At the start of every New Year, prognosticators and pundits from numerous firms love to provide forecasts on trends that might impact the technology industry in the next year. A few key themes have emerged for the upcoming years. Here are some of the biggest trends and technologies that are likely to have an impact on IT professionals and Managed IT Services in the upcoming years.

Artificial Intelligence (or AI)

In 2016, AI really burst onto the scene. The chances of this technology picking up steam in the upcoming years are high. Firms are looking to AI to assist them in making sense of their big data – especially their IoT (or Internet of Things) data – and to assist them in offering better service to their customers. According to the predictions of Forrester, as enterprises look to tap into a machine learning technology, advanced analytics, and complex systems, investment in AI will triple. Plus, IDC stated that by 2019, 100% of IoT initiatives, and at least 40% of digital transformation initiatives, will be fueled by AI capabilities.

Internet of Things (or IoT)

AI is quite closely related to IoT – the second hot trend for the upcoming years. It’s not just the consumes who are buying connected devices, but businesses are also looking for IoT systems and devices to assist them in becoming more productive and efficient. It is forecasted by Gartner that by 2022, IoT will save businesses and consumers $1 trillion on an annual basis in consumables, services, and maintenance.

However, Forrester notes that this trend has a dark side – IoT exposes businesses to security breaches, and IoT devices themselves being transformed into DDoS weapons.

Augmented Reality (or AR)

According to experts, the upcoming years will be the banner years for AR. In 2016, the majority of the consumers got their initial experience with AR via the smash-hit mobile app Pokémon Go. In the upcoming years, look for firms to put AR to new uses that could assist them in increasing profits. IDC predicted that in 2017, roughly 30% of consumer-facing G2000 firms would experiment with VR/AR as part of their marketing efforts. Meanwhile, Gartner forecasts that 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality by 2020.

Automation

The automation technologies are transforming IT as enterprises embrace DevOps. Instead of depending upon manual processes, IT teams are using software that completes multiple tasks autonomously. Plus, some experts believe that AI will take over the majority of the coding work that developers currently do.

Cyber Crime

Unluckily, among the major trends influencing IT this year, is one that has been growing for years. In the upcoming years, the wave of cyber crime incidents isn’t dying down. In fact, it will likely amplify. Forrester claims that privacy breaches, denial of service, ransomware, targeted, and espionage will increase in the upcoming years.

Don’t Forget the Cloud

For several years, cloud computing has had a prominent place on lists regarding tech trends. However, with the vast majority of firms now using the cloud, this technology has become the way IT is done instead of just an emerging trend.

However, there is still plenty of innovation that’s being done in the cloud. For example, expect serverless architecture, which is often called function as a service (or FaaS), to increase in prominence for the upcoming years.