By Nelson Petracek, Chief Technology Officer at TIBCO

The Road to Beliefs, Desires, and Intent

In a cloud-first world, enterprises are constantly looking for new ways to evolve and keep up with the times. As the technology landscape shifts each year, being proactive as an organization is vital to thriving, and 2020 will be no different. 2020 will be the year that the focus of blockchain will shift, the "belief, desire, intent" software model from the past will start to become possible. and the role of CTO will continue to evolve.

These are five major trends that will come to life in 2020:

1.  Cloud and AI / ML will increasingly become strong technology focus areas for enterprises across the globe:

Cloud adoption will continue to evolve and be "hybrid" and "multi-cloud" in nature, and the effective use of analytical models (statistical models or otherwise) will continue to be a key differentiator for organizations. However, there will be a broad shift in focus away from the models themselves to the supporting processes that make these models possible. 

2.  Cloud, AI / ML, and IoT will continue to make inroads with both consumers and enterprises alike:

In 2020, this shift will lead to broader concerns about security and device "spoofing", which are two big areas that will need to be addressed for this technology to be broadly accepted. The ability to handle and process IoT data will continue to be pushed out to the edge as organizations look to deal with the vast amounts of data, and reduce overall decision latency.

3.  2020 will be the year of optimizing the customer journey:

The notion of a "digital twin" for machines is not new, but applying this concept to people (customers, students, patients, etc.) will gain more traction. The ability to model a "person" and influence this model via a variety of inputs, knowledge of current state/time, emotion analysis/identification, and defined goals/outcomes will allow organizations to produce an experience that is much more timely, contextual, and relevant. The "belief, desire, intent" software model from the past will start to become more possible.

4.  Blockchain can facilitate the creation of new business networks and subsequently, new business models:

Blockchain will continue to be a supporting and enabling technology, but it will change from what we see today. Technical concerns such as scalability will continue to be a challenge, as will blockchain interoperability. However, the largest barrier to blockchain adoption will not be the technology itself, but rather the complexity involved with bringing together diverse networks of companies or users and the associated legal and regulatory impacts. Organizations will look at tokenizing certain assets, but the introduction of open cryptocurrencies, especially outside of Asia, will continue to be a challenge.

5.  The role of CTO will evolve:

It is not just about being a "hacker" or about developing knowledge of a variety of technologies. The role is becoming more customer facing, and is often about technology assembly as much as it is about the technology itself. Technology community development and developer engagement is important, and one often plays the role of an educator when it comes to the use of technology within enterprises. A blend of all of these aspects, along with a strong and diverse supporting team, are keys to success for this role.

The road to the "belief, desire, intent" software model, overcoming blockchain related regulatory hurdles, and the ability to reduce overall decision latency with IoT data and enhanced digital twins will be a bumpy one, but it is possible. Looking into 2020, we can only expect another year of the unexpected.

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