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How weak signals can help you stay ahead of the next wave of innovation

A crucial ingredient for any successful business is understanding the trends shaping the world around us and that point to future opportunities.

If you miss these shifts, you risk being disrupted and, worse, going out of business. But if you can catch these potential trends early and capitalize on them, they instead mean growth and opportunity.

Catching these subtle changes early isn’t easy, however. All world-changing shifts don’t just magically appear, they start as weak signals, and you must look for them. A weak signal is very early evidence of a potential future mainstream trend. Given the very early nature of these signals, they may or may not actually become a trend. But identifying and monitoring weak signals over time is integral to getting in on new trends early. Sometimes this can be the difference between catching a new wave and leading this change or getting left behind.

As futurists, we want to be the disrupters, not those being disrupted. To do that, we need to constantly observe society and the world around us to find these new trends and weak signals.

Here are eight weak signals that our team is watching for future impact.

Eco-consumerism

Consumers are becoming more aware of how their consumption contributes to climate change, and this is changing their buying behaviors accordingly. As consumers become more eco-friendly, they’re putting pressure on brands to do the same by repurposing waste, using biodegradable materials, and prioritizing renewable resources. Companies that don’t embrace sustainability or give back to the planet in some way risk losing the support of consumers. With 77% of consumers concerned about the environmental impact of the products they buy, that’s a large demographic to risk losing.

Here’s a look at eco-consumerism at play:

  • These bio-concrete tiles are made with Japanese knotweed and American signal crayfish, two invasive species in the UK that would otherwise be considered waste. They also reduce carbon emissions caused by traditionally made concrete.
  • These running shoes from Zen Running Club are made entirely from plant-based materials, resulting in a fully biodegradable shoe.
  • Molded fiber, an eco-friendly packaging alternative, is gaining momentum. Once a time-consuming process, recent innovations like HP’s Molded Fiber Advanced Tooling Solution are accelerating the adoption of more sustainable packaging.

Rise of reality

While we are still living highly digital lives, and there is significant hype surrounding a potentially virtual future in the metaverse, there is also a growing need for a return to reality. After the lockdown portion of the pandemic, many of us are ready to return to physical spaces, travel, and in-person entertainment to escape Zoom fatigue and tech burnout. As more people crave unplugging over new online experiences, it will be critical for new technologies to enhance our physical experiences and interactions. Even further, tech companies are responsible for improving their products to battle burnout and enhance user experience.

Here’s a look at the rise of reality at play:

  • AiFi, an HP Tech Ventures portfolio company, offers AI-powered autonomous retail solutions, making shopping a seamless experience for consumers and retailers.
  • To address tech fatigue, many tech companies could provide time-limit features or recommend breaks to users. Other companies are getting even more creative, like these hologram startups aiming to make remote meetings feel less impersonal.
  • Location-based VR experiences, powered by technologies like HP’s VR backpack, allow users to blend the virtual with reality.

Distributed enterprise

In a recent HP Wolf Security report, 46% of office workers admitted using their work devices for personal tasks, and 69% claimed to have used their personal devices for work activities. This overlap between work and personal devices has been exacerbated by the increase in remote work, which has further blurred the line between consumer and enterprise. Enterprise products and services are being increasingly distributed across smaller home offices rather than large company headquarters. This has significant implications for cybersecurity and maintenance and could contribute to feature changes.

Here’s a look at distributed enterprise at play:

  • With the era of hybrid work upon us, there is a growing need for devices connecting home and corporate offices. Solutions like HP Presence provide powerful collaboration tools to reinvent how people connect.
  • Employees and companies can better protect their data from cybercriminals by embracing decentralized cybersecurity. Approaches like zero trust security are gaining popularity, with 78% of firms planning to adopt zero trust in 2022.
  • Remote maintenance is not entirely new, but it’s increasingly essential as remote work grows. Advanced remote management technologies, like NVIDIA’s Fleet Command, are working to optimize processes for global IT professionals.

Omniscient health

As people continue to be hyper-conscious of their health, there has been significant growth in health-related technologies ranging from wearable devices to AI-powered diagnostics. Wearables like fitness trackers have become smarter and more powerful, so users are gaining greater insight into their health. Health providers can use this new data, paired with the power of AI, to aid in their care. Microfluidics could also enable faster, less invasive, and more accurate diagnostics. As monitoring our health becomes part of our daily routine, chronic issues could be caught sooner, leading to more proactive care.

