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The leading technology advisory and investment firm specializing in technologies, GP Bullhound, has published its annual report concerning its tech predictions for 2022. We are presenting in this post the top 10 technologies that you must follow in 2022. These technologies could literally influence and change your life. for other articles, you can visit this link.

2021 has seen record growth in global technology M&A activity, driven by the need for companies to remain competitive and innovative. Companies are also rethinking their supply chains due to changing geopolitical relations, trade wars and environmental concerns. As consumers adopt new buying habits. These phenomena give rise to technological trends, which attract investment.

Content creators are becoming more popular

Globally, there are approximately 50 million influencers on YouTube, Instagram, Twitch… Estimated at 50 million worldwide, they have contributed to the emergence of a new economy. An economy that is based on the monetization of their own content offered to their fans. through different channels. Unlike employees, they are not subject to a standard 9-5 working day to obtain correct remuneration.

An Inzpire.me study shows that Instagram influencers only need 42,575 subscribers to earn the equivalent of an average salary in the United Kingdom (39,000 euros) by creating only eight publications and eight stories per month. . In the United States, the best influencers can earn more than 420 times the average annual income of Americans (107,000 euros). At the same time, many micro-influencers (10,000 to 50,000 subscribers on social networks) develop their online presence alongside their jobs.

Why is this sector going to grow? Influencers have a better understanding of their fans and the content they like, which drives brand interest. In addition, they will be able to develop their economic strategy on several different channels via NFTs for example. The artist Beeple has thus sold a work of digital art for 69 million dollars at Christies.

Supply chain: software is becoming essential

The Covid-19 pandemic has severely affected global supply chains. Despite the reopening of borders and the end of confinements, companies are struggling to restore inventory levels before the pandemic. Idling factories – especially in Asian countries – and growing global demand have saturated supply chains. To fill these gaps, companies are increasingly using software that allows them to detect potential problems upstream and facilitate the optimization of raw material supply.

The Metaverse: how close are we?

The metaverse is the new big project of Facebook, which has already won the favor of the public administration of Seoul. The ambition of these new spaces is to change the way people interact. They meet there, work and play using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, apps, etc. The business opportunities offered by the metaverse, particularly in marketing, will lead to the emergence of new industries. Some companies are already promising to launch a product by 2023. Retail is the most interested sector in these solutions to offer its customers the chance to virtually try on clothes. It is only a small step to see this same proposal arrive in the metaverse according to GP Bullhound.

For their part, Facebook and Microsoft are already working on the first versions of the metaverse. The functionalities offered today by virtual reality and augmented reality will evolve to adapt to consumer demand. This development will go through the integration of NFTs in the form of clothing or art objects.

AI: a driver of diversity

The startup and tech ecosystem is struggling to truly address the issue of diversity and inclusion. For GP Bullhound, algorithms and artificial intelligence could improve the fairness of recruitment and create more opportunities for marginalized candidates.

Companies like Entelo internally train artificial intelligence models to detect underrepresented candidates and predict underlying skills. Data will also allow companies to understand the biases that prevent them from recruiting these talents. But this is only the first step. Companies will have to work on their culture and the inclusion of these diversities. Hopefully, this will give them all the possibilities to evolve and to increase their skills on interesting projects.

Wearables and AI go hand in hand

Manufacturers of connected wearables accessories (watches, textiles, glasses, etc.), are no longer content to develop objects but are beginning to invest in powerful artificial intelligence engines to generate and use data. Using AI-powered software, these companies can now provide granular data analytics and even produce predictive analytics on health, physical performance and more to their users. The growth of this market is made possible by familiarizing consumers with these objects and monitoring their health on a daily basis. But if they adopt these solutions, they nevertheless remain cautious about sharing their data and are worried about the multiplication of hacks.

At the moment, half of the market is in the hands of the giants, Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi. in order to meet the aspirations of consumers, Companies are developing new solutions in various sectors such as finance or health. The global IoT analytics market may reach $59 billion by 2021.

