related trends she sees for AI technology in the year ahead — growth and governance. “One in five organizations is really going to double down on AI,” says Goetz, adding that machine learning will find its way into a lot of new areas. But that also will put a greater emphasis on responsible use of AI and governance efforts.
Similarly, automation’s rapid growth will bring new risks in 2022, says Vice President and Principal Analyst Craig Le Clair. As firms struggle to manage disparate automation projects, Le Clair predicts that the most successful firms will implement an “automation fabric” strategy in 2022 to help guide their automation growth.
In the cloud space, geopolitical friction and antitrust reforms in 2022 will usher in an era of cloud “nationalism,” predicts Principal Analyst Lee Sustar. That will mean more nation-state intervention on where and how cloud providers can operate in various countries and regions. Sustar offers his suggestions on how technology leaders can adapt to these issues.
The internet-of-things market has been central to many of the digital shifts during the pandemic. But its growth will be held back significantly in 2022 because of the ongoing chip shortage, says Analyst Abhijit Sunil. He predicts that savvy technology leaders will use 2022 as a time to step back and optimize their entire technology infrastructure stack to better adapt to the ongoing shortages.
To learn more about these issues and ask our analysts your questions, be sure to attend our upcoming webinar, Predictions 2022 For Technology Leaders, on Feb. 15, 2022. Reserve your spot now.
