Harvard Business Review - The Year in Tech, 2023

Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review

Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind?

Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your companys future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBRs smartest thinking on fast-moving issuesblockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and moreeach book provides the foundation introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow.

You cant afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideasand prepare you and your company for the future.

Books in the series includes:

Agile

Artificial Intelligence

Blockchain

Climate Change

Coronavirus: Leadership and Recovery

Customer Data and Privacy

Cybersecurity

Future of Work

Global Recession

Hybrid Workplace

Monopolies and Tech Giants

Racial Justice

Strategic Analytics

The Year in Tech, 2021

The Year in Tech, 2022

The Year in Tech, 2023

THE YEAR IN TECH 2023

Harvard Business Review Press

Boston, Massachusetts

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Harvard Business Review Press.

Title: The year in tech, 2023.

Other titles: Insights you need from Harvard Business Review.

Description: Boston, Massachusetts : Harvard Business Review Press, [2023] | Series: Insights you need from Harvard Business Review | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022010831 (print) | LCCN 2022010832 (ebook) | ISBN 9781647824525 (paperback) | ISBN 9781647824532 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: BusinessTechnological innovations. | Industrial management. | Success in business.

Classification: LCC HD45 .Y43 2023 (print) | LCC HD45 (ebook) | DDC 658.5/14dc23/eng/20220610

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010831

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010832

ISBN: 978-1-64782-452-5

eISBN: 978-1-64782-453-2

1. How to think about ethics when tech evolves faster than we can predict.
2. by Beena Ammanath
3. Build a strategy for the next frontier.
4. by Janet Balis
5. Understanding this new asset class.
6. by Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers
7. Will central banks and the private sector team up?
8. by Christian Catalini and Jai Massari
9. From pay by face to AI shopping assistants.
10. by Mark Purdy
11. New ways to recruit and retain in a competitive market.
12. by Jonathan Frick, KC George, and Julie Coffman
13. Whats next for your companys most efficient, innovative, and scalable platform?
14. by Bhaskar Ghosh and Karthik Narain
15. Demand both personalization and privacy.
16. by Tim Glomb
17. Companies take cybersecurity more seriously when their own money is on the line.
18. by Rahul Telang
19. Move from a big-data approach to a good-data approach.
20. by Andrew Ng
21. Soon, anyone will be able to train an algorithm.
22. by Jonathon Reilly
23. Employees from around the world share their concerns and hopes.
24. by Joe Lui, Raghav Narsalay, Rushda Afzal, Ida Nair Sharma, and Dave Light
25. Misleading consumers into spending more can hurt you in the long run.
26. by Michael Luca and Fiona Scott Morton
27. Attitudes, behaviors, environments, and user experiences differ widely.
28. by Bhaskar Chakravorti, Ajay Bhalla, and Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi

WHEN NEW TECHNOLOGIES CONVERGE

by Beena Ammanath

The Covid-19 pandemic was a catalyst for change in every industry and aspect of business. Facing new constraints and competitive pressures, organizations enacted plans to thrive in challenging environments. It ushered in a new age of accelerating transformation and disruption that shows no sign of abating.

Now, with the worst of the public health crisis behind us, we can see a new business landscape in full light. Technology transformations are happening everywhere in unanticipated ways. Who could have foreseen, for example, the rapid and permanent shift toward remote work? And who now can truly foresee what long-term impact this shift will have on data flows, automation, and connectivity, to say nothing of its influence on society and the human experience?

We are launching into an era defined by new technologiesartificial intelligence, zero-party data, digital currencies, metaverses, and more. There is no shortage of excitement around the benefits these tools may bring.

But the decisions we make today will have long-lasting implications for business and our collective future. As these emerging and maturing technologies intersect, the results defy prediction. Collisions between these new tools call us to reconsider what we think we know about ethics and trustworthy technology. Reading this book, familiarizing yourself with these developments, and thinking about their impact will set you on the right path.

The technologies transforming the world are at different stages of maturity. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are relatively new, while AI has matured to deliver value at scale, and in just over a decade, cloud computing has become a 21st-century business necessity. The rapid pace of this evolution challenges us to continuously imagine, anticipate, and address the implications for values and ethics.

It is rarely a straight path from innovation to ethical use that generates real value. When we solve initial challenges, new ones emerge. As we use our new tools, our thinking grows more nuanced on how to do so appropriately and correctly. Sometimes the path doubles back on itself. An illustrative example is our evolving attitude toward data and privacy.

About 20 years ago, when search engines and social media were gaining mass adoption, there was little public awareness of how personal data was used, stored, and sometimes sold. With millions of new users discovering the benefits of connectivity and access to information, and with new interoperabilities and partnerships rolling out constantly, the notion of data privacy was far from top of mind for most internet users. This did not last long. In the years that followed, a sobering realization took hold: If you are not paying for the product, you are the product.