In a recent research study published in PLOS ONE, 65 experts in artificial intelligence (AI) from the UK and Japan were consulted by researchers to make predictions about how much common household work will be automated in the next ten years.

While care for the young or elderly was expected to be least likely to be affected by AI, experts showed that grocery shopping was likely to witness the most automation.

Researchers from Britain’s Oxford University and Japan’s Ochanomizu University were interested in the potential effects of robots on unpaid domestic labor. "If robots will steal our jobs, will they at least also take out the trash for us?" they posed.

The researchers noted that the most often created and marketed robots worldwide are those used for "domestic household duties," such as robot vacuum cleaners.

For their predictions on robots in the home, the team consulted 29 AI specialists from the UK and 36 AI experts from Japan.

Researchers found that male UK experts tended to be more optimistic about domestic automation compared with their female counterparts, a situation reversed in Japan.

But the tasks which experts thought automation could do varied: "Only 28% of care work, including activities such as teaching your child, accompanying your child, or taking care of an older family member, is predicted to be automated", said Dr Lulu Shi, postdoctoral researcher, Oxford Internet Institute.

On the other hand, technology was expected to cut 60% of the time we spend on grocery shopping, experts said.

Technology is more likely to aid humans than to replace them, according to Dr. Kate Devlin, reader in AI and Society at King's College, London, who was not engaged in the study. "It's difficult and expensive to make a robot that can do multiple or general tasks. Instead, it's easier and more useful to create assistive technology that helps us rather than replaces us," she said.

The research suggests domestic automation could free up a lot of time spent on unpaid domestic work. In the UK, working-age men do around half as much of this unpaid work as working-age women, in Japan the men do less than a fifth.
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According to Ekaterina Hertog, associate professor in AI and Society at Oxford University, women's incomes, savings, and pensions are negatively impacted by the disproportionate amount of household labor they must do. Therefore, the researchers suggest, greater gender equality could arise from increased automation.

Now that we have two months of the new year under our belts, it’s time to look out to the remaining ten months to see what areas of technology are going to have the biggest impacts on our lives. 

Before we look forward, let’s look back to the end of 2022 and see the trends that were forming and how they will affect our world in 2023. 

From a hardware perspective, it was an unexciting year. Both Apple and Samsung refreshed their flagship smartphones, but most reviewers rated the changes as incremental upgrades. Mark Zuckerberg, with his eyes on changing the way people work, introduced a $1,500 virtual-reality headset. But, with only a two-hour battery, most users will strap the new headset on for gaming.

From the online world, we saw huge changes at Twitter after Elon Musk spent $44 billion to buy the company. In the last few months, he has gutted the staff, suspended accounts for some journalists and reinstated several questionable users. All of this had driven Twitter users to seek alternative sites. Another social media company, TikTok, has been banned on government-issued devices at both the federal level and in several states.

Finally, in November, OpenAI introduced a chatbot called ChatGPT. In the first month of its availability, the online AI tool registered more than one million users. Given that is can produce seemingly intelligent responses to questions posed by users. Unfortunately, it can produce totally incorrect responses and couch those responses in wording that appears authoritative. 

This is just a taste of what's in store for us in the upcoming year. Together with the same trends that have persisted over the past few years, like developments in electric cars and the metaverse, we can anticipate many intriguing innovations in A.I.-powered, language-processing technology. Social media might even have a resurgence.

Here are the tech developments that will invade our lives in 2023.

1.New Embedded AI Assistants. Early adopters who were astounded by ChatGPT's verbal proficiency were equally astounded by how inaccurate it can be, especially with basic mathematics. Despite their flaws, it is reasonable to expect that software developers, led by Microsoft, will embed AI technology within familiar apps like Word, Excel, Google Sheets, Craft and others. It's important to note that many of the tasks these new AI modules will tackle will be summaries with a particular interest point in mind. 

Here’s an example. You’re writing a research paper on warfare and you have come across a 100-page essay on World War II. Imagine asking the AI tool to read the full document and highlight the key points regarding a certain facet of the war.

