AI and data management at the forefront of SAS’ 2023 IT predictions

IT predictions for 2023 are echoing one main message: 2023 will be plagued with the consequences of global supply chain issues, rising inflation and interest rates as we attempt to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Analytics software provider SAS says that organizations will have to brace themselves to face these challenges, prepare to take hits, and cut costs while keeping up with digital transformation and maintaining growth.

Here are the top predictions from the company, encompassing data ethics and management, AI, healthcare, sustainability, emerging technologies and more:

1. Marketers will have to respond to data deprecation (limiting advertisers’ use of data) in 2023. The looming demise of third-party cookies in 2024 will be an opportunity for businesses to rethink their customer data strategy and cultivate more trusted relationships with their customers
2. Rethinking human biases will be instrumental to the development of effective AI models.
3. Companies will leverage data and analytics to understand what skills they need and have, and what is required to drive business initiatives. DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) will also be a key consideration for companies looking to drive meaningful change across all business areas
4. Organizations will retrain their generalist data scientists to become specialized in industry-specific knowledge, so that they are better positioned to face real world business problems.
5. Organizations will add computer vision and other AI technologies to equip their IT professionals to drive operational efficiency within the industrial IoT environment
6. There will be an increased use of data generation services, including synthetic data, in 2023, as businesses look for ways to tackle data privacy issues, and sparse and disproportionate data representation. Discussion regarding qualified benchmarks will progress but not be codified.
7. Organizations will move away from traditional data warehousing to user-friendly storage options that support real-time data analysis and management. Identifying real-time trends can help businesses avoid costly mistakes and capitalize on opportunities when they arise.
8. Adoption of renewable energy sources will increase drastically in 2023, resulting in fast innovation and investment into energy storage technologies. Countries that are significantly suffering from energy disruptions, including fossil fuel price spikes, will look to invest in renewable infrastructure.
9. With climate change and geo-political tensions impacting the global supply chain, organizations will use digital twins and simulation technologies to speed up decision-making, to help them respond more rapidly to the reality of the connected supply chain.
10. Sectors and governments responsible for the health care of vulnerable populations will leverage more unstructured than structured data to study the complex, evolving information, such as socio-economic risks, clinical history, etc.
11. Businesses looking to achieve maturity in AI will empower people of all skills to participate in the analytics process through low-code and no-code options. Analytic insights can enhance every stage of a business across any industry to meet customers’ demands.
12. Financial services might be pressured to pull back on ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) goals, but a SAS study predicts that most will actually stay the course or double down in 2023.