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Why?

Because the better the technology, the more work people can get done in any given day. And the more work they can do daily, the more productive they are and the more they get paid. Economic growth progresses when people get more done with the hours they have available.

So what business technologies are coming down the pike in 2019, and will they make us richer?

5G Mobile And Fixed

5G mobile is due to be fully implemented in 2020. But it will begin popping up in more major cities during 2019. It’s important to note that 5G internet isn’t just an upgrade from the existing 4G (or 3G) technology, depending on where you work. It’s a technology that provides fundamentally different capabilities.

5G antennae do not operate over long distances. As a result, many antennae will be needed to serve any given city. The upshot, however, is that once they are installed, they will provide an almost lag-free experience. This opens up a host of new use cases for businesses which are only now being discovered. Imagine, for instance, operating a fleet of taxis and being able to send instructions to them in real time about where to go, using onboard sensor information.

Hybrid Clouds

Many companies now realise that fully committing to the public or private cloud doesn’t provide them with the service they want. As a result, major providers, such as Amazon and Azure from Microsoft are changing the services they offer. Hybrid cloud platforms now provide VPS technology alongside the ability to install local, business-specific computing platforms.

Businesses still want the level of service that they received with the introduction of cloud 1.0. But they also want those same cloud providers to offer support for their local systems too. The hybrid cloud will offer both subscription services provided by remote servers as well as onsite support for IT operations that need to be local.

The Rise Of Chatbots

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2018 was the first year we saw businesses deploy machine-learning-driven chatbots on a large scale. In short, the experience was disappointing, except if the chatbot had been trained on your specific query.

2019 promises to be a lot better. At Google I/O 2018, the search giant showed off its new Duplex technology, an AI that could convincingly make restaurant reservations on behalf of customers. Now businesses at large intend on adopting chatbot technology to reduce the cost of call centres and redirect trickier customer service issues to human operatives.

Data from Spiceworks suggests that more than 40 percent of large businesses are planning to implement chatbots in some capacity in 2019.

Blockchain Will Not Take Off (At Least Not Yet)

Blockchain is one of the hottest buzzwords in the tech sector right now, with people claiming that it can do everything from replacing fiat money to ending the legal system. But blockchain is both misunderstood and kind of a mess, at least at the moment.

The main problem is that there are no universal blockchain standards. Each blockchain requires a specific format which introduces cross-compatibility issues. That’s creating headaches for businesses that want to use the technology, meaning that we're unlikely to see it go mainstream next year.