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Emerging Technologies

Emerging Technologies Driving Profound Change

The 4th Industrial Revolution is here. The 4th Industrial Revolution is a fusion of advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, etc. I believe that this new era of tech will drive profound change and these changes have already started in many ways.
Artificial Intelligence:
AI is not new; it is already happening everywhere. Algorithms pre-recommend the content we see and watch and the products we buy across all areas of our lives today.
But it is going to accelerate exponentially and it is going to completely change the ways we live and work.
While few occupations are fully automatable, 60 percent of all occupations have at least 30 percent technically automatable activities*, leaving people to focus on more valuable activities.
The potential for AI is everywhere, in everything we do at home and at work:

  • What we don’t want to do – repeated boring tasks i.e. data crunching and reporting
  • What we can’t do – collect and analyse huge amounts of data i.e. predict illnesses
  • What we don’t know yet we can do – help us make better decision, help us create new roles, and new things.

For example, Machine learning, within AI, will profoundly impact employees and leaders as people. We are moving from the age of interaction to delegation. Currently, having an assistant is typically a luxury reserved for either senior people in organisations, or wealthy individuals. With AI, in the near future, most people will have assistants which pre-select, and even choose what’s best for them. It is also referred as ‘bot to bot’. This means in the near future, as well as focusing on producing good quality content for humans, we will need to also focus at the same time on enormous quantity and volumes of content for machines. Machines need volumes of data to digest to make recommendations. We will need to start marketing to machines. That’s a big change for marketers like me, we need to think differently.
Through AI, Samsung is developing a user-centric, highly personalised, intelligent, multi-device ecosystem that provides useful benefits to enrich our customers lives and make them more efficient.
An example of this is within the home- Samsung is bringing its expertise in the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence to make appliances “smart,” and capable of learning about users’ preferences for a truly tailored experience.
No two homes are the same, and many of us are looking for ways to personalise our appliances to fit our needs. We are always listening closely to our consumers to learn about any inconveniences that can be solved through innovation.
By connecting Samsung appliances to SmartThings and equipping with artificial intelligence capabilities, customers can personalise how devices operate, and make it possible for the devices to learn about customers’ homes.
Blockchain:
Blockchain will also completely change the way we do things as well. Instead of businesses storing their valuable customer data to a central server in one location, Blockchain technology brings with it a decentralised model. It breaks the data into small chunks across the network. Effectively, businesses will only be able to store and use very limited parts of customer data at specific times. No longer owning customer data will change most business models. We need to get ready for that too. And that’s within a context of growing focus on privacy in advertising and data protection. So it is only going to become more and more important. From an experience perspective, at Samsung we’re continuing to evolve our customers mobile experience, making it easier than ever to use blockchain on Galaxy devices. Users can now manage and trade virtual assets from third-party wallets on Samsung smartphones.
Voice:
In the next 5 years, 40% of Gen Z will expect to access the Internet by using their voice alone**, so voice commerce has got the potential to become as big if not bigger than mobile commerce. This new technology will also exponentially increase in use with the roll-out of 5G, smart assistant devices and IoT. Again, that represents an amazing opportunity to help customers by simplifying their lives. It is not going to be right for every customer or every product. AI’s continuous evolution has meant that we can continue to refine our customers experience of using voice commands across all of our devices. The key is to make it helpful and useful to customers at a time in their purchase journey which is most relevant, otherwise it could be seen as too intrusive.
Augmented Reality:
The Augmented reality market is estimated to grow from USD 10.7 billion in 2019 and projected to reach USD 72.7 billion by 2024; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 46.6% from 2019 to 2024***. This is going to improve the ways we deliver online shopping experiences, whether that is on social channels or on video chats for example… so customers can try before they buy. This new technology will become also very important to training of internal teams or external partners, etc.
About the Author:
Sandrine Desbarbieux-Lloyd is a senior executive with over 25 years of international experience, leading organisations in the implementation of strategic change and digital transformation. She is the European Vice President of Digital at Samsung, where she oversees digital sales and marketing, a multi-billion pound business across 34 countries in Europe. In this role, she is driving Samsung’s digital transformation including major innovation such as machine learning applications.
Previously, Sandrine was the Director of Marketing and Digital at Avis Budget Group with the responsibility for all digital platforms and marketing programmes across Europe, Middle East and Africa. In this job role, she focused on growing the digital business, specifically direct channels, and successfully increasing revenue year-on-year.
Sandrine has also held several senior e-commerce, digital and marketing roles for internationally recognised consumer brands including BT, LACOSTE, AXA, BAA, E.ON and BUPA.
Notable in her career is the national launch of broadband and Wi-Fi for the first time in the UK. This extremely challenging role involved defining the wireless strategy for BT Group following the de-merger of 02, building a mobility business, launching BT Openzone the UK’s first Public WLAN service, and the re-launch of BT Mobile a new SP/MVNO business.