CES 2019 Day 3: Five Cool Things You Need to Know
Key Points
The Coresight Research team is at the annual CES event (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas this week. This is what we see as the hottest takeaways from the third day:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) will destroy, create and change jobs.
- Companies in diverse industries are refashioning themselves as tech companies.
- Autonomous vehicles are coming; however, human-machine interaction appears to be the best solution for the near future.
- Alibaba is taking B2B e-commerce to a new level with technology and services to offer global e-commerce to small businesses.
- 5G wireless will change our lives and create new activities in ways we have not yet imagined.
1. AI will destroy—and create and change—jobs.
AI promises to make businesses smarter and free humanity of many mindless, repetitive jobs. This means people who do mindless, repetitive tasks will need to find something else to do. The good news is, AI will also create new, higher-skilled jobs, such as building and maintaining the AI systems. IBM CEO Ginny Rometty estimates that 100% of jobs will be different in some way as a result of AI.
2. Companies in diverse industries are refashioning themselves as “tech” companies.
The Coresight Research team visited the booth of Procter and Gamble (P&G), a recent arrival to CES. P&G’s booth highlighted the work it’s doing with emerging innovators, connected personal care devices, 3D printing, and the use of image processing and AI to determine the optimal mix of beauty products for its customers. P&G is one of only many companies seeking to integrate technology more deeply into their business — in many cases positioning themselves as technology companies.
3. Autonomous vehicles are coming; however, human-machine interaction appears to be the best solution for the near future.
The move towards fully autonomous vehicles continues to advance but still faces huge technological and social questions. For example, in a situation in which an automatic vehicle has to choose between causing a crash or hitting a human, will AI be able to make the same decision a human would? For now, the solution seems to be a mix of machine driving that hands control back to the driver but can intervene to stop a disaster.
4. Alibaba is taking B2B ecommerce to a new level with technology and services to offer global ecommerce to small businesses.
Alibaba demonstrated a real-time videoconferencing application with voice translation using AI that enables parties to negotiate visually in real time. In addition, the company has created trade show areas with its app, where buyers and sellers can view products and short videos. The company is also providing financial services to streamline commerce.
5. 5G wireless will change our lives and create new activities in ways we have not yet imagined.
5G wireless promises fiber-optic like data of around 1 Gbps, plus a slew of other performance leaps that will let 5G devices do many more complex things. For example, with 5G, ten times the number of devices can be connected communicate with one another much more quickly. For example, fleets of drones could view forest fires and utility infrastructure. The higher data rates and low latency (the time it takes to connect to the network) will enable quicker response and better performance in disparate applications such as virtual reality, gaming and augmented reality for more precise surgery.