When Atoