SAS: Forecasts for 2021 - AI and digital transition

2020 was the year that radically changed almost every aspect of everyday life and the way businesses and organizations operate. In 2021 the main goal of all is to bring the pandemic under control, so that humanity can return to normalcy.

SAS, a company in the field of analytics and Artificial Intelligence, publishes its forecasts for the new year in the various fields it specializes in and analyzes how they will affect people and businesses.

Artificial Intelligence & Analytics - Need for "Ethical" Artificial Intelligence

During the past year, the adoption of artificial intelligence and analytics aimed at limiting the pandemic to almost all aspects of human activity has been particularly strong. The increased digital transition that has taken place will help companies make quick and correct decisions in 2021 and the combination of people and analytics can bring top results for organizations.

In 2021, the need to create ethical principles in artificial intelligence that will lead to responsible practices will become more apparent. As consumers become more and more aware of ethical and artificial intelligence issues, businesses will promote "responsible artificial intelligence" practices that differentiate them from the competition and add value to the consumer.

At the same time, this year we will see the emergence of operating regulations for artificial intelligence, offsetting fears of adopting such technologies. This will pave the way for its wider and safer adoption. On the other hand, natural language processing and computer vision will play a particularly important role in discovering new sources of insights, enhancing traditional human research.

Dealing with Fraud - Fraud is high in 2021

The pandemic and the economic crisis have created the ideal conditions for fraud to flourish worldwide. Based on the latest data, SAS predicts that 2021 will be a year that will break every record, in all sectors.

2020 saw an explosion in the use of online and mobile banking, while more and more organizations, such as e.g. insurance companies, turn to entirely digital operation. It is already known that fraudsters love the digital environment and that is why companies are trying to put the necessary safeguards in the fight against fraud and respond immediately to new risks and phenomena of fraud. The cornerstone in this battle is the combination of artificial intelligence and human intelligence.

Also in the new year we will see political controversies over digital identification and privacy. Organizations are now experiencing a digital transition that was not expected before 2025. Collecting more user data will be necessary to manage identification risks, while at the same time there will be a need to pass laws that will normalize the differences between digital identification and privacy.

Health - The year of vaccines and the expansion of digital care

If 2020 was the year of Covid-19, then 2021 will be the year of vaccines. Last year, we noticed the need to optimize the health resource management model.

We have shown that this problem can be effectively solved through the use of powerful analytics to predict the course of diseases and optimize the means of controlling them, thus shielding health systems for future health crises.

At the same time, in 2020 we saw a strong display of telediagnosis of patients by doctors of various specialties. This year, although many specialties will continue to use video calling, physicians in the specialties that require the patient's physical presence for diagnosis will gradually stop using them.

Finally, there will be a rapid development of biometric data transmission via smart devices (eg smartwatch), especially patients with chronic diseases to better monitor and improve their health.

IoT - Hot trend the mechanical vision and use of biometric identification by banks

The pandemic created the ideal conditions for improving the efficiency and adoption of technologies that under normal conditions would take many more years to be fully utilized. The Internet of Things is one of the leading trends in technology, and along with pioneering mechanical vision, they have found many applications during the pandemic.

The combination of these two turns "dry" IoT data into easy-to-use insights. An example of an application of this technology is its use in commercial stores which can alert or make recommendations to customers in cases of synchronization.

Within 2021 industries such as banks, insurance and financial institutions will move towards biometric identification. Increasing security and facilitating transactions through blockchain and cryptocurrencies are the main reasons that will lead the above industries in this direction.

At the same time, the adoption of 5G technology will eliminate decision-making time in areas such as retail, industry and transport (mainly through autonomous vehicles). At the same time, the use of robots and chatbots will be further enhanced.

Personal data management - Priority after the end of the pandemic

The end of the pandemic will create the need on a global scale for greater protection of personal data. In many countries of the world in the name of the pandemic many rights related to the protection of personal data have been violated and for this reason there will be a need to restore these rights.

This may be a barrier for businesses, as different laws in each country, even in different parts of the same country (eg the US), will greatly complicate the way businesses operate, especially multinationals.

In conclusion, we observe that the pandemic brought rapid developments in technological progress and the use of large-scale technologies that would normally follow much slower rates of evolution.

Artificial intelligence, analytics, machine learning, machine vision and the Internet of Things will undoubtedly be the protagonists of the new year, offering solutions to a multitude of problems that until now seemed complex and intractable.