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The year 2020 opens a new decade and much will be different, relative to ten years ago. Here are more than two dozen predictions about what to expect, according to industry experts and executives.
1. Consumers will increasingly demand more privacy
“In terms of the issue of consumer privacy, two things are going to affect businesses greatly: the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) becoming effective in January 2020 and Internet users continuing to be increasingly sensitive to how their data is collected, used, and managed. It is likely that we will see more cloud-based solutions offering privacy-related features in order to help businesses optimize the performance of their processes, in full compliance with the law and — most importantly — with fair practices.”
–Thibaud Clement, cofounder and CEO of Loomly, a marketing platform that achieved 600% growth in 2018, serving 4,000 marketing teams around the world
2. Biometric data will power more wearables
“With the rise of spatial computing environments like virtual, mixed, and augmented realities and the rise of 5G enabling more real-time capture of biometric data from your wearables, we’re about to see a shift in how people use their biometric data. No longer are people just tracking their data on a flat dashboard sequestered to their wrists, they’re interacting with it… by using their heart rate and brainwaves as inputs to control spatial computing environments and other content. Users aren’t just watching stories. They’re feeling them. For decades, people thought of meditation as a closed-eyed experience that you practiced with an earbud with your eyes closed. But with virtual and augmented reality, meditation is now an eyes-open experience that you don’t just passively watch, you can actually feel these spatial environments with the data collected from your smartwatch or brain-sensing headband. Your brainwaves and your heart rate are a remote control that’s powering these experiences. Lower your heart rate and watch the scenes change color, sound, texture, and sharpness. Think positive thoughts and watch how your brain patterns change the scene in a virtual or augmented reality experience. In 2020, I think you’ll see new players emerge that answer the important question of… am I doing it right? These new kinds of meditation are harnessing the power of your body’s own electricity via your wearables to allow the user to feel content in ways that have never been done before.”
–Sarah Hill, CEO and Chief Storyteller of Healium, an AR/VR platform powered by consumer wearables with 40,0000 downloads since its beta
3. There will be more investing in quantum tech
“This technology has the potential to be a major driver of future breakthrough advances in areas such as artificial intelligence and healthcare. Many of the opportunities for investments in hardware are now in the later stage, but the broader investment community should look out for the enabling technologies and software that will start to emerge for the hardware platforms. We believe the technology is at an inflection point and has enough momentum for more investors to now engage in various ventures. The United States and China are the two heavyweights competing for leadership in quantum computing. While the United States has a first-mover advantage and maintains a lead, China is making heavy investments in pursuit of a variety of breakthroughs. This technology may not reach mainstream consumer applications for a little while, but there will definitely be a variety of companies across a range of industries that look to integrate this technology over the next three to five years. For example, companies such as QC Ware are already working on a variety of real-world use cases such as optimization problems, chemistry simulations, Monte Carlo Methods, differential equations, and machine learning.”
–Anis Uzzaman, CEO of Pegasus Tech Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based VC managing more than 20 multi-million dollar funds, with total assets under management of $1.5 billion
