A brave, mysterious, and technologically sophisticated future is waiting for us, its creators, to step in and carve our path into the digital landscape. From our point of view, it’s impossible to predict what precisely lies ahead of us, but we can certainly try to capture fragments of the future with our imagination and estimate that the following decade will be dominated by quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and ambient experience. Until then, let’s take a look at the highly anticipated tech trends of 2022.
2021 was in many ways the year of crypto. Now, at the beginning of 2022, we can surely say that crypto isn’t going anywhere any time soon. But crypto is just a use case of a technology called blockchain that can deliver much more than its initial crypto application, promising to act as a foundation of trust and cooperation that we can build on. Today, in 2022, we lay at the forefront of the new world where the interoperability of technologies is the key to success. For instance, the young company Humans.ai is developing AI technology in conjuncture with a blockchain infrastructure to unlock a new wave of innovative tech that will disrupt the way people interact with technology in the future.
The crypto trend is all blockchain
Returning to the crypto market, it is worth mentioning that if 2021 showcased once again that the market is dominated by the infrastructures that laid the foundations of the phenomenon — Bitcoin and Ethereum — it has become just as obvious that evolution is the engine that drives history forward and that we will soon witness a transformative period. The year 2022 will mark the hegemony of the blockchain space with developments like DAOs and NFTs. Newcomers to the market have substantially established themselves, producing enough prospects, bringing value to those brave enough to invest in them.
It has become evident that blockchain’s scalability will precede the estimates drawn by large audit firms, that seem to be strongly driven by the tokenization phenomenon generated by the crypto market. In other words, things are happening much faster than what the big audit firms predicted. In early 2020, companies such as Gartner ranked blockchain technology in the top 10 strategic technology trends. The same report highlighted that blockchain will become fully scalable starting in 2023.
The fact that the crypto market will receive more and more investors in 2022 is no longer a secret even for traditional players in the economy. As a matter of fact, the way in which the adoption process will take place seems to have taken shape for the first time since the publication of the Bitcoin whitepaper.
The days when cryptocurrencies were seen as just a simple use case of blockchain technology belong to the past, but they left behind a legacy of expensive and cumbersome blockchain solutions for enterprises. This business model failed just when blockchain technology came back in force, backed by a plethora of tokenization projects.
What started as a promise to restore economic power to people through its intrinsic decentralization grew into something bigger than was anticipated. Blockchain technology returns to the limelight, promising a 2022 in which its ascension will surpass the investment market and expand its influence to less dynamic areas, such as companies looking to regain lost trust through a variety of tactics and by adopting technologies that anonymize personal data, predicts a Forrester study.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)
A non-fungible token (NFT) is designed to run on a blockchain network. Stored in a digital wallet, an NFT is unique and can’t be replicated, which makes it an ideal instrument to certify authenticity and ownership. Besides its definition and characteristics, NFTs are a cool new use case on how blockchain can involve itself in a dynamic economy generated by people’s interest in technology. In 2022 NFT’s will continue the trend imposed last year, taking the market by storm and going mainstream. Given its new position in the market, it will only be a matter of time until the legal component surrounding this area will be resolved.
A community with no central authority is nothing new for the crypto space, but DAOs, which were actually invented in 2016, returned strong in 2021 and show signs that they will dominate the organizational front in the crypto world in 2022. DAOs represent a new take on how blockchain can and will act as a decentralized force of the future.
Besides the DAO and NFT hype, all eyes are now on China who is launching its digital yuan wallet before the Winter Olympics, taking us one step closer to the future. It will be a trial version of the digital yuan app limited to designated Chinese cities, but it will mark the beginning of a new economic reality, positioning the country in front of the entire world as an example of a truly digital economy.
Fixing the internet
Web 1.0 marks the first incarnation of the internet for commercial use. Mostly read-only and company-focused, the online environment was composed of simple static websites that offered little functionality and interactivity.
Web 2.0 represents a significant leap as the internet is becoming more interactive and community-focused, enabling users to be not only content consumers but also creators. Still, under the tutelage of large tech players like Google, Amazon and Meta, Web 2.0 dramatically changed the online landscape.
Web 3.0 represents the next step in the evolution of the internet, where the focus is placed on shifting from a centralized form of organization to a decentralized structure capable of ensuring privacy and ownership of data.
Although initially perceived only as a cryptocurrency enabler, blockchain has slowly managed to dissipate the shroud of doubt that surrounded it, consolidating itself as an ideal technology capable of acting as an infrastructure that delivers trust, privacy and data ownership. Used to complement technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing, blockchain may provide an answer to the increasing data privacy concerns, while also making people the true owners of their data.
Into the Metaverse
Playing the renaissance card on VR technology, Facebook is trying to prepare for the future by pushing us into the metaverse. The idea of people spending much of their life online has already become deeply ingrained into the business model of big tech companies. So, it’s a sure bet that large and small companies alike will pounce on the perspectives offered by the metaverse. Will it be just a passing trend, or will it become the new way people connect on the internet? It remains to be seen, but one thing is certain, the metaverse is taking the front page of the 2022 tech trends, as a lot of big companies are preparing to exploit this new market.
Alongside Facebook, brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Louis Vuitton, Boeing, Nike, Warner Bros, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Nike, Gucci started the adoption phase of the metaverse.
Success or failure will be pretty much determined by how the metaverse will leverage the expertise of existing technologies like AI, which can act as a new content pipeline and blockchain, a technology that can guarantee trust and privacy. Virtual reality has so far eluded companies despite their best efforts, finding only small applications in the video game industry. If metaverse plays its cards right, it can help explore new uncharted territory for VR tech, helping augment the way in which customers interact with companies and their products. In contrast, the new tech may be able to help companies better understand shopper behaviour and create more personal (AI-powered) concierge-style services.
Automating people
We still have a long way towards achieving a truly digital existence, and living in a virtual environment still seems deeply rooted in the realm of science fiction. We don’t know for certain if automation will play its part in this area or not, but we can certainly say that low-tech platforms and citizen developers will rank among the trends of the tech world in 2022.
Companies that have embarked on their automation journey will most likely continue this process, but it’s highly probable that we will witness an increase in the number of organizations and companies that will struggle to implement emerging tech.
Surprisingly, non-tech employees will be able to contribute to their company’s digital transformation, according to an estimate announced by UiPath CEO Daniel Dines. Thus, automation will surely maintain its spot as one of the top tech trends.
AI creation at scale
If 2021 marked a real explosion for the blockchain space through the role played by tokens, altcoins, NFTs and DAOs, the year 2022 puts us in front of the prospect of continuing the evolution started by humanity with the development of artificial intelligence solutions.
Humans.ai is part of a league of companies that bring the future closer to the present by developing an AI studio with an initial focus on synthetic media. Humans.ai proposes a new take on the industry, one in which Artificial Intelligence — the greatest tool ever created — will be centred around and controlled by humans. Using a blockchain infrastructure, we are putting a human behind every AI decision at scale.
Therefore, 2022 will be the year of blockchain projects, in which the success of the token will be determined by the technology behind the project. Humans.ai is a deep-tech company that develops artificial intelligence solutions that offer people trust through blockchain technology.
About us
Humans.ai is a deep tech company that brings together an ecosystem of stakeholders around the use of AI to create at scale.
Introducing the first framework for ethical AI and blockchain, Humans.ai is creating an all-in-one platform for AI-based creation and governance at scale. Through its creative studio, token-based ownership and accountability system, Humans.ai is designed to ensure contributions are fairly rewarded and that every AI is kept honest over the long term.
