2020 has been without a doubt one of the most disruptive years in human history mirroring calamitous events of the past spanning pandemics, recessions, and wars. The indelible mark of Covid will be with us for a long time. However, if there is one lesson from the tumultuous times of the past, it is that the dark clouds do pass leading to new eras of innovation and invention inspired by the challenges of the present. At the dawn of the New Future Era, we feel the same surge of new ideas, the coming together of disciplines and domains, with amazing breakthroughs on the horizon that will transform the future. We are already seeing that story play out in real-time. The pandemic has not only served as an accelerant to many of the trends we expected for this coming decade but has also reset some of the most deep-rooted assumptions about societal behaviors.
Since the very beginning of the pandemic, we had an inkling that we are likely to experience “reset” moments in 2020 when the trajectories of the existing trends change, and the new ones start. We started tracking the relationships between the pandemic, consumer behavior, and the impact on the tech industry.
By the time we reached Q2, it was clear that we are entering a new dimension of Connected Intelligence Era – The New Future. In fact, we did a whole summit on the topic of “New Future: Acceleration of Connected Intelligence in the Post-Pandemic World.” The summit assembled some of the brightest thinkers and doers under one digital umbrella, senior execs who are on the ground running the day-to-day operations tackling the challenges and opportunities brought together by this moment in time.
We have been iterating on our thinking as new data became available. Clearly, it will take many more months to really understand the shifts and currents that will shape the rest of the decades, but we have put our best assessment on where we go from here in “New Future: Acceleration of Connected Intelligence in the Post-Pandemic World.” It is filled with data, analysis, use cases, and thoughts on what we can expect in 2021 and beyond.
We have discussed “Connected Intelligence” in the context of understanding the historical long waves of technological innovation where every 40-50 years a new cycle disrupts the status quo to lead the globe into a new rollercoaster ride that disrupts all facets of development and growth. But there is another dimension of growth that is very applicable to our understanding of the next technology cycle and we can draw inspiration from the European Renaissance period on how different disciplines are coming together to create a transformative period in human history. The decisions we make and the paths we travel over the few years could impact the next many decades and centuries to come.
Over the course of a few short months that have felt like a lifetime, we went through three distinct response phases: Shock, Calibrate, and New Future. It is the “New Future” we want to explore in this paper. What changed? What is temporary and what is likely to be permanent? What are the behavioral resets that will guide product development for the coming years? What trends were accelerated and what was suppressed as a result of the pandemic? By making these informed observations, we can help redefine our expectations for the coming years. “New Future” delves deeper into the data, the trends, and the assumptions about the future of Connected Intelligence shaping our collective futures.
Table of Contents:
- Introduction
- Tech Covid Response: Shock, Calibrate, New Future
- New Future Framework
- Past Seismic Shifts
- Connected Intelligence Acceleration
- Divergence in Consumer Sentiment
- New Future Acceleration
- 9 Case Studies
- Pandemic Impact on the Connected Intelligence Economy
- Expectations for the future
- Future Work and Conclusions
32 Pages
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