Here’s a look at omniscient health at play:

  • Using data from continuous wearable sensors, physiQ generates personalized and actionable insights for patients and their healthcare providers.
  • For people with chronic illnesses, health monitoring tools are essential. Fortunately, many startups are working to create more straightforward and less invasive health monitoring methods, such as BOYDSense, which developed a breath-based glucose level monitor for those with diabetes.
  • Using microfluidics, researchers at Northwestern developed a sticker that absorbs and uses sweat to accurately diagnose cystic fibrosis in newborns. Another research team from the University of Minnesota has also created a new microfluidic chip that could provide point-of-care diagnostics.

Internet of energy

At our current rate, global energy consumption is set to see a 50% increase between 2020 and 2050. With the growing volume of data, demand for clean energy, and increasing adoption of emerging technologies, a new energy system may be critical. Antiquated energy infrastructure, like electrical grids, cannot keep up with technology advancements and energy demands. The Internet of Energy may be the best solution, as it can reduce inefficiencies, limit waste, and maximize the potential of existing infrastructures. It could also lead to the adoption of smart grid technology, which would hugely benefit users and energy consumption.

Here’s a look at the internet of energy at play:

  • Smart panels from startups like Span balance home electricity use to avoid overloading utility grids.
  • Packetized Energy, recently acquired by EnergyHub, is a software platform aggregating energy devices such as water heaters, HVAC systems, electric vehicle chargers, solar inverters, and distributed batteries into dispatchable and flexible grid resources.
  • General Electric (GE) launched a startup, Current, which pairs LEDs and solar panels with software. This allows the system to gather data to apply insights to corporate operations to increase lighting and productivity savings.

Geospatial AI

The increasing number of satellites and improved image quality provides a plethora of data that, combined with supercomputing, allows Geospatial AI (GEOAI) to extract and impart impactful insights. This integration of geospatial studies and AI helps machine learning mimic human spatial reasoning and dynamics to better understand environmental and geographical impacts. This could lead to hyper-local and instantaneous weather forecasting, real-time wildfire detection, and other capabilities that could make environmental conservation and planning more seamless.

Here’s a look at GEOAI at play:

  • Google’s Machine Learning for Precipitation Nowcasting from Radar Images performs weather forecasting using real-time data instead of hours-old data.
  • The city of Boston will use data from satellites in the TreeTect pilot to improve tree equity and anticipate tree maintenance tasks.
  • Scientists from Stanford University developed a deep-learning model that maps fuel moisture levels across 12 of the US’ Western states, making it easier to predict where wildfires are likely to ignite and spread.

Transportation transformation

Growing concern for pollution and congestion is leading to disruptive innovation in transportation technology, policy, and infrastructure, which will radically change how we transport people and things in the future. Crowded freeways, slow delivery times, and an urgency to counteract climate change all demand revolutionary change in the transportation industry.

Urban transportation is central to the effort to slow climate change, with plenty of opportunities for growth and innovation. Home to more than half the world’s population, cities account for more than two-thirds of global carbon dioxide emissions. Transportation is often the most prominent and fastest-growing source of emissions and is the U.S.’ second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Here’s a look at transportation transformation at play:

  • Though not quite a reality yet, the idea of a hyperloop has long captivated society, with companies like Virgin and The Boring Company working towards its creation. The technology exists to create the ultra-fast transportation concept, but there are still significant hurdles to overcome.
  • TuSimple has created autonomous trucks, which promise improved safety, efficiency, and sustainability. Its trucks allegedly shaved 10 hours off a 24-hour run.
  • Florence has implemented smart trams, which could shape future transportation for other European cities.

3D-printed electronics

Advances in 3D printing technology that allow for voxel-level specification of materials, combined with improvements in metal substrates, will enable electronic components to be printed at the same time as durable parts, rather than being added as a separate assembly step after printing. These capabilities could allow electronic devices to be 3D-printed on demand as all-in-one elements, with no assembly required. This would minimize production costs and time and create an opportunity to reduce the size and weight of electronics.