Yoav Shoham, a professor emeritus at Stanford University who contributes to the AI Index, an annual assessment on the development of artificial intelligence, said: "If you want to supplement your writing with a historical fact, you won't need to go and search the web and locate it. With just the click of a button, it'll be there."

2. Virtual reality, a.k.a. the metaverse. Tech firms have been advertising virtual reality headgear for gaming for most of the last decade, including the Quest 2, HTC Vive, and Sony PlayStation VR. Tech companies are making grand claims that these headsets will eventually transform our lives similarly to what smartphones have done so now that technology has advanced to become more potent and wireless.

One person who envisions the metaverse as a place where we may work, collaborate, and create is Mark Zuckerberg of Meta. The business thought the technology could be used as a multitasking tool for employees juggling meetings while skimming through emails and other duties when it unveiled the Quest Pro headgear this year. It remains to be seen whether Meta can realize its vision for the metaverse, given that the device's initial reception was unfavorable.

The VR drumbeat will continue in 2023. It is widely believed that Apple will unveil its first headgear, despite having previously stated that it would never use the term "metaverse." Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, has provided hints about the device even though the business has released no information about it. Cook has expressed his excitement about employing augmented reality to use digital data in the real world.

“You’ll wonder how you lived your life without augmented reality, just like today you wonder: How did people like me grow up without the internet?” Mr. Cook said in September to students in Naples.

Yet, he continued, the technology will not suddenly become significant. The first version of Apple's headgear will probably be used for gaming, just like many others before it, as wireless headsets continue to be large and only used inside.

In other words, 2023 will probably still not be the year that these headsets become widely used, according to Carolina Milanesi, a consumer tech analyst for the research firm Creative Strategies. However, there will be plenty of talk about the metaverse and virtual, augmented, and mixed goggles.

“From a consumer perspective, it’s still very uncertain what you’re spending your thousand bucks on when you’re buying a headset,” she said. “Do I have to do a meeting with V.R.? With or without legs, it’s not a necessity.”

3.Electric Vehicles Beyond Tesla. Last year, Tesla continued to dominate the market for electric vehicles (EVs), but 2023 might mark a turning point for the sector. Since Mr. Musk's takeover of Twitter, Tesla's shares have fallen precipitously this year, and its reputation has suffered. The market's competitiveness is also escalating as EV manufacturers, including Ford Motor, Kia, General Motors, Audi, and Rivian, increase their output of electric vehicles.

Tesla also declared in November that it would allow other electric vehicles to use its charging port design. That would make it possible for owners of other makes of vehicles to refuel at Tesla's charging stations, which are much more numerous than other kinds of chargers.

Also, sales of gas-powered cars will be prohibited in both California and New York by 2035. All of this creates the ideal conditions for the electric car market to grow significantly beyond just one brand in 2023.

4.New Social Media Choices. Most of 2022 saw Twitter in disarray, and 2023 is expected to be no different. Last month, in reaction to the criticism, Mr. Musk conducted a Twitter "poll" asking his fans if they thought he should step down as the company's CEO. Ten million users, or a majority, chose yes, but Mr. Musk said he wouldn't leave until someone "foolish enough to do the job" was found.

TikTok is still in trouble after its Chinese parent firm, ByteDance, revealed that an internal probe had revealed that staff members had improperly collected user data from American users, including that of two journalists. The information puts pressure on the Biden administration to think about imposing even stricter limitations on the app in the US.

Whatever happens to Twitter and TikTok, it's certain that social media is undergoing a significant change. A social network called Mastodon, which resembles Twitter in appearance, has attracted many journalists, techies, and influencers. Yet many younger people have already switched to more recent apps like BeReal, where pals can keep in touch by simultaneously taking and sharing selfies.
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Which new social networking app will be a huge deal in 2023 is a mystery. Mastodon has lost about 30% of the million users they gained because of changes at Twitter. Yet, one thing is for certain: Those who are offended by Twitter are looking for a friendly environment where they can hang around.

