ORLANDO, Fla. — Chief information officers are leading the development of a new type of infrastructure that will not only redefine business, but change the way people live and society functions, a team of Gartner Inc. analysts announced at the opening keynote session of the research group’s Symposium/ITxpo 2016.
Core to what Gartner calls the “civilization infrastructure” is a digital platform that includes traditional IT systems, but also four “interconnected and interdependent” domains that reflect the rapid advancement of technologies and systems, such as connected “things,” APIs and artificial intelligence-enabled chatbots, some of which are now rapidly entering IT.
These domains are the Internet of Things, ecosystems, customer experience—increasingly reshaped by the advent of chatbots– and, at the center, intelligence, defined by advances in machine learning and AI. “Information is the new codebase,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of research. “Machine learning and artificial intelligence will create results that business will trust unsupervised.”
Working together, these domains “will enable ecosystems, connecting businesses and collapsing industries. It will change society itself, and the way people live,” Mr. Sondergaard said. The move from simple relationships to more networked ecosystems will be aided by systems like blockchain, he said.
Gartner used the agricultural industry as an example of this new digital platform, explaining how a confluence of connected things, emerging digital ecosystems and better algorithms could help farmers and…help solve world hunger. Makers of connected tractors plus satellite, weather, soil and commodity market data suppliers could, with proprietary algorithms, help farmers know the right time to plant seeds to get the right yield, Gartner explained.
Ending world hunger won’t come without changes within the enterprise itself. Mr. Sondergaard, echoing Sunday’s keynote by behavioral psychologist Dan Ariely, sees CIOs as influencing, but not controlling the outcome. “Expect that your enterprise will change, not merely IT, but the entire entity. Engage business executives in this conversation,” he said.
Internal reorganization could include a new structure that integrates that uses technology to better connect research, product development, engineering, customer experience and supply chains.
Throughout, CIOs will need to hire for cognitive diversity, hiring hard-core technologists, but also looking for hires on the softer side of the spectrum, where emotional intelligence resides. Innovation in IT will come from a cognitive diversity, “guided by a unity of purpose.”
Gartner projected Monday that global IT spending in 2017 to grow 2.9% and reach $3.5 trillion. Analysts said this growth will be driven by the software and IT services segments, key to the development of the civilization infrastructure.