Here’s a look at 3D-printed electronics at play:

  • Japanese CAD and 3D printing company SOLIZE uses HP 3D printers to make out-of-production spare parts for NISMO, the motorsport division of Nissan
  • Optomec’s Aerosol Jet printing technology enables 3D-printed electronics using aerodynamic focusing.
  • Nano Dimension’s Dragonfly IV 3D printer can generate entire circuits in one step.
  • Researchers at the University of Florida have developed a method of printing copper on fabric, a milestone for wearable electronics.

Considering the state of our world, futuristic thinking is a necessary skill we all need to learn and practice. With the constant and rapid pace of change, everyone should be honing their futurist skills. And thinking like a futurist isn’t reserved for a select group of people. It is a fundamental skill set that anyone can learn.

This is not something all of us do naturally, though. Only a small percent of the population thinks and plans for the future. In fact, only 35% of Americans regularly think about their five-year future. Those who aren’t thinking of their futures are disadvantaged over those who do. If we want to stay one step ahead in our fast-paced world, and if we’re going to move forward and create the future we want, we must adopt long-term, futuristic thinking.

To help you get started, here are three essential practices that I have found very useful in my career as a futurist:

  1. Monitor shifts — Pay attention and understand what’s happening in the world around you. Notice the small changes that create new needs. Keep an eye on these weak signals and any others that appear.
  2. Visualize future outcomes — Start with your vision for the future and work backward from there, not the other way around. What was the catalyst for your vision of the future?
  3. Adopt an innovative mindset — Have a “can do” attitude and be unstoppable. Embrace everything as a learning opportunity, even failure.

The more you think like a futurist, the better you can create the future you want.

Which of these weak signals are you interested in? Any others you are monitoring? Share your thoughts with me in the comments.

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My top 5 leadership principles

Leadership is constantly evolving to meet the demands of the times. To thrive as leaders, we must understand the needs of our teams and adapt accordingly. There are, however, some leadership principles that I have found to be essential no matter the situation.

1. Be humble. Leaders who place too much focus on results and control rather than the people on their team can create trust issues. Employees may feel restricted in their abilities to explore new ideas or even fearful of disappointing their boss. When teams operate out of fear, there can be several consequences, from a lack of engagement to high turnover. One Gallup study even found that one in two U.S. adults have left a job to escape a bad manager.

Because of this, leaders must embrace humility in their approach. While it is essential to hit targets and goals, the leader’s role is to help their team learn, grow, and explore without fear of failure. Leaders can benefit from their team’s expertise, experience, and insight by serving their employees rather than controlling them.

Ask your team how you can help them do their jobs and encourage them to experiment with innovative approaches and ideas. Create a safe environment for them to take risks and chances. Recognize that, even though you might be leading a team or organization, you are still a member of a team, and the best results will come from working together to find solutions and stay productive.

As my Mum used to remind me, we all put our pants on the same way. As human beings, we are all equal, and just because I might be the leader of a team doesn’t make me any better or less equal than anyone else in the team, no matter what they do. For me being humble means treating everyone as an equal and doing everything I can to help everyone else realize that we are all in this together as equals.

“The leader’s role is to help their team learn, grow, and explore without fear of failure.”

2. Treat everyone with respect and dignity. It’s essential to treat every person in your team and your company with respect and dignity. Each employee plays a vital role in how your business functions from the top of your organizational hierarchy to the bottom. How you treat them matters.

This principle highlights the importance of prioritizing diversity and inclusion. For leaders to encourage their employees to bring their whole selves to work, they must create an environment where people from all backgrounds feel accepted and valued. The benefits of a diverse and inclusive workplace are clear. Diverse teams consistently outperform those with less diversity, and employees on inclusive teams are 5.4 times more likely to stay at their company.

Treating everyone with respect and dignity can create a company culture that ensures employees feel heard and valued. In turn, this can encourage loyalty, productivity, and motivation. But that’s not why this is important, it’s important because it’s the right thing to do, and the right way to treat the people around us.

3. The team is always more important than the individual. No matter how talented, educated, or skilled an individual may be, nothing compares to the success of teamwork. By building a team with complementary skills, a leader can create a well-rounded approach to innovation where the team can learn from each other.

When appropriately used, collaboration is a powerful tool that can significantly improve outcomes compared to individual work. In addition, a Deloitte study found that employees that engage in collaboration and use digital collaboration tools are 17% more satisfied at work. While individuals may get tasks done independently, there is an increased risk of burnout and lower-quality results.