We bought our first home in late 1968. We watched it being built and even installed sound cables in the walls before they dry-walled, so we’d have a sound system for the whole home. Those days were called ‘container days.’ Contractors erected the container and left the homeowner to finish the rest. 

Now, 45 years later, the sector is being upended by smart home technology, creating a large market opportunity for investors, entrepreneurs, designers, and builders. The smart home industry, which was estimated to be worth $79 billion in 2020, is expected to increase to $314 billion by 2027, according to recent research from Mordor Intelligence.

Consumer curiosity is being sparked by ideas like touchless interactions and energy-saving whole-home automation. With new government efficiency standards demanding the replacement or modification of current systems, automated heating and cooling will be in high demand. All residential central air-source heat pump systems sold in the United States starting in January 2023 must adhere to new minimum energy efficiency standards.

This smart home movement focuses on enhancing the experience of living in the home, from automating appliances that anticipate and comprehend the homeowner's demands to programming devices to act consistently. Grandview Research's forecast of an excellent 31% compound annual growth rate between 2021 and 2030 for smart kitchens and security and surveillance technology installations.

Consider PIN-activated keyless door locks or smart doorbells that are always aware of visitors (or deliveries) arriving. Automated exterior lighting and AI-powered public space video cameras that monitor neighborhood activity will be in demand for multi-family developments.

Because the smart home industry has developed over the last five years and is ready to transition from "do it yourself" to "do it for me," there is a huge market opportunity. Consumers will probably start looking for pre-built homes with tailored technology more frequently. According to a Coldwell Banker Real Estate survey, 61% of millennials and 59% of parents with children living in the home choose smart-tech homes, while 71% of purchasers desire a tech-enabled, "move-in ready" home.

New artificial intelligence (AI) technology that automatically changes ambience routines to meet resident patterns and preferences makes this possible. Thermal windows that conserve energy improve a house's overall efficiency. Each smart home's devices are programmed to cooperate with one another and connect to a centralized home management app that is very easy to use and administer. Such systems receive routine cloud updates, and all hardware is dispersed across the home's primary hub. Technology seamlessly merges into the building's simple interior design.

With most software solutions available via the cloud, second-generation AI-powered smart home equipment self-learns and adapts to routines and preferences, getting better over time. All devices are coordinated and synced in the smart home setup, and they are all made accessible via a computer or a smartphone. A smart home with a genius Intellect, perhaps.

Designers and builders must rethink household space in light of increasing urban density and environmental sustainability. Compared to older homes, the modern urban home uses space more effectively, is more flexible, and is more responsive. It is cozy and friendly. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant influence that shouldn't be understated, since it confirmed long-held notions that the home can and should improve the health and wellbeing of its occupants.

A multi-family neighborhood outside of Portland's center dubbed HOMMA HAUS Mount Tabor, with 18 two-bedroom residences, is a pioneering prototype. This type of house must have an adaptable modern design, multi-functional use of space, and curated, pre-configured technology built in before the resident occupies the area. This sort of house should serve as the cornerstone of holistic well-being for its residents.

Urban areas that are expanding, like Portland, tend to have residents who value a deep relationship with environment and routinely engage in outdoor activities. Innovations like this one make use of organic-feeling materials that foster a sense of kinship with nature. The environment is improved by thoughtfully chosen oak flooring, Corian kitchen counters, and cedar fencing. Bamboo and tree landscaping produces shade and further reduces noise to keep the residences quiet.

Real estate will place more emphasis on striking a balance between protecting residents' privacy and fostering a sense of community. This is made possible by clever technology working in tandem with well-planned communal areas. Contemporary housing projects frequently contain courtyards that provide a good blend of quiet space and communal gathering area.
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Urban living that is holistic and adaptable will be the industry's driving force as it develops. Modern architecture, design, and technology are blended into one product, the home, which is constructed to bring beauty, comfort, and wellbeing. Astute builders will do this. Investors, CEOs of large corporations, and startup founders should monitor these developments and be prepared to seize the opportunities they will bring about.

