2022 is behind us, and what a year it’s been. From advanced tech helping Ukraine fight a war to Elon Musk providing an unforgettable day of meme material by making the verified status available for 8 dollars, from Bitcoin plummeting to the most significant layoffs the industry has ever seen – it sure was a year worth talking about.
But, hopefully, the future is brighter, more innovative, and holds answers to the industry’s most pressing issues.
With 2022 and the holiday season behind us, it is time to turn a new leaf and discuss changes in the coming year. We wondered what tech leaders are thinking about the imminent future of tech and asked them what their predictions would be, as well as to share their opinions on AI and local startup stars they’d want to give a shoutout to. Here is what they answered.
Christian Kaunissaar, CTO at Fibbl
Prediction: AR will become a common feature for eCommerce retailers. We have seen parts of this pop up here, but there are too many hurdles, and the lack of standards has slowed progress.
The production of 3D content has been expensive (only affordable for the big companies) and inconsistent. Now we see the beginning of a change in this. More 3D model providers and a rise in quality make it easier and more affordable for smaller eCom retailers.
Physical shops are shutting down, and people are buying more stuff online. The market demands more accurate shopping experiences (and fewer returns). Customers want to try the products before they buy them – using their phones.
Will AI take over the world?
I strongly agree. The human brain evolves from learning from experience together with the power of abstraction. Now we can teach machines to learn from "experiences". Not with the power of abstraction (yet), but from billions of experiences at a very fast rate.
Given this fact, we can teach a machine to do anything. Even to simulate experiences to train other machines. So, when we have machines training machines, we have reached a point where machines can evolve by themselves.
What is a local startup or product company that has impressed you lately?
That has to be Firstvet – a digital veterinary service that helped me with an emergency with my dog. It is a great app for my phone that gave me exactly what a wanted fast.
Johan Vallin, Founder at Kinsit
Prediction: Applied quantum computing and communication will be commercially viable.
Will AI take over the world?
It will go slow, but area by area, I believe it is already covered, and that will continue.
What is a local startup or product company that has impressed you lately?
The SAP Business Technology Platform (very small startup).
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Furkan Ayata, CTO at Bidbrain
Prediction: Blockchain technology will take a more important role in and be used more widely in bigger corporations.
Will AI take over the world?
We are still just at the beginning of what AI can achieve, and there is a massive potential for what can be achieved with future technology. Although AI is always dependent on processing vast amounts of data load to, e.g., "predict a picture," the human mind can do it instantly.
What is a local startup or product company that has impressed you lately?
Bidbrain.
Daan van der Wiele, Head of Marketing & Product at Expoze.io
Prediction: 2023 will be the year of predictive and generative AI, where we will see solutions that will be able to write texts and generate visuals that match niche markets when provided with the right input and much more. However, this will bring interesting conversations about IP, copyright, etc with it.
Will AI take over the world?
I strongly agree. We have finally passed the "It's nice tech, but now what?" barrier on a tangible level for everyone, not just those within a specific niche. It will still take some years, but the massive leaps in generative AI are also beginning to show outside of its niche, so we're not far off anymore.
What is a local startup or product company that has impressed you lately?
I'm obviously a big fan of OpenAI, but I'm going to be bold and share a product in the Tech/AI space we are working on together with YouTube that uses a convolutional neural network to predict human attention. It's called Junbi.ai, and it will launch in January 2023.
Paula Bruneheim, Head of Enterprise Sales at Proxify
Prediction: Technology and innovation will thrive in key areas such as medicine and infrastructure. With additional pressure on the economy, companies will need to focus on ideas people really need and crave and also develop these ideas with as few resources as possible.
Will AI take over the world?
It is my impression that AI is used in more and more industries and that the use cases are never-ending.
What is a local startup or product company that has impressed you lately?
Mondly, an EdTech company that develops a freemium language learning platform for 33 languages. It’s an amazingly useful solution with both a website and an app for all language enthusiasts.
So, that’s what our friends and colleagues thought about 2023 tech predictions. We want to keep the conversation going, so if you want to contribute to this discussion, feel free to fill in this survey.
Let’s see where the new year takes us, and hopefully, we’ll see many innovative, useful solutions ahead of us.