Leaders need to encourage open communication to enable teams to work together. Clear expectations and structure can also be helpful, such as assigning responsibilities to specific team members and designating particular times and methods of collaboration.

I remember many times in my career when I had no idea how we were ever going to achieve a particularly challenging goal or objective. Something that at first glance appeared impossible or completely unreasonable. But then something happens. Someone has an idea that triggers another idea, that leads to a first step, that leads to a second step, that creates a momentum that starts to take on a life of its own. The mood starts to change to a “We can do this!” and a palpable sense of excitement starts to build. There is a point in this process where the team shifts from a group of individuals to a thriving, thrumming “We can do anything!” functional unit that elevates everyone in it to achieve things they never thought possible. Things that could never be achieved by an individual or even a group of individuals – things that only a true team can achieve. If you’ve ever experienced that feeling, you know what I’m talking about.  

“A team is more than a group of individuals; it is also the energy that is released when true teamwork happens that elevates everyone involved.”

4. Have fun! Boredom is not a corporate objective. If you’ve seen the movie Office Space, you know how soul-sucking a boring (albeit fictional) office job can be. While the cult film is a satirical, darkly comedic take on corporate life in the 90s, it can also be a cautionary tale against boredom and monotony at work.

For leaders, it is crucial to know when and how to have fun. Happy employees are healthier, more creative, and more productive overall. So, what can leaders do to create a more fun work environment?

One way to promote more fun is to create experiences that allow team members to get to know each other and interact outside of a work setting. These experiences can be as formal as a monthly virtual happy hour or dinner, or as informal as a weekly group lunch or virtual coffee chat to catch up on life outside of work. While planning events like these can be a great way to create structured fun, simpler methods include encouraging employees to share photos, stories about their vacations, work-appropriate memes, and pictures of their latest golf outings in group messages or recognizing team members for big and small achievements.

Another way to promote more fun is to just have more fun. I also like to say, “We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time”. Life’s too short to take too seriously. Having fun at work doesn’t mean we’re not working hard; it just means we’re having more fun working hard.

5. Pay attention to the details – the small things matter. Leaders are often tasked with directing their team towards one final, all-encompassing goal. While this is important, it can sometimes lead to the dismissal of small but crucial details. Achieving one significant goal results from many small achievements that occur along the way, and each one is as important as the next.

For leaders, this puts them in the unique position of needing to keep both the big picture and the details top of mind. For this reason, it’s crucial to have solid organizational skills and a reliable team that you can delegate to as needed. Remain dedicated to the end goal while maintaining a broad understanding of what each team member is doing to succeed. Trust your team and avoid micromanaging but know when to step in as a leader to help push things forward.

These five leadership principles have helped me throughout my career as a leader, and I hope they serve you on your journey.

Have a leadership principle that you believe to be essential for leaders to know? Share it in the comments.

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5 lessons I learned from the Kokoda Track

I recently completed the Kokoda Track with a group of my oldest and best friends. For those of you who don’t know, the Track is a historical trail in Papua New Guinea. When I was preparing for my trip to Kokoda, I knew that I was in for a long journey full of challenges. An eight-day trek on difficult terrain was bound to test me. It was also bound to teach me important lessons that I could take back to everyday life. So, without further ado, here are the most important lessons I learned while powering through the Kokoda Track:

1. Be prepared.

As I previously talked about, I committed to preparing for this trip. I knew it was going to test me physically and mentally, and I wanted to give myself the best possible tools and training to get me through it successfully. I hiked long miles on weekends and did hours of research on the best gear to take and what to expect on the Track. By doing this, I made sure that I was well-prepared for the different obstacles that I might face. Training ahead of time was key to my success on the Track and researching what I was in for made sure I didn’t underestimate the difficult roads ahead.

This is a lesson easily applicable to business and entrepreneurship. When you’re vying for success, prepare for success. This isn’t always the same as making detailed plans ahead of time, plans always change, but being prepared is also key to being able to adapt to unexpected changes or roadblocks to achieve your objective. When walking into an important meeting or launching a new start-up, make sure that you’ve put in the work to be successful.

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2. Choose your team well.

I was very lucky to be surrounded by some of my oldest and closest friends on this trek, so when any one of us was struggling, we knew we could turn to each other for support and motivation. To have that support is an essential part of success in any aspect of life, so when times get tough, make sure you’re doing it with the right team.

