This article originally appeared on Forbes.com on October 30th, 2018.
In the last year, technology has progressed in ways no one could have expected. The innovations of today will continue to have a major impact in the years ahead, and smart businesses are making plans now to capitalize on the latest trends. We asked a group of Forbes Technology Council members to identify which tech breakthroughs they think will prove to be the most disruptive. From low-code apps to blockchain and voice technology, here’s what they had to say.
1. Low-Code And No-Code App Development
Low-code and no-code app development platforms are allowing citizen developers to easily create customized corporate apps to suit the unique needs of their company, their department and even their specific team. These visual coding environments, along with the use of machine-generated code, are capable of (and already are) transforming the way businesses approach enterprise software and workforce management as a whole. – Claus Jepsen, Unit4
2. Increased Consumer Data Privacy
This has been an incredible year for privacy. For the first time ever, large companies like Facebook, Apple and Google are having to respond to privacy issues at the core of their products. From GDPR in the European Union to the rollback of net neutrality in the United States, privacy is affecting how consumers, businesses and advertisers use personal data in their products and services. – Michael Gargiulo, VPN.com
3. Voice-Based Applications
This was a breakout year for voice-based applications. With the rise of user-friendly virtual assistants like the Amazon Echo and Google Assistant, we see people interacting with tech in an entirely new way. – Benjamin Nguyen, Sidebench
4. Blockchain
Blockchain is the first truly decentralized technology, which has allowed it to exponentially speed up transaction processes and will most likely eliminate the need for third-party actors in any type of online transaction. The implications for this are huge in terms of efficiency and costs, but also because of blockchain’s versatility. This technology is game changing! – Nacho De Marco, BairesDev
5. Healthcare IT
This year, the healthcare IT industry heard the calling, and many companies are joining the conversations and realizing that technology here has to change. Healthcare executives and business owners should follow the trend of cross-sector collaboration and inviting best practices from other industries. Technologists and healthcare practitioners will drastically improve technological innovation. – Charles Aunger, Health2047
6. Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning
Machine learning thrives on data, and enterprises have no shortage of sources. There’s data about what customers have browsed, bought and used, about the content they’ve read, documents they’ve downloaded and the results they’ve achieved. By allowing this data to be analyzed using machine learning models, you start to get predictions about what people are most likely to need next at a scale that’s not possible without the power of AI. – Laurent Simoneau, Coveo
7. 5G Technology
5G technology is finally starting to roll out in 2018 and it promises to be revolutionary in several areas. Lightning-fast speeds and negligible latency will make new services and applications possible in the area of smart homes, virtual reality, telemedicine and connected cars, to name a few. – Leon Hounshell, Greenwave Systems
8. Augmented Reality
As our devices continue to learn more about how to recognize the world, the applications for AR continue to increase. We’re seeing leaps forward in analyzing motion, face tracking and shared environment detection. Now that multiple users (even across platforms) can interact and look at the same augmented reality from their own perspective, it makes the experience so much more valuable and fun. – Luke Wallace, Bottle Rocket