The Fourth Industrial Revolution of Connected Consumer Technology

Walking the CES floors, you'll see companies from all over the globe exhibiting everything interesting from APIs to machine learning. We have to be aware that the entire world is innovating in this fourth industrial revolution and it will be easy for regions to fall behind and get disrupted by their global competitors.

LET AI HAPPEN

AI was integrated into almost every exhibition at CES. While its use cases may not always be clear, it's something that will inevitably infiltrate our daily lives. AI is going to happen because the data already exists to make it happen. We're living in an age where computers are interconnected, they're on our bodies, in our cars, in our homes. We need to develop a positive relationship with AI because fear isn't a driver for curiosity and creativity.

ROBOTICS ASSISTANT TECHNOLOGY ON THE RISE

The takeaway from seeing Samsung's robotic companion Ballie was that robotics will do well in Asia because Asia thinks about robotics differently. Whether it's anime culture or religious tendencies; robots are accepted. I'm optimistic about the robotic culture, especially for elder care, mental and physical care because that's going to be a huge sector. The population pyramid will become a rectangle and robotics assistant technology will be a very big deal.

KEEP AR & VR ON YOUR RADAR

I love AR and VR because we have all been waiting for VR and AR to actually work and be useful and now there are so many platforms out there, but use cases are not as clear. Is it just gaming? Is it training? We don't know. But we need to be much more curious about how AR and VR technology become an assistant technology like robotics.

Author:  John Maeda, Chief Experience Officer, Publicis Sapient