In the post-pandemic digital era, companies must enable new ways of working, serving customers, and conducting business. Within this framework, specific technology trends are set to exert a strong influence, as outlined in a presentation we have synthesized below.
The first of these tech trends stems from the shift toward an increasingly digital world, where a significant portion of daily life has moved online. However, this transition comes with a cost: digital fatigue. Organizations will need to find ways to differentiate themselves in an increasingly congested online marketplace.
The second trend is tied to the remote work experience, as many knowledge workers continue to operate from home. This dramatic shift in how work gets done presented massive hurdles for IT professionals—adjustments that will persist as organizations embrace the reality that remote and hybrid work models are here to stay.
The third trend for 2022 connects directly to the previous ones: to facilitate the shift toward a digital-first, hybrid model, companies will accelerate the adoption of cloud-native technologies, such as containers and serverless architecture. Cloud-native infrastructure provides the foundation to build resilient, elastic, and agile application architectures capable of adapting to rapid digital change. Analyst firm Forrester estimates that by 2022, half of enterprise organizations will adopt cloud-native frameworks.
Hyperautomation
Another trend tied to the need for faster collaboration is hyperautomation. "Many IT teams were already incorporating automation as part of their DevOps adoption prior to the pandemic. Hyperautomation takes this to the next level by automating not only IT workflows but core business processes as well. It will embed artificial intelligence (AI) and eliminate manual processes wherever possible," notes the report under review.
Furthermore, analysts foresee an expanding role for AI as tools gain the capability to tackle more creative tasks. For instance, an international consulting firm highlights that generative AI has the potential to "create new forms of creative content, such as video, and accelerate R&D cycles in fields ranging from medicine to product design."
In the analytics domain, AI will continue to play a pivotal role in driving informed business decisions. In fact, decision intelligence is expected to emerge as a practical approach that "models each decision as a set of processes, leveraging analytics and AI to inform, learn from, and refine outcomes."
Additionally, with cyberattacks surging during the pandemic, another key trend for the coming year is the deployment of modern trust architectures (such as Zero Trust). These frameworks "provide mechanisms to verify device trustworthiness as data flows across networks, APIs, and applications."
Digital Transformation
The pandemic underscored the critical need for business agility, prompting many organizations to rethink their software development methodologies. One key trend is the rise of composable applications: under this paradigm, software "is built from modular, independent components that can be reused across multiple applications." This approach streamlines code reuse, speeds up time-to-market for new solutions, and unlocks business value faster.
Meanwhile, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors have surged to the forefront in recent years, and IT departments will feel the impact. For example, industry research estimates that by 2026, 60% of G2000 companies will use sustainability data and KPIs as primary operational metrics, up from less than 20% in 2021.
Finally, the tenth tech trend shaping 2022 involves post-pandemic government stimulus investments designed to reboot economies. In many cases, these funds are directed toward smart infrastructure projects that integrate IoT and edge technologies powered by advanced 5G networks.
To review these technology trends in greater detail, you can read the full report here.