People often say that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Are you surrounding yourself with the right people? Whether it’s in business or your personal life, you want to make sure that you have a support system that is empowering.

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3. Don’t be afraid of hard times.

It’s natural to want to avoid difficult times, but it’s in those moments that you experience the most growth. Embrace those moments and use them to build a stronger, better team. Throughout the trek, each of us went through struggles and doubts, but as the trek went on, we became closer because we were able to rely on one another.

Hard times can always teach you something. When you’re going through something rough, take a moment to think about what you’re learning. How can you apply this to future situations? How can this make you a better version of yourself? Embrace that learning and use it to improve.

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4. Balance

Though our journey was extremely physically challenging, it was also very mentally challenging. It was crucial to spend time getting centered before setting off on each day’s trek. Achieving and maintaining that level of balance was a constant battle, and it’s important to pace yourself.

Do you take time each day to check in with yourself? Would you consider yourself in balance? If not, try starting your morning with a brief morning meditation or just find some quiet time during the day to center yourself. There a number of resources that can help you with this, like Headspace, Calm, and Ten Percent Happier. A strong, healthy mindset is important to taking on any new challenge.

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5. Celebrate success.

When we walked through the end of the Kokoda arches, it was very emotional. We looked back on what we’d accomplished and truly took a moment to reflect on what we’d just been through. It was a huge achievement that we’d managed together, and we congratulated each other on our success. Then, we got beers.

Don’t be afraid to celebrate your successes, big or small. Every day is full of challenges, and with the right mindset you can crush them all. So be sure to treat yourself and your team when you reach new milestones, and then get excited for the next one!

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What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced and how did you handle it? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

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How I manage my to-do list with email: Part 2

In Part 1 I outlined a way to make sure:

  • You have a reliable way to archive all your email so you never have to worry about deleting an email again.
  • You have a way to unclutter your inbox.
  • You have a way to process your inbox.
  • You have a way to track everything you delegate and everything you are ‘waiting for’ via a Pending folder.

In this post I want to outline how to manage and track all of your next actions so you never have to worry about dropping the ball again.

As mentioned previously, efficiently processing your inbox involves doing one of four things with each email:

  • Read and delete. No action needed.
  • Do. If I think it will take me less than 2 mins to respond to an email, I will do it then and there and then delete.
  • Delegate. Forward and ask someone to do something based on the email, and then delete.  As per my previous post on this topic, remember to copy yourself when you delegate over email so you have a list of everything you’re waiting on someone for in your Pending folder!
  • Queue up for next action needed. These are the emails I need to spend more time on, and that I haven’t been able to delete, delegate or do within the 2 mins rule.

The focus of this post is on that last point, how to queue up things for next action needed.

One of the core tenants of “Getting Things Done” is to group all your next actions by context.  For example, there might be some things you can only do when you are at home.  When you’re not at home you don’t need to see those next actions because there’s nothing you can do about them.  However, when you are at home you do want to see them, because in that context (“I’m at home”) all of those next actions are fair game for follow-up.  Grouping all your next actions by context helps you focus on only the things you can do in that moment, without distracting yourself with all the things you can’t do in that moment.

Constructing Contexts

Everyone will have a different set of contexts they want to work across (see below for mine).  The trick here is to define those contexts in a way that makes sense for you and are as simple as possible.  It is also important to define them in such a way that each next action only goes into one context.  This keeps the overhead of managing next actions by context to a minimum. Here are mine:

Calls Calls I need to make when I have the time and am with my phone (typically when I’m driving)
Work Things I can only do when I’m physically at the office
Home Things I can only do when I’m physically at home
Errands Things I can only do when I’m out and about, typically near where I live
Laptop Things I need to do when I’m at my laptop (or on my phone)
Read Things I need to read
Agenda Things I need to talk to someone about in person or at an upcoming meeting
Someday Things not important to me now, but worth considering ‘someday’ when I have the time

The way that I implement this for my email is  by creating an email folder for each ‘context’ and then moving each ‘next action’ from my inbox to that folder.

