Emerging Technology Adoption Drives Business Transformation, WEF Report Says – XR Today

Modern workplaces require modern solutions. As business and consumer expectations evolve, so does the surrounding technology.

Improving collaboration and communication for better workplace results is a never-ending optimization story. Enterprise technology solutions change massively from year to year to solve current and new challenges.

The most notable example of late is the evolution of video conferencing tools, following the hybrid and remote boom following the pandemic. The world continues to adapt to these new expectations to improve return on investment.

From Zoom to Microsoft, the two platforms and others are helping to facilitate a better connected world. Additionally, many industry innovators have taken advantage of this remote environment to introduce new immersive metaverse platforms as remote communication solutions have become more mainstream and sophisticated.

While continuing to grow, the Metaverse space gained popularity last year after the Meta rebranding. The fire has cooled somewhat; however, other Metaverse service providers optimize their platforms to fit targeted business use cases.

Additionally, innovative immersive solutions like smart glasses, digital twins, and Web3 platforms can help enterprise end users digitally transform operations ready for the future of work.

Research collected by Meta UK’s Future of Work division found that 81% of respondents want to work in collaborative environments.

However, the report also claims that only 16% believe video calls help them feel present in meetings. Fourteen other participants believed that videoconferencing led to greater collaboration with their colleagues. According to Meta, these numbers show how companies should shift from video conferencing laptops to immersive devices to help remote workers feel present.

WEF: Future of Jobs 2023

The World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Future of Jobs 2023 report last month. In the report, the WEF found that emerging technologies are most likely to affect change in the workplace. .

The report surveyed 803 companies employing more than 11.3 million workers across 27 verticals. Moreover, the report mainly analyzes the impact of macroeconomic and technological trends on jobs, skills and transformation strategies over the period 2023-2027.

In its report, more than 85% of organizations surveyed identified increased adoption of emerging technology solutions and expanding access to digital services in the workplace as the most likely trend to drive business transformation. company, with additional attention to environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards.

Additionally, digital transformation trends show that 75% of companies surveyed by WEF want to adopt emerging technologies such as big data, cloud computing and AI within the next five years.

Additionally, 86% of companies surveyed plan to integrate e-commerce solutions and digital platforms. The WEF found that 75% of businesses could adopt e-commerce tools and 81% would adopt digital technologies relevant to education and the workforce.

Another key takeaway from the WEF’s 2023 Future of Jobs report is how surveyed companies expect emerging technologies to disrupt around 44% of workers’ skills.

WEF: Emerging technologies affect all sectors

In an interview with the WEF, Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda, said that whether you’re a factory or frontline worker or a knowledge worker sitting behind a desk. Technology is changing the way almost every task will be performed.

Speaking on the emerging AI technology landscape, Maggioncalda added that his companies founder Andrew Ng, says, AI is the new electricity. Moreover, adding that AI will integrate into all aspects of society.

Maggiocalda also added:

Some people call it general-purpose technology. It will change everything. Whether you’re ready or not, almost everything digital is going to change and become AI-enabled.

Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum, also noted how generative AI is accelerating in the business landscape, gaining adoption across various industries. This is exactly where there are predictions likely to see further disruption, Zahidi added.

Despite the influence of AI, Technology only ranks 15th as an overall core skill. However, according to the WEF, the skill is considered the third most important in many companies’ training strategies by 2027. Additionally, the WEF reports that 75% of organizations surveyed will introduce AI in the next five years. .

Of the companies surveyed by the WEFs, 45% believe that government funding would greatly help with the professional training, talent acquisition and reskilling needed to adopt emerging solutions.

Automation and AI are already having a significant impact on the workforce, and this trend will only accelerate in the coming years, performing an increasing number of tasks previously performed by humans.

Additionally, the shift to a digital economy is creating new opportunities for tech workers. However, it also displaces some jobs in traditional industries, like manufacturing and retail.

Additionally, workers will increasingly need soft skills such as creativity, problem solving, and communication to work with machines and collaborate with colleagues in a globalized remote workforce.

What does this mean for XR?

Emerging technologies can easily mix and stack to increase usability. Within XR, hardware and software solutions typically integrate other emerging technologies to improve ROI results.

XR vendors typically integrate AI and machine learning into products to improve the performance of immersive workplace solutions. The growing demand for big data streaming is also forcing hardware developers to innovate in areas such as 5G.

XR dev hubs like NVIDIA Omniverse, Unity, and Unreal also contain built-in emerging tools like AI.

Additionally, XR itself is an emerging business tool, and many of the same WEF considerations can apply to enterprise-grade immersive solutions.

Immersive technologies such as cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) were hailed by WEF representatives late last year.

In a report at the time, forum members explained that the metaverse is already there despite the then and ongoing development of Web3 solutions. The WEF is excited about the potential of metaverses to change working practices.

WEF: Web3 and DAO for the workplace

The group is also interested in how Web3 and DAO platforms can digitally connect communities and businesses.

At the time, the WEF expressed:

As decentralized self-governing organizations are adopted more widely, new types of enterprises will emerge that will look more like cooperatives and less like corporations, significantly reducing agency costs.

WEF contributors explored the functions of DAO services and whether the technology infrastructure can provide enterprises with reliable networks.

Instead of having hierarchical working structures, DAOs give communities of stakeholders more power than traditional frameworks.

The WEF says in the report that companies ready for Meteverse and DAO can become more agile through revamped talent pipelines that allow work to flow to talent.

Additionally, the WEF outlines how DAO executives can modify conventional jobs such as manager, representative, project worker, and tradesman. DAO value propositions change the way a core group of employees coordinate and deliver work.

Additionally, technology can offer broader contributor groups that facilitate business operations. Provide roles such as HR, finance, accounting, and customer experience with a way to digitally connect with the workforce operating on Metaverse or DAO platforms in the style of the gig economy.

The verdict

Although it may be obvious to some that emerging enterprise technologies hold the power to fundamentally alter workplace operations. However, with the current wave of technology trends, the enterprise solutions market can look like a shark tank.

Figuring out which emerging solution is right for a customer’s use case can be a hurdle. With so many immersive and emergent solutions available for the workplace, it’s hard to find the best solution.

Will a business benefit from a fleet of VR headsets, MR devices, or smart glasses? Additionally, will software solutions such as AI, digital twins, cloud, and Metaverse platforms provide the ROI needed to make many commercial end users feel confident with their technology investment?

While some technologies come and go. The impact of current trends in emerging technologies is clear. Meanwhile, the world of work demands highly skilled experts to adequately apply and adapt emerging business tools.

Time will tell how technology is changing the way the world works, although it seems clear that forward-thinking companies ready to embrace emerging technologies will stand out.