Gartner's Top 10 Tech Trends for 2018

Artificial intelligence (AI), "smart" apps, analytics and the further decentralization of technology architectures will be the biggest IT trends for the next year, according to recent research from Gartner. The accompanying report, "Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018," points out that we live in a very intelligent world. In fact, ongoing innovation that essentially amounts to making machines smarter accounts for the majority of trends on this list. As a result, companies should position themselves to better visualize events such as customer experiences and more effectively anticipate business-impacting changes. "Digital business blurs the physical and virtual worlds in a way that transforms business designs, industries, markets and organizations," according to the report. "The continuing digital business evolution exploits emerging and strategic technologies to integrate the physical and digital worlds, and create entirely new business models. The future will be defined by smart devices delivering increasingly insightful digital services everywhere. We call this mesh of interconnected people, devices, content and services the 'intelligent digital mesh.' It's enabled by digital business platforms delivering a rich intelligent set of services to support digital business. As a … technology innovation leader seeking to exploit the intelligent digital mesh, you must respond to the disruptive technology trends driving this future."