Here are a few examples:

  • A friend emails me and wants to catch up. I simply drag the email from my inbox into my Call folder.
  • My wife emails me and asks if I can pick up paper towels. Into the Errands folder.
  • My colleague emails me and requests I review a presentation. Into the Laptop folder.
  • Someone sends me an interesting article on Vegemite. Into the Read folder it goes.
  • My boss emails me and says he wants to talk about an upcoming site visit. Into the Agenda folder for when I meet with him next.
  • Someone emails me to recommend walking the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea but I don’t have time to think about it now. Into the Someday folder. (More to come on that, later!)

Hopefully you get the idea.

Later, when I find myself out and about driving to the grocery store, I check my Errands folder and go buy paper towels.

When I meet with my boss I go to my Agendas folder to remind myself of all the things I need to speak with him about.

When I have a spare moment, I hit my Read folder for all the catch up reading I need to do, including how to make Vegemite at home.

Then, when I’m done with all my projects and have time to breathe, I check my Someday folder for new things to do.

Never drop the ball again.

Creating a Code

Now, the above works great when you are receiving emails and taking action on them, but what if you want to create and manage next actions for things not associated with an email you have received?  For example, you think of something you need to do at home, or you think of something you want to read.  How do you get those next actions into your email system?  Here’s what I do.

Let’s take a ‘work’ next action as an example.  If I want to remind myself to print a presentation the next time I’m in the office, I simply send myself an email with a Subject of “Print out presentation $w”.  I have a rule that looks for emails from myself with a “$w” in the subject line, and which then automatically moves that email into my Work folder.  Voila!  Next time I’m in the office I check my Work folder and there’s my next action to print out the presentation.

To break this down further, for each context:

  • Come up with a code you can put in the Subject for any next action you want to automatically move to the folder for that context.
  • Create a rule for the context that will look for that code as part of the Subject and then do the move.

For the example above the rule would look like this:

See below for the codes I use for all the contexts mentioned above.  All you need to do now is to create a rule for each code that is exactly the same as for the work example above, but with the corresponding code for each context.

Calls $c
Work $w
Home $h
Errands $e
Laptop $l
Read $r
Agenda $a
Someday $s

With the above in place you can also handle the following scenarios:

  • Someone sends you an email to ask you for something, and when you respond to say, “I’m on it!” you tag the subject with “$l” so your ‘next action’ is automatically put in your Laptop folder for follow-up. This saves you from having to respond AND manually moving the original email to Laptop yourself.  Yes, it’s only a few extra steps, but over the course of a day or a week or a year it all adds up.  And these posts are all about being an email ninja, not an email grasshopper. 🙂


Final Reminders

Now, just two more things and we’re done, but these are very important to remember.

First, the ordering of your rules in your email system matters.  It’s important that the first rule is the rule to move all received emails to your Received folder.  This ensures you will continue to archive all received emails as explained in my first post.  Then come the rules to manage context based next actions as explained above.  Finally, the last rule should be the rule to manage Pending emails; those emails you copy yourself on when you want to track or monitor that something gets done.  Ordering your rules in this way ensures they are applied in the right order so that the system works.

Second, you will need to update your Pending rule so that it doesn’t also move all these next action emails to your Pending folder.  To do this, simply exclude all these emails from the rule as shown below.

That’s it!  You now have a way to track next actions by context.  Whenever you complete a next action you can simply delete it out of the context folder and move on to the next one!

At this point:

  • You have a reliable way to archive all your email so you never have to worry about deleting an email again.
  • You have a way to unclutter your inbox.
  • You have a way to process your inbox.
  • You have a way to track everything you delegate and everything you are ‘waiting for’ via a Pending folder.
  • You have a way to track next actions by context.

Stay tuned for part 3 on how to use this system to manage projects and deliverables that require lots of ‘next actions’ to complete, with maybe a few additional advanced techniques to move you into black belt territory.

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How AI is transforming healthcare

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Artificial intelligence (AI) will make a direct and immense impact on the healthcare field. Technology has already improved diagnostic accuracy, drug delivery, and patients’ medical records, and AI will only add to those breakthroughs. AI can mine medical records, design personalized treatment plans, handle administrative tasks to free up medical providers’ time for more meaningful tasks, and assist with medication management.

AI has already made headway in medicine, helping to do everything from processing x-ray images and detecting cancer to assisting doctors in diagnosing and treating patients. In fact, the global AI healthcare market is expected to reach $22,790 million by 2023.