Last Tuesday, Microsoft held a press briefing to announce two new web-based software upgrades. The same AI technology that powers the chatbot ChatGPT has been updated and included in the latest edition of Microsoft's Bing search engine. A fresh experience for exploring the web and getting information online is promised by the firm as it introduces the product alongside new AI-enhanced features for its Edge browser.

“It’s a new day in search,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at an event announcing the products. The paradigm for web search, according to Nadella, hasn't changed in decades, but AI can offer information more swiftly and fluidly than conventional techniques.

“The race starts today, and we’re going to move and move fast,” Nadella said. “Most importantly, we want to have a lot of fun innovating again in search, because it’s high time.”

Today, the company showed how "the new Bing" operated in a variety of settings. One of settings allows users to interact directly with the Bing chatbot by asking it questions in a chat interface like ChatGPT, while another mode displays conventional search results alongside AI annotations.

Microsoft demonstrated several sample searches, including looking for travel advice, recipes, and Ikea furnishings. Bing was instructed to "prepare an itinerary for each day of a 5-day trip to Mexico City" in one demonstration. The chatbot provided a complete response, including a general itinerary and providing links to more resources.

The new Bing, unlike ChatGPT, which is limited to information up to the end of 2021, can also find news about recent occurrences. In the demonstrations, the search engine could even respond to inquiries regarding its own launch by identifying news articles that had been posted within the previous hour.

Microsoft says these features are all powered by an upgraded version of GPT 3.5, the AI OpenAI language model that powers ChatGPT. Microsoft calls this the “Prometheus Model,” and says it’s more powerful than GPT 3.5, and better able to answer search queries with up-to-date information and annotated answers.

The new Bing is live today “for desktop limited preview,” but it appears users can only “ask” one of several preset queries and receive the same results each time. There is also a waitlist to sign up for full access in the future.

Microsoft is also introducing "chat" and "compose," two new AI-enhanced services for its Edge browser. They'll be integrated into Edge's sidebar.

While "compose" serves as a writing helper, helping to generate text, from emails to social media postings, depending on a few initial cues, "chat" enables users to summarize the webpage or document they're viewing and ask questions about its contents.

The launch of the new Bing coincides with a flurry of AI activity from rival Google and Microsoft. The popularity of AI text production has skyrocketed since ChatGPT went live on the internet last November. Microsoft is looking to capitalize on this enthusiasm and has already disclosed how this technology would be incorporated across its suite of office applications. Microsoft has a strong partnership with OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT.

Google, on the other hand, was unprepared for what some consider to be a fundamental shift in how users find information online. The introduction of ChatGPT is said to have set off a "code red" within the search engine behemoth, with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin—who had been absent—being called in to help deal with what would pose a danger to the company's main source of income.

In an effort to beat Microsoft's launch, Google released on Monday, Bard, its own ChatGPT. The program was referred to as an "experimental conversational AI service" by CEO Sundar Pichai, who said that it was still being evaluated by a few users and will only be made available to a wider audience in the upcoming weeks. We’ll have more on where these technologies are headed in next week’s issue of the newsletter.

One pitfall to using this level of AI is that it will make mistakes and present the misinformation as though it were fact. Microsoft is well aware of this problem and had a warning placed in Bing’s user interface: “Let's study together. AI powers Bing, thus unexpected outcomes and errors are conceivable. Verify the information and provide feedback so we can grow and learn.”
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Finally, there will be other difficulties that haven’t been addressed yet. The income stream that keeps many websites afloat is removed if AI tools like the new Bing collect material from the web without people clicking through to the source. The effectiveness of this new search paradigm will depend on maintaining some of the previous agreements.

Bloomberg initially reported last week that Microsoft is in talks with Open AI, the firm that developed the well-known A.I. chatbot called ChatGPT that recently caught the internet by storm, to invest as much as $10 billion in the company. In a note to clients on Wednesday, Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives referred to ChatGPT as one of the "most inventive A.I. technologies" in history and "a possible game changer" for Microsoft.

