While singularity remains a long way off, 2013 will see the products and services we use continue to become more intelligent in their design and performance.
The incorporation of behavioral data (essentially, our past actions) is already used by services like Siri, Nest and EcoDrive to create experiences that are tailored to us individually. Essentially, they’re learning from us to provide better solutions.
Discoverability and recommendation are also being transformed. As the availability of content continues to increase, and our consumption of it continues to fragment, effective recommendation is becoming more important to both content providers (in finding an audience) and users (in finding content they like).
As more of our behavior shifts online, making more data available, the algorithms underpinning recommendation services will become more complex. In turn, this allows for more sophisticated, personalized interactions between us and them.
There are implications for how we use these products and services. For example, if our past actions and behaviors play a significant role in the performance of a product, how easy will it be to switch affiliations to a competitor who doesn’t have access to this information?
Looking further ahead, as services like Siri become more robust, how much decision making are we happy to hand down to them? How these themes play out in 2013 will give us the first indications of an answer.
You can download a free copy of GfK’s Tech Trends 2013 here.
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