The analyst firm Gartner Inc. today published an updated Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies focused on three key trends: the evolution and expansion of immersive experiences, the acceleration of artificial intelligent automation, and what it calls optimized technologist delivery.

The new technologies differ quite sharply from those on Gartner’s previous 2021 Hype Cycle. The analysts that compiled the list said that these emerging technology hype cycles are dynamic by nature. As such, many of the technologies it identifies are only featured for a year or two at the most, after which they make room for other emerging innovations.

Nonetheless, Gartner said, the technologies it presented in the hype cycle have the potential to deliver a significant competitive advantage to early adopters over the next two to 10 years.

“Emerging technologies offer transformational potential for businesses, but CIOs and technology innovation leaders are challenged to scale digital capabilities while improving sustainability in the face of expanding resource constraints,” said Gartner VP Analyst Melissa Davis. “It is essential that organizations cut through the noise surrounding emerging technologies to accelerate change by leveraging innovations that drive competitive differentiation and efficiency.”

With regard to the trend toward evolving and expanding immersive experiences, Gartner explained that the future of digital experience is becoming increasingly more immersive. It will be supported by a collection of emerging technologies that enable more dynamic virtual representations, environments and ecosystems of people and customers, plus new modes of engagement, Gartner said.

These new technologies are mostly centered on innovations that stem from blockchain and cryptocurrency, and include the metaverse, nonfungible tokens, super apps, Web3, decentralized identity, digital humans, digital twins of customers and internal talent marketplaces.

According to Gartner, those technologies enable individuals to control their identities and data, plus experience virtual ecosystems that integrate with digital currencies. They could help companies to reach customers in new ways and strengthen or open entirely new revenue streams, it added.

Accelerated AI automation refers to the expansion of AI as an integral part of new and existing products, services and solutions, Gartner said. It’s a trend that’s leading to the creation of an entirely new breed of specialized AI models that can be used to automate model development, training and deployment. That allows for the role of humans to be refocused, Gartner said, resulting in AI that makes more accurate predictions and decisions, with faster time to benefits.

The technologies enabling this trend include autonomic systems, causal AI, foundation models, generative design AI and machine learning code generation.

As for optimized technologist delivery, this refers to the way in which successful digital businesses are built rather than acquired. Gartner has identified a set of emerging technologies centered on product, service and solution builder communities and the platforms they use.

It’s a fairly long list, including augmented FinOps, cloud data ecosystems, cloud sustainability, computational storage, cybersecurity mesh architecture, data observability, dynamic risk governance, industry cloud platforms, minimum viable architecture, observability-driven development, OpenTelemetry and platform engineering. These technologies help to obtain feedback and insights to optimize and speed up product, service and solution delivery, while simultaneously making business operations more sustainable, Gartner said.

The 2022 Hype Cycle was derived from more than 2,000 new technologies and applied frameworks profiled by Gartner over the last year. The analyst firm points out that all of them are currently in the very early stages of their lifecycle and that there is a lot of uncertainty as to how they will evolve. In other words, they can be advantageous but they can also carry some risk.

“Such technologies present greater risks for deployment, but potentially greater benefits for early adopters who can assess and exploit them in line with their organization’s ability to handle unproven technologies,” said Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst Gary Oliffe.

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