There are big opportunities, which lie in the capabilities of digital technology and communication networks to improve the quality of people’s lives and help solve the tough problems we face in society.
Innovation of digital technologies is the key to help the world act together. According to Dr. Ziegler, “the next areas of innovation will leverage the evolution of 5G and 6G networks and the power of accelerating the relationships between public and private sector, where with close co-operation, the developments can be leveraged at scale. Key value drivers include sustainability, security and trust as well as digital inclusion.”
On the trends that are likely to impact the digital communications industry most, socio-economic trends such as geo-political fragmentation, sustainability, cyber security and the role of governments all can have a tremendous impact. “It’s crucial that tech innovation keeps its focus on unleashing human possibilities,” Dr. Ziegler adds.
“The age of the metaverses will be enabled by ease of use and enabling technologies such as 5G, 6G, advanced fibre optics as well as Web3 and block chain software technologies.”
In addition, a pervasive enabler will be AI, machine Learning and the potentials behind this. Security, privacy and trust is also a huge area of technology innovation that will be at the forefront of consumer interest and how the industry addresses and responds to these concerns.
AR and VR technologies will also revolutionise the way we communicate, according to Statista, providing immersive and interactive experiences. In 2023, we can anticipate the integration of AR and VR in various digital communication platforms, ranging from remote collaboration tools to gaming and entertainment. A report by Statista predicts that the global AR and VR market will reach $209.2 billion by 2022, showcasing the immense growth potential of these technologies.
Looking ahead into the next five years in the digital communications industry, Dr. Ziegler says at the industry is one of innovation and growth with so many options for digital transformation of society and industries in the pipeline of research.
“There will be the opportunity to build new eco systems with the ability to connect value chains. We will see an increasing degree of human augmentation as well as the merging of virtual and physical worlds. Leveraging next generation networks with open APIs, Network as Code and provided as a Service, we will also see business model transformation with massive automation as part of this important journey.”
5G; the white knight
The fifth-generation cellular network, 5G, will completely change the shape of daily human life, redefining how individuals and organizations connect, inform, shop and entertain. Wireless networks will reach unprecedented speeds with its high bandwidth and low latency, equipping new technologies with futuristic capabilities. Moreover, it will pave the way for new tools, models and opportunities for organizations with an improved data capacity and the ability to efficiently leverage it. The 5G revolution is just about to take off. It will completely redefine the way internal communications take place by enhancing operational efficiency and making the decision-making process smoother and employee engagement better. On the external side of communications, a more fruitful gift awaits. 5G holds the potential to rebalance the power between consumers, investors and business leadership. Meetings will play out more transparently, more consumer data will be generated to be analyzed and evaluated, dashboards will display a history of revenues and expenditures; essentially, all vital metrics will be updated in real-time and powered by artificial intelligence. At its best, 5G will enable a thriving information flow and change the way organizations communicate forever.
The AI Paradigm
According to Gartner, 37% of organizations have already implemented AI in some form, a 270% increase from 2016 to 2020. By 2021, 80% of emerging technologies are also said to be AI powered with chatbots, artificial personal assistants, virtual and augmented reality etc. The impact of Chatbots alone is significant in not only automating contact center services, but its ability to proactively engage with customers to respond to their queries or provide product or other guidance is significant and on a continuous rise. AI also has the potential to make outreach strategies more efficient by providing a hyper-personalized experience since AI is both understanding and learning from human responses to communication. In fact, it is already using customer data such as recent purchases made by user, to cater personalized messaged that will interest them. This can process can allow organizations to split their audience into certain demographics and communicate with each individual customer uniquely. Some experts believe that banks will be able to automate up to 90% of their customer interactions through chatbots by 2022. Another AI empowered trend that can benefit banks is blockchain. With blockchain, single ledger entries that two parties have access to can simplify the coordination and validation efforts for banks with one single version of records, not two disparate databases. Similarly, artificial personal assistants like Alexa and Google ‘Duplex’ are continuing to become increasingly intelligent and can be used for making phone calls whilst adopting characteristics of human speech, scheduling meetings, organizing calendars and even transcribing discussions.
