How are you feeling today?

Wait, even if you don’t want to tell the world how you are feeling, the world will know it any way in the near future. Artificial Emotional Intelligence (AEI) will sense your emotions and tell companies how to influence your buying decisions.

If you think that the results are based on your browsing history or clicks, you are mistaken. It assesses customers on how they feel in a specific purchasing moment.

Why, about 87 per cent of marketing organisations have already started using some level of personalisation. By 2024, AI identification of emotions is expected to influence more than half of the online advertisements you see.

Research firm Gartner has said that AEI is among the key technology trends that we will witness in the next three to five years. “Computer vision, which allows AI to identify and interpret physical environments, is one of the key technologies used for emotion recognition,” Daryl Plummer, a top Gartner executive, said.

By 2024, the World Health Organisation will identify online shopping as an addictive disorder, as millions abuse digital commerce and encounter financial stress.

Consumer spending via digital commerce platforms will continue to grow over 10 per cent year over year through 2022. The ease of online shopping will cause financial stress for millions of people, as online retailers increasingly use AI and personalisation to effectively target consumers and prompt them to spend discretionary income that they do not have.

“The resulting debt and personal bankruptcies will cause depression and other health concerns caused by stress, which is capturing the attention of the WHO,” he said.

Brings more disabled into workforce

Not far from now, the number of the disabled in workforce will be trebled. Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality would help reduce barriers to access, allowing people with disabilities grab opportunities that are hitherto considered impossible for them.

“People with disabilities constitute an untapped pool of critically skilled talent. Select restaurants are starting to pilot AI robotics technology that enables paralysed employees to control robotic waiters remotely. Organisations that actively employ people with disabilities will not only cultivate goodwill from their communities, but also see 89 per cent higher retention rates, a 72 per cent increase in employee productivity,” Daryl Plummer, a top Gartner executive, said.

“As workers and citizens see technology as an enhancement of their abilities, the human condition changes as well. The Chief Information Officers in end-user organisations must understand the effects of the change and reset expectations for what technology means,” he said.

Bring Your Own Enhancement

The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has changed the way employees work in organisations in the last decade. Gartner predicts that this will gradually change and organisations will ask their employees to bring your own enhancement (BYOE). By 2023, about 30 per cent of IT organisations are expected to introduce this, where in advancements like wearables will be factored in.

Phone, yes. Bank a/c, no.

Gartner predicts that by 2025, about 50 per cent of people with a smartphone will not have a bank account as they might go for a mobile-accessible cryptocurrency account. “Major online marketplaces and social media platforms will start supporting cryptocurrency payments by the end of next year,” he said.

“At least half the globe’s citizens who do not use a bank account will instead use these new mobile-enabled cryptocurrency account services offered by global digital platforms by 2025. This will open trading opportunities for buyers and sellers in growing economies like sub-Saharan Africa and Asia-Pacific,” he said.

Checks fake news

Gartner predicts that blockchain will come to the rescue to keep tabs on fake news. At least 30 per cent of news and video content will be authenticated by blockchain countering deep fake technology by 2023.

“Rapid proliferation of fake news can be attributed to bot-controlled accounts on social media, attracting more viewers than authentic news. By 2021, at least 10 major news organisations will use blockchain to track and prove the authenticity of their published content to readers and consumers,” he said.

Tracking people

Through facial recognition, location tracking and big data, organisations are starting to monitor individual behavior and link that behavior to other digital actions, like buying a train ticket. The Internet of Things (IoT), the concept of things being controlled through Internet, is now being extended to people, known as the Internet of Behavior (IoB).

“With IoB, value judgments are applied to behavioral events to create a desired state of behavior,” Plummer said.

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