He said that amid the global AI weapons race, Microsoft is turning into a "central A.I. play" for investors, writing, "We feel this strategic investment is a smart poker move."

The price of Microsoft shares has increased by around 3% recently but has decreased by almost 25% over the previous year because of the general bear market. Ives, though, asserted that OpenAI's technology will find wide use at the multinational tech company and that, over the following ten years, it will be "completely integrated" into the company's whole product line.

Microsoft has previously dabbled in the artificial intelligence space, so this isn’t their first exposure to the nascent technology. To create new A.I.-enabled supercomputing technologies for its cloud platform, Azure, the tech giant, even invested $1 billion in OpenAI back in 2019. The company has been developing its own A.I. technology for years (check out VALL-E, the A.I. that can copy your voice after listening to a three-second audio clip). Microsoft is apparently taking another bite at the AI apple now that OpenAI has raised money at a $29 billion valuation and attracted over 1 million users to ChatGPT less than a week after its launch in early December. Ives thinks this is the appropriate strategy.

He said, referring to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, "While ChatGPT is inherently a high cash burn situation today, we view this as a strategic step for Nadella & Co. to double down on its artificial intelligence strategy as new use cases raise unprecedented demand for AI solutions."

Ives asserted that by integrating ChatGPT into the Office suite of programs and employing the technology to give users better search results with Bing, Microsoft will be able to challenge Google's hegemony over the industry. According to Statcounter, Bing only accounts for 3% of the global search engine industry at the moment, while Google holds 93% of the market. Ives, however, thinks that might change if Microsoft can provide "more sophisticated search capabilities and language models."

Ives additionally asserted that Microsoft's video game division might use OpenAI's technology. Activision Blizzard, one of the biggest gaming firms in the world, is presently being purchased by Microsoft for $69 billion. However, it has run into opposition from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), both of which contend that the acquisition will stifle competition in the gaming sector.

Ives said that Microsoft will ultimately prevail in its "fight" with the FTC, saying that this is "another move for the corporation to double down on its gaming endeavors with this technology finding further applications inside the video game and digital art business."

However, not everyone is as optimistic about the potential game-changing application of AI. Teachers have started to question whether ChatGPT spells the end of the college essay after some critics have dubbed it unsafe. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, previously referred to AI in general as "summoning the demon" in a 2014 interview. Elon Musk was also one of OpenAI's early backers.
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Musk stated in a tweet on December 3 that ChatGPT was "scary good" and that "we are not far from dangerously strong A.I." However, Ives thinks that for investors, developments in artificial intelligence might be a gold mine, with Microsoft being one winner. He has a buy rating of "Outperform" and a $290 12-month price objective for the company. The company recently closed at $239.

ChatGPT was created by the technology company OpenAI. Microsoft is now testing the AI language as an enhancement to its Office suite of products, including Word, Outlook and PowerPoint.

OpenAI has had a lot of press lately given that their AI products ChatGPT and Dall-E 2

For their ability to produce text and images, OpenAI's intuitive technology products, such as ChatGPT and Dall-E 2, have become online sensations. Many people have made assumptions about the ethical and practical use of ChatGPT. Microsoft is attempting to make better use of the company's AI models, though. According to The Information, the business has already updated its autocomplete feature with a version of the OpenAI GPT text-generator model.

Microsoft has been testing GPT AI model functionality in Outlook and PowerPoint. These include tools that enable users to locate Outlook search results in email inboxes using speech-like AI-driven commands rather than keywords. Additionally, AI models for Outlook and Word will propose email responses or offer edits to documents to improve writing abilities. There is no information yet on whether this use will eventually be incorporated into consumer-facing versions of Microsoft Office or if the company is merely exploring the GPT model's potential.
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Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019, and according to the report, "acquired an exclusive license to the underlying technology behind GPT-3 in 2020," before this practical application of the GPT technology.
Microsoft may aim to integrate the GPT AI model into its Bing search engine besides its Office suite to compete with Google. According to The Verge, this could be the item that is most likely to be released, with a potential release date of March.