Virtual is the new reality
There are many use cases linked to VR that demonstrate its ability to enhance conference calls and delivery of professional trainings. Imagine a business meeting being held with people from around the world and demonstrating your ideas by sharing 360 visuals. This allows for creative feedback and making changes with approval cues from everyone present at the virtual meeting on the spot. Future pandemics or other disruptions can be better combatted through such services too and with the onset of Covid-19 and remote work being encouraged, this method cannot only prove to be convenient, but effective too. Technology allowing people to immerse themselves and react to a virtual environment is a fascinating concept, and when perfected, will play a big role in business communication. Heathrow Airport has introduced VR into their services. This is a great example of how early forms of VR are being used within businesses. The service allows passengers to look around the airport from their smartphones, with the idea that they can avoid wandering aimlessly when trying to find their terminal or a store in duty-free.
Productivity Tools & the Social Intranet
Social intranet software includes features such as instant messaging, social tagging, document and story sharing, a newsfeed, personal profiles and many more. Organizations are harnessing the power of G-Suite to improve their collaboration, communication and productivity. The G-Suite intranet can provide seamless connection and collaboration in an interface the younger generations workforce has grown up with and raised by, i.e.- Google’s. G suite allows an organization’s documents, calendars, and directories to be seamlessly integrated to an intranet software which gives them access to information and people instantly. Cross-functional teamwork is something Google apps make smoothly possible. Examining the need for communication during the Covid-19 crisis, Google offered an all-in-one enterprise social intranet that combines intranet functionality with collaboration features and social networking to keep the global workforce connected regardless of where they were located. Integration of the new generation of intranet with tools like Slack and Teams is proving to be an ideal hub for team work and are looking to add voice and video for better and faster communication too. In the years ahead, social intranet will continue to advance and help organizations reach new communications milestones.
Real-time communication with WebRTC
WebRTC is a web-oriented and open source Voice over IP technology that instills real time communication capabilities in a browser. It is a new(er) framework that can be leveraged by forward thinking organizations to enhance their business communications without needing software integrators or training sessions. By leveraging this technology, organizations can have video conferences and collaborate with others using an internet browser. Google has already embraced this technology and has approximately 2 billion Chrome browsers with WebRTC and 1 billion WebRTC audio/video minutes per week on Chrome too. WebRTC supports remote communications from audio, chat and video, to content sharing and screen sharing. Furthermore, AI-enabled contact centers also use WebRTC to make and receive calls within a contact center application, making it possible to retain customer conversations in one place. Since the number of remote workers have shot up dramatically in 2020 and expected to grow from here onwards, organizations have the opportunity to take on freelancers and remote workers too as they will have the perfect communication technology in place with the help of WebRTC.
Cloud – the nucleus of all communications
60% of financial services companies have already reported they’ll be implementing cloud technology to enhance their communications. The connective tissue of cloud communications, however, is CPaaS. CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) will dominate the roadmap for business communications and collaborations with its flexible and customizable solutions, according to research analysts. CPaaS refers to a cloud-based platform that integrates communication services such as SMS, email, voice, RCS, chatbots or any microservice into existing back-end systems and applications. Using APIs and intelligent interconnectivity to enable each service, CPaaS providers connect to every channel and service. In this ever-evolving environment, organizations are using cutting-edge technologies to keep up with their competitors and with CPaaS adoption they can serve multiple and fluctuating communication needs. An organization taking advantage of the wide arrays of CPaaS benefits is the Metropolitan Utilities District in Nebraska that provides water and gas to one-third of the state. They have a 360-degree view of their customers and can reach out to them via phone call or live chat whenever a problem arises. Metropolitan can view the details of their contracts and invoices, making them resolve customer complaints at first contact. While this use-case involves a state district with a large budget, deploying a new innovation like CPaaS can be done at a minimal cost by organizations of all sizes, in fact, Global Newswire and Juniper Research have found that it has been leveraged (and also provided) by countless start-ups. Another impressive feature of CPaaS is that it allows multi-tenancy, i.e., the ability for multiple customers to use the service at the same time, each within a separate secure environment. This can enable an organization to cater to multiple communication needs at the same time.
