In 2019, there will be continued progress toward the integration of AI, ML and deep learning in business applications

• Padmanabhan Iyer, Managing Director & Global CEO, 3i Infotech

In an era where advancements around technology have leapfrogged exponentially, the year ahead will see the Indian IT industry charter new frontiers, driven by innovation, speed and accuracy. The IT industry would see enterprises move towards Industry 4.0, the convergence of Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing among others will enable them to be future-ready.

Driven by technological advancements and data security at the core, we foresee all sectors in the Indian industry in for exciting times and the Banking, Financial Services, Insurance (BFSI) and Healthcare segments will be no exception. Complexity brews herein, fuelled by regulatory challenges, uncertain economic cycles, risks, partnerships and alliances, talent management and above all ever-increasing customer expectations.

With this backdrop, the top technology trends to watch out in 2019 would be –

Intelligent Digital Mesh

Intelligent digital mesh, the combination of humans, devices, content, and services is going to emerge as one of the major trends of the year 2019. Businesses have already started adapting this innovative technology to convey advanced results, where technology is embedded in almost every facet.

 Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning 

With AI and ML already playing a critical role in the assessment and treatment of business KPIs, the IT operations are further set to undergo transformation. In 2019, there will be continued progress toward the integration of AI, ML and deep learning in business applications. AI and ML will enable working with large swathes of data and help converge isolated or distributed data for more informed decisions.There will be a further push to implement machine learning and artificial intelligence into smart devices.

As per a recent industry report, AI will boost India’s annual growth rate by 1.3% by 2035.Some of the major growth drivers of AI/ML in 2019 would be -specialized chip optimized for speeding up the execution of AI-enabled applications and Industrial IoT, making it the biggest driver of artificial intelligence in any enterprise.

Internet of Things (IOT)

IoT is no longer viewed as a wonder but an enabler. The year 2019 will see incremental use cases of IoT in the Insurance space. Telematics, wearables, voice assistants and home control devices will mature further and will be increasingly adopted. There will be a continued rise in the demand for wearable devices and IoT.

The convergence of IoT and AI will create new opportunities for insurers and better and more customised premiums for the insured. It will enhance process transparency and service delivery.

Robotic Process Automation

The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is seeing traction in the IT industry. The robots have been modernizing our way of administering business processes, IT support, workflow, remote infrastructure and back-office work.

In the upcoming year, the improvised RPA models will show some dramatic progressin accuracy, cycle-time and increased productivity in transaction processing.RPA will be efficient enough in providing answers to the queries in a natural language which will be a superior way to conserve resources for large call centres and for customer interactions. We will see the further adoption of tools like chatbots, straight through processing and robotic process automation for routine repetitive processes.Chabot will be integral to websites and mobile apps.

Big data and analytics 

Data and analytics have become daily aspects of organisations today across industries, which improvises business processes and optimizes operations. Presently, it is estimated to be $2.71 billion annually in revenues, which is growing at a healthy rate of 33.5% CAGR in India, as per a recent report. However, 2019 will bring a modern version of big data analytics which has evolved through adopting modern and breakthrough technologies. Speed and efficiency are the major benefits that big data analytics will bring to the industry.

Data and data value management is something that is going to dominate our industries over the next few decades at least. Estimates peg thatthe analytics, data science and big data industry in India is expected to reach $20 billion, by 2025.Prescriptive analytics driving proactive decision making, cognitive technologies reiterating businesses, increasing adoption of cloud-based platforms for big data analytics by major enterprise and start-ups are some of the future trends that we can look forwardto, in 2019.

 Blockchain 

In 2019, blockchain will bring some enterprise applications into the main stream. The most innovative corporations will start using blockchain to improve collaboration. Blockchain will also see itself out of cryptocurrency transactions and will become an integral part of the business platform. Blockchain enables transactional transparency across a variety of business functions. Blockchain will also be present at the core of business innovation in many industries.

According to a recent report, an approximate of 56% of Indian businesses will be making the blockchain technology a part of their core business. Blockchain adoption will depend on regulatory concerns being addressed. The government and the regulators should take an active role in making this happen. In certain countries, we are already seeing action in this space, whereas most are yet to take their step forward.