Telenor sticks its neck out to predict big things for 5G, AI and IoT

Norwegian operator group has rocked the industry by bravely predicting tech trends such as 5G, artificial intelligence and IoT might end up being a bit of a big deal.

Recklessly prognosticating that 2017 is likely to see a continuation of trends seen in 2016, boffins at Telenor Research published a report that identifies five trends likely to crop up a fair bit this year.

“Last year we highlighted several important developing trends and predicted that these would gain speed and attention during the year,” said Bjørn Taale Sandberg, Head of Telenor Research. “IoT is on our list again for 2017, but we also claim that social media fatigue could be starting to appear, that chatbots are hot, that 5G will show itself in demos and pilot installations long before the standard is ready, and that the ethics of AI will be a hot topic.”

The IoT and 5G bits are consistent with what pretty much everyone expects this year: more testing, ecosystem development and general incremental progress. The social media fatigue is expected to be a product of fake news and gobshite politicians as well as the underlying need to take a break every now and then. Chatbots are expected to be a key manifestation of AI, but there will be lots of hand-wringing about things like privacy and ethics.

“These trends will offer some very exciting technology developments in 2017,” persisted Sandberg. “We’ll experience crucial progress within areas such as AI, IoT and 5G, and in other areas, a possible change in direction as millennials may begin experiencing social media fatigue.  And underlying all of this should be the awareness of ethical and regulatory considerations, which will be evermore crucial in how we can experiment with- and apply these new technologies in our increasingly digital lives.”

Here’s an infographic putting all insight that into pretty pictures for you.