I know what you’re thinking. Every year the tech bods roll out hundreds of new predictions for what’s going to be hot in the coming 12 months.

Sometimes those predictions are bang on the money, like the 2016 predictions of adaptive securities, the development of the Internet of Things and the rise of robotics and AI.

So now that we have another New Year ahead of us, the predictions are rushing in thick and fast. Experts everywhere are trying to work out what the 2019 tech landscape will look like. This blog post explores what we expect to see from 2019.

Real 5G Finally Arrives

For the latter half of this decade, 5G has been touted as being the truly always-on, super-fast mobile broadband connection. It may well replace the landline once and for all, even in fixed applications at home. This sounds fantastic, but there was just one problem: no-one in the industry could agree on what exactly 5G was.

But that changed in 2018. Now we have a specification for what 5G will look like, along with new technologies that are being developed to meet those specs.

While a lot of 2018 was devoted to field testing the technology, we expect 2019 to bring us the first 5G capable smartphones (like the 5G Samsung from AT&T). We also anticipate welcoming other mobile technologies like AR and VR that would struggle without it.

Heavy Investment In Cybersecurity

The threat landscape of the digital world is changing rapidly, and to keep their data safe, businesses and organisations need to be adapting in response.

2018 brought with it a tightening of data protection regulations that caused many businesses to re-evaluate the way they do things. This has caused a significant shift in risk profiles and has left some gaps for even the biggest businesses.

In 2019, we believe that cybersecurity will become more intelligence-driven. Smart organisations are expected to use a blend of machine learning and AI to gather intelligence.

We also expect to see a lot more automation in cybersecurity functions. Where machines will make their own decisions and make changes to minimise the businesses cyber-risk. By employing AI and machine learning in this way, businesses can react quickly to threats and ensure their data security.

The Rise Of Robotic Process Automation

Another area that will see a big increase is the use of automation, in particular, robotic process automation, in everyday business processes. Research indicates that 45% of work activities across industries could be automated and that by adopting robotic process automation in this way could save $2 trillion in global workforce costs.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a ‘robots taking our jobs’ kind of thing. Instead robotic process automation is designed to make our jobs easier. It achieves this by taking away the monotonous, unimaginative tasks like data entry or analytics. We’re then left with the more rewarding tasks to handle.

By using RPA effectively, businesses can become more efficient, perform better and have a happier workforce.

Connected Clouds

Some people might look at this one and think ‘well, we’ve sort of got that already, haven’t we? Isn’t it just more of the growing pains of cloud computing?’. And while that’s a great question, the answer is, unfortunately, no.

As the digital landscape evolves, businesses are realising that opting for an all-public cloud, an all-private cloud or a data centre exclusively isn’t actually the best option for them.

Instead, businesses will see the best results from a blend of all three, otherwise known as the ‘connected cloud’. These solutions are designed to be continually developed to meet businesses needs. And they are relevant whether they want to cloud-source storage, networking, security or app deployment. 

Major public cloud providers like Amazon and Alibaba are answering the call. They’re achieving this through offering private cloud (or in Google’s case, container-based) options. In 2019, we expect to see far more of these connected cloud solutions emerging. We also predict more businesses will adopt this new, flexible approach to cloud computing.

So there you have it — our 4 main predictions for the 2019 digital landscape. Of course, there will be many more developments to come. Some of these will have been predicted and some may come completely out of the blue and change the way we do things.

The Year Ahead

Whichever way you look at it, 2019 is set to be an exciting year for technology and business IT.

At Indigo IT, we can’t wait to help more business owners streamline their IT infrastructure, adopt new cutting-edge technologies and improve their business functions with effective IT solutions.

If you want to make 2019 your best year yet, or just want to find out about how to improve your IT, just get in touch with the team today.

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