And the general public is on board. According to a recent survey, 47% of people were comfortable with AI assisting doctors in the operating room. More than half of respondents over age 40 were willing to go under the knife with the help of technology, compared with only 40% under age 40. Additionally, six in ten participants (61%) were comfortable with their doctor using data from wearable devices, such as an Apple Watch or Fitbit, to assess their lifestyle and make recommendations based on that data.

So what healthcare areas will AI have an impact on in the next five to ten years?

Mining medical records

In our current age of big data, patient data is valuable. Often times, patients’ files are unorganized and mining their records to extract necessary medical insights can be a great challenge.

David Lindsay, founder of Philadelphia-based start-up, Oncora Medical, realized this struggle in radiation therapy. He and his team built a data analytics platform that helps doctors design sound radiation treatment plans for patients, personalizing each one based on their specific characteristics and medical history.

Virtual healthcare providers

AI is being used to detect emotional health issues as well. x2 developed a mental health chatbot, Tess, that delivers on-demand, psychological support. Tess coaches you through tough times to build resilience, by having text message conversations — in the same way a therapist would. The coping strategies Tess delivers are based on the emotions and concerns you express in your conversations.

Beyond Verbal is another example of a company utilizing AI to track emotional well-being. The emotions analytics company, developed a vocal biomarker to potentially help patients and their providers recognize patterns and better understand their healthcare needs.

Sensly boosts, Molly, a virtual health care assistant which dynamically generates speech, receives images and videos, and offers complete remote monitoring, with support for the common and high-cost conditions.

Drug development

Clinical trials can take more than a decade and cost millions of dollars. AI can play a part in speeding up the process of drug development, along with making it more cost effective.

GSK, a company that researches, develops, and manufactures innovative pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines, and consumer healthcare products, is active applying AI to its drug discovery arm. In fact, it created an in-house AI unit called “Medicines Discovered Using Artificial Intelligence.” In 2017, the company announced a partnership with Insilico, to identify novel biological targets and pathways.

Overall, AI can assist healthcare providers in managing their patients’ care more efficiently. I don’t believe AI will take healthcare jobs, but instead transform them. AI will provide the opportunity for healthcare works to take on higher impact jobs or at least offload their less desirable workload. AI will create growth and introduce more opportunities for the human workforce. It has the potential to automate mundane tasks, allowing humans to spend more time on more important tasks. If they can collaborate with the human workforce in hospitals and doctors’ offices, it will take care of the most important aspect of healthcare — improving patients’ experiences.

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Brains, brawn and big business: AI and robots reshape the workplace

Automation technology is moving into the workplace with unstoppable momentum. As bots and robots take on more kinds of tasks, will they eliminate jobs? Or will they instead generate opportunity for workers to leverage their own strengths and manage their tireless mechanical colleagues?

In today’s workforce a factory line worker, a university professor, and a customer service rep are guaranteed to have one thing in common: a job that will be transformed by the presence of robots and AI in the coming decade. Will that worker be able to change along with it?

Blog Innovation Trends
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Is your business Megatrends ready?

Over the next 15 years, we will experience more change than in all human history to date. The pace and magnitude at which change is occurring is staggering.

Did you know we now have more computing power in our pocket than all of NASA had in 1969 when they put the first man on the moon?

Or how about the fact that artificial intelligence spent 42 hours solving the 100-year-old mystery of how flatworms regenerate body parts?

With the accelerated pace of change comes the equally accelerated rate of innovation. I believe this accelerated innovation and the Megatrends driving it will have a sustained, transformative impact on the world in the years ahead — on businesses, societies, economies, cultures and our personal lives.

So how do we as engineers, marketers, designers, innovators, and executives stay ahead of that change and help chart our own course?

Ask yourself: Is your business Megatrends ready? Answer these five questions to find out.


1. What products could you develop to support megacity infrastructure, an aging population, or hyper global trade?

By 2030, there will be 8.5 billion people walking the earth, and 97% of that population growth will be in emerging economies. And as people move to cities, our cities will get larger, and we’ll have more of them, including megacities in places many of us have never heard of today.

It will change how we buy and consume products and services, propelling the sharing economy and convenience-based services. Businesses must design products that meet the needs of the megacity infrastructure, an aging population or hyper global trade.

Blog Innovation Trends