2m staff made to wear wearables in the workplace; 3m will have a ‘robo-boss’ by 2018

Analyst Gartner has revealed its latest predictions for 2016 and beyond, from robo-bosses and facial recognition, to the growth in wearables.

For example, the analyst has predicted that by 2018, two million employees will be required to wear health and fitness tracking devices as a condition of employment.

Gartner believes that this requirement will be used primarily to protect employees, by tracking their heart rate, respiration and stress levels.

By 2018, Garter also says that three million workers globally will be supervised by a ‘robo-boss’, who will make decisions that were previously made by human managers.

Daryl Plummer, VP and analyst at Gartner, said: “The ‘robo’ trend, the emerging practicality of artificial intelligence, and the fact that enterprises and consumers are now embracing the advancement of these technologies is driving change.

“Gartner’s Top Predictions begin to separate us from the mere notion of technology adoption and to draw us more deeply into issues surrounding what it means to be human in a digital world."

By the end of 2018, digital assistants will also be able to recognise faces and voices across channels and partners.

Gartner said: “The last mile for multichannel and exceptional customer experiences will be seamless two-way engagement with customers and will mimic human conversations, with both listening and speaking, a sense of history, in-the-moment context, timing and tone, and the ability to respond, add to and continue with a thought or purpose at multiple occasions and places over time.”

In addition, during 2020 95 per cent of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault, so says Gartner, while other predications state that by 2020, smart agents will facilitate 40 per cent of mobile interactions, and that the post-app era will begin to dominate.

Other predictions include:

– By 2018, 20 per cent of business content will be authored by machines.

– By 2018, six billion connected things will be requesting support.

– By 2020, autonomous software agents outside of human control will participate in five per cent of all economic transactions.

– By year-end 2018, 20 per cent of smart buildings will have suffered from digital vandalism.

– By 2018, 45 per cent of the fastest-growing companies will have fewer employees than instances of smart machines.

– By the looks of Gartner’s predictions, the tech industry is set to evolve even more and we may even be taking orders from a robot in the future.