3 Technologies Watching for 2023

As the year begins, technology-enthusiasts all over the world begin the lookout for technologies that will make a difference this year. Every year we’re always anticipating something new and exciting but most importantly, helpful for us because that’s ultimately what we need with technology. So as we go through each technology update we will need to ask ourselves: “How does this make my life/work easier?”

Your Friendly Neighborhood AI

More talk has been coming out in social media about this artificial intelligence service that works somewhat like your Siri or Google Assistant but capable of more complex commands than simply setting your alarm for 7am. What is exciting about ChatGPT is how it has become accessible to the general public when this technology formerly was only available to big corporations who had the data and the programming to make this work. AI is not a new concept. Google, Microsoft, and Apple have been at it for a long time. But the idea of this artificial intelligence being accessible to anyone makes you feel like you have a personal assistant that can potentially speed up things in work. Right now the service is for free and that should be more than enough reason for you to get started with testing the waters with this technology.

If you are still uncertain about how AI can help you because you still think that stuff that happens in your business needs “to be done by a human”, try to keep it simple. For us internally we’ve begun using AI to expedite some of the work processes instead of trying to completely replace our workforce with AI. The goal is to help and not necessarily replace. With this mindset you can start to see which areas at work can be improved with this tech. Remember, in this race for information, staying ahead has a lot of advantages and if you find yourself zooming through work with ease in AI integration, you can definitely say that is a helpful advantage moving forward.

Application Programming Interface: API

These fancy words that make up the API just really means applications can talk to each other. Although this is not really a “new 2023 technology” because they have existed for a rather long time, we need to pay attention to this because it is through making our applications work together that allows our work to become streamlined. Companies like If This Then That have already provided some sort of this streamline process. For example, when you upload a blog post in blogger.com, you can write a prompt that automatically shares that post link to Facebook and your other socials so you don’t always have to do this manually. It basically answers your wish whenever you say things like: “I wish this uploaded to twitter too whenever I upload this on instagram.”

Why the focus on APIs? Because it is evolving! Compared to basic if-then command prompts, APIs are now more sophisticated than a few years ago and there are now infrastructure-based APIs. ChatGPT, as mentioned earlier, has an API that allows developers to connect their data in their application with other existing applications. This may sound technical and boring but where this really works is when you get creative with your imagination on how different applications can come together in a smooth workflow.

Let’s imagine for instance you are a roofing company and you want to give free quotes on roofing repair and maintenance. If you are targeting a large audience you will definitely not have enough time to do all your current work while also running through every single photo to provide free quotes. Wouldn’t it be cool to just have everything work on its own from the moment a photo is taken down to a visual-analysis application figuring out what needs to be done for the roof? It sounds like a sci-fi technology that only exists in movies, or maybe it is a VERY expensive service that will require some technical assistance to make it happen. That is exactly what today’s API is for! You can have the photos stored in a cloud-storage like Amazon S or Dropbox and then connect this to a machine learning application that will scan these images and produce reports. This is possible!

Some companies are already using visual analysis through machine learning. What the API does is create inter-application communication so that you can use pre-existing apps instead of building one massive software that does everything. Heads up, doing that kind of software can take YEARS to do. Make use instead of what already works and put them all together creatively.

Automation Era

Again, not a new technology but definitely relevant enough to keep a watchful eye on. We already have some form of automation going on in our smart homes with Google Assistance, Amazon’s Alexa, and even Microsoft’s Cortana. For those of you not familiar with these automations, it’s sort of like Jarvis. You say “Alexa, turn on the lights!” and the lighting system connected over your home wifi network, will light up. This is also a simple use of automation in the most basic “if this then that” sense. What makes this our third technology to watch out for, still in connection to the two above technologies, is how you can potentially expand the creative use of automation in work and office settings. Integrating AI, API, and automation together is still new and that is why we are definitely observing this and testing this out for ourselves as well but you will start to see some industries build their infrastructure around this.

If you are a main street business and you find yourself doing a lot of small work here and there that cumulatively takes up a lot of your time, you might want to take a step back and ask, “Which of these things that I can do, someone (or something) else can do for me?”. That is how you can start figuring out what automation can do for your work. In a general sense, this sounds easier to say than to do and that is because each industry has its own specifics where automation can come in handy.

More Than Just These 3

The truth is, there will definitely be other technologies which are going to be relevant throughout the year. The main reason why there is focus on these 3 particularly is because of how they have the potential to evolve into interesting configurations. When they do, and they definitely will, you will also see a parallel development in main street businesses the same way social media democratized the power of business owners to advertise instead of relying solely on powerful media outlets.

Opportunities are available to those who seek it. By taking the first step in understanding how these three can work together, you can potentially decrease costs in operation and increase revenue because of improved time-management and workflow. Yes, there is a learning curve but wasn’t there also a learning curve when we were learning Microsoft excel? Today it is a basic skill needed for anyone wanting to work in a company.

You can probably start working with a professional developer to put these 3 technologies to good use for you but definitely it is no longer inaccessible to business owners who are even just a bit curious about using these.