Business View Magazine | November 2019

12 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2019 consumer using digital devices (online, mobile, etc.) will be completed by smart machines rather than the human agents of today. And by 2030, 69% of decisions made during a customer engagement will be completed by smart machines. “It is becoming increasingly clear that there will be a rapid growth in the relationship between humans and machines over the next decade,” said Daniel Newman, Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. “Companies will have to strike a delicate balance between providing highly empathic human-like experiences with the instantaneous results that consumers have come to expect. Technology will be the bridge as data, analytics, machine learning, and AI will enable machines to deliver this balance in a more humanistic way that satisfies customers and delivers increased efficiencies to the enterprise.” Consumers embrace emerging tech Per the study, 78% of brands believe consumers are uneasy dealing with technology today in stores. Yet the study found that only 35% of consumers expressed this unease. This gap between the beliefs of brands and their consumers could be a limiting factor in these brands’ growth if they are not careful. In fact, according to the survey results consumers are expecting to further embrace new technologies by 2030: • 80% say they expect to accept delivery of a product by drone or autonomous vehicle. • 81% say they expect to engage with chatbots. • 78% expect to use an augmented, virtual, or mixed reality app to see how a product will look – such as how a piece of clothing might look on a shopper or how a piece of furniture might look in a home. • 56% expect to be “visiting” remote locations or experiencing vacation and entertainment events through mixed reality devices by 2025. • 8 out of 10 expect to use a smart assistant (such as Google Home, Amazon Alexa, etc.) to make an online purchase or control a smart home. • 78% say they expect they’ll be controlling other devices with their wearables. For brands, this level of consumer acceptance – and expectation – opens new opportunities for broadening consumer engagement. But to meet rising expectations on both sides, brands require new capabilities to close the gap between consumer technology and marketing technology. “Tracing a customer through their journey entails a forensic understanding of the customer across There will be a rapid growth in the relationship between humans and machines over the next decade