Semiconductors is pushing companies to adapt

For several months now, companies have been facing a shortage of semiconductors that are pushing them to modify some of their products, particularly in the automotive sector. The main factor for this disruption is the closure of production facilities for chips and semiconductors.

To overcome this lack, software publishers are adapting. Tesla, for example, modified some of its software to accommodate alternative chips. States are also taking up the subject. In the United States, President Biden presented an infrastructure plan including a $50 billion package to expand national chipmaking capacity. In the European Union, lawmakers are scrambling to pass a law to uphold “technological sovereignty” aimed at increasing the volume of chips developed in Europe. Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker, has pledged $100 billion over the next three years to ramp up production.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL)

The “Buy Now Pay Later” (BNPL) solution is beginning to have a lasting impact on the e-commerce and payment sector due to growing consumer adoption. GP Bullhound even talks about abandoning the bank card in favor of the BNPL, which avoids overdraft fees and the costs associated with taking out credit.

This solution is of particular interest to younger generations since 26% of Millennials and Gen Z already use BNPL plans for their purchases. Affirm, one of BNPL’s leading service providers, has shown that merchants adopting its solution have seen an average of 85% increase in order size. Specialists are expecting this trend to continue as small businesses transition to omnichannel. 68% of them already believe that BNPL plans facilitate sales.

The e-commerce and tech giants did not hesitate for long to enter this niche. In 2021, Square acquired Afterpay, Amazon partnered with Affirm, and Apple announced it would provide its own BNPL products. BNPL’s global spending is expected to reach $995 billion and the number of users to exceed 1.5 billion by 2026, up from 266 billion and 340 million respectively in 2021.

Decentralized finance

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is booming after two years of astonishing growth. The value of cryptocurrencies deposited as collateral increased 14 times in the past year, surpassing $1 billion in June 2020. The rapid pace of compliance innovation is driving wider adoption by institutions, and soon by the general public, which remains at an early stage compared to the wider crypto industry. At the time of writing, over $100 billion is now locked in DeFi protocols on the Ethereum blockchain on which most DeFi applications are built.

By allowing anyone to create protocols that replicate existing financial services using public blockchains and smart contracts, platforms like Ethereum enable secure, permissionless, and middleman-free financial transactions.

These decentralized financial applications – which touch the entire financial value chain – are redefining traditional financial services and offering unprecedented levels of global transparency, interoperability and equal access.
These new technologies, like NFTs, will face many adoption, evolution, governance and regulatory challenges.

ARM replaces the Intel chips

For decades, the use of ARM processors was limited to mobile devices. Now, their efficiency and versatility have distinct advantages for machine learning applications. Another advantage is the possibility of deploying them in mobile or desktop devices.

Given the versatility and power efficiency of ARM processors, applications span the entire range of IoT devices. ARM-powered devices will be able to run advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to process more data and make better inferences. Their use has been mostly limited to enhancing smartphone functions, such as facial recognition, fingerprint scanning, and voice-activated commands. Future uses could make autonomous vehicles safer, improve the functionality of wearable medical devices, and more.

A growing number of companies are migrating their devices to ARM processors. Some of theme are choosing to develop their own competing processors. For example, the Apple’s M1 chip included in the latest MacBook Pro. Google and Microsoft are also developing their own ARM-based processors for use in personal devices and cloud servers. By developing their own processors, tech companies can more effectively implement artificial intelligence algorithms in their products. With time and its adoption by more and more companies, new software will be cheaper and easier to develop.

Artificial intelligence and healthcare

The Covid-19 pandemic has allowed remote assistance and telemedicine solutions to really take off by breaking down many barriers. As a result, the confidence of consumers and doctors has increased in new technologies dedicated to health. For instance, the number of patients that uses remote care increased by 15 to 20% since the start of the pandemic. The early success of these AI-based practices will drive investment and resources to further develop new solutions.

Software will help shape the future of medicine. Data analysis by artificial intelligence will continue to develop to become a real diagnostic and prediction aid tool. Asynchronous solutions using artificial intelligence in the form of software and hardware platforms offer obvious advantages through their ability of being remotely used. The capabilities of these solutions are fundamentally changing the way healthcare is delivered remotely.