Making data-driven decisions is becoming more and more understood by companies in every industry as a requirement for competing today, in the next five years, in the next twenty, and beyond. According to current market research, the worldwide artificial intelligence (AI) market will "increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39.4% to reach $422.37 billion by 2028," driven by the exponential expansion of unstructured data in particular. The era of data overload and AI has arrived, and there is no turning back.
This reality implies that AI can truly sift and handle the deluge of data–not just for big giants like Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta with their massive R&D departments and tailored AI tools, but for the typical corporation and even some small and medium-sized businesses.

Well-designed AI-based systems quickly filter through enormously vast datasets to produce fresh insights, which fuel fresh sources of income, adding significant value to enterprises. But without the new kid on the block, vector databases, none of the data expansion really becomes operationalized and democratized. Vector DBs represent a paradigm shift in database management and a new category for using the exponential amounts of unstructured data that are currently untapped in object stores. In particular, vector databases provide a mind-numbing new degree of search capacity for unstructured data, but they can also handle semi-structured and even structured data.

Vectors and Search. Unstructured data, which can't be simply sorted into row and column relationships, rarely matches the relational database paradigm. Examples include photos, video, audio, and user actions. Unstructured data management methods that are incredibly time-consuming and unreliable frequently include manually labelling the data (think labels and keywords on video platforms).

The real problem is that human methods make it very hard to perform a semantic search that comprehends the context and meaning of a picture or other unstructured piece of data, in addition to a search query.
Enter embedding vectors, often known as feature vectors, vector embeddings, or just embeddings. They are numerical values, or sort of coordinates, that represent unstructured data features or objects, such as a part of a picture, a section of a person's purchasing history, a few frames from a video, geospatial information, or anything else that doesn't neatly fit into a relational database table. These embeddings enable scalable, snappy “similarity search.”

Quality Data and Insights. An AI model, or more precisely, a machine learning (ML) or deep learning model, trained on very large amounts of high-quality input data, produces embeddings as a computational byproduct. A model is the computational result of an ML algorithm (method or procedure) conducted on data, to further draw crucial distinctions. Sophisticated, widely used algorithms include STEGO for computer vision, CNN for image processing and Google’s BERT for natural language processing. The resulting models turn each single piece of unstructured data into a list of floating-point values—our search-enabling embedding.

Therefore, a neural network model that has been properly trained will produce embeddings that are consistent with particular content and may apply to a semantic similarity search. A vector database, specifically designed to manage embeddings and their unique structure, is the instrument to store, index, and search through these embeddings.

The fact that developers from everywhere may now incorporate a vector database into AI systems, with its production-ready features and lightning-fast unstructured data search, is crucial in the industry.
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Organizationally, a crucial component of standardizing the usage of vector databases is assisting business teams and their leadership in understanding why and how they can benefit. The concept of vector search has been around for quite a while, but only on a very small scale. Many businesses aren't really accustomed to having access to the kind of data mining and search capabilities that contemporary vector databases provide. Teams sometimes struggle with knowing where to begin. Therefore, their creators continue to place a high focus on spreading the word about how they operate and why they are valuable.

Walmart was late in actively addressing competition with Amazon in ecommerce. In its new efforts to meet Amazon’s challenge, the company announced that it has plans to open four new fulfillment centers.

These fulfillment centers are where online orders will be packed and shipped. They are the first of a new breed of logistics for Walmart. The technology-heavy investments they are making involve robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Walmart said they were working with Knapp, an international logistics provider, to replace their current 12-step manual process with a new 5 steps and doubling the number of orders a location can fulfill in a day. Instead of moving product with people, the new approach will have robots shuttle skiffs to stagers directly, eliminating the need for floor personnel to walk up to nine miles or more a day.

"These four next-generation [fulfillment centers] alone could provide 75% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping on millions of items," David Guggina, Senior Vice President of Innovation and Automation at Walmart U.S., wrote in a blog post.

When the four new centers join the company’s existing 31 dedicated e-commerce fulfillment centers, Walmart believes it will be able to reach 95% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping. And with its 4,700 physical stores, the company could offer same-day delivery to about 80% of the U.S.

Both Walmart and Amazon are focusing on their weaknesses as compared to each other. Walmart is spending billions on logistics and automation and Amazon is spending billions on new physical stores, particularly for groceries (where Walmart dominates.)

Walmart’s new fulfillment centers will be located in Joliet, Illinois; McCordsville, Indiana; Lancaster, Texas; and Greencastle, Pennsylvania—with each planning to hire over 1,000 new workers. 
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Amazon currently has 253 fulfillment centers, 110 sortation centers, and 467 delivery stations in North America, not to mention hundreds of thousands of drivers and over 100 Amazon Air cargo aircraft at the end of 2021.

The single most important factor in surviving a battlefield injury is the combat medic. The medic is first on the scene and can administer help within the Golden Hour or even Golden Ten Minutes. Quick, effective medical procedures can be the difference between life and death.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Raytheon BBN to lead a team to develop an augmented reality device that will provide the combat medic with a virtual assistant. The system will use a set of AR goggles, which will provide visual information on 50 different medical procedures.

Medics are highly trained in the most common battlefield injuries, but they aren’t doctors or surgeons and often have no experience in little-used procedures which may be needed at a moment’s notice. This is why DARPA is working on its Medical Assistance, Guidance, Instruction and Correction (MAGIC) system. 

MAGIC uses a pair of augmented reality goggles equipped with audio and video sensors and special artificial intelligence software that can act as an assistant to monitor the situation and advise the medic on how to proceed.

Raytheon will use machine learning technology to ‘teach’ the system both medical skills and situation assessment skills. The initial prototype will study 2,500 stereo videos and almost 50 million images. The machine learning process will review the historical data and synthesize useful concepts and solutions from that data.

When the AI software is ready, MAGIC should be able to provide spoken suggestions to medics or project visual overlays on the scene to guide their hands through needed medical procedures. The system will also provide events timing from engagement to final hand-off to field hospital personnel. MAGIC will also provide dosage guidance for in-field medications.

A first prototype is expected in about 18 months.
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"The combat medical environment is challenging and chaotic," said Raytheon BBN scientist Brian VanVoorst. "Our goal for the Raytheon BBN MAGIC AI tool is to help support personnel to provide guidance as needed without disrupting their concentration."

Edge technologies are projected to experience the highest investment increase in 2022, growing 76% to $462,000 according to a new Gartner, Inc. survey.

Looking back to 2021, 5G drew the highest average investment in 2021, with survey respondents reporting an average of $465,000 invested in the technology. This was followed by IoT at $417,000 and edge technologies (i.e., edge AI and edge computing) at $262,000. 

The edge architecture is allowing AI to become more actionable. Moving AI inferencing closer to the point of data generation is making the edge more intelligent, which is improving decision-making within organizations and data-driven outcomes. In conducting AI inferencing on the edge, the data is processed in real time to generate actionable insights for decision-makers.

It makes sense that among the reasons organizations are using edge technologies and 5G are to improve employee productivity, augment existing products and services by making them more connected and intelligent, and automate business processes. Asset intensive industries such as manufacturing, natural resources and energy are among the early adopters of ET to solve core business problems. 

It’s interesting to note that the decisions to invest in these emerging technologies (ET) no longer solely rest with IT. The survey showed that Boards of Directors are among the main decision makers for ET investments in over half of surveyed organizations, just behind CIOs and CTOs, signaling that the business has more confidence in the ROI these technologies bring.

In fact, counter to conventional thinking, most survey respondents reported that ET investments are meeting or exceeding user expectations. When enterprises are choosing between two vendors’ ET offerings, the vendors’ ability to provide demonstrable use cases and a track record of success ultimately clinches the win. Product managers should look to focus on these success stories and ensure short deployment/ implementation timelines when targeting business users to adopt ET.
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Gartner surveyed 500 global respondents from mid-sized and larger organizations in September and October 2021 to understand buying behavior when investing in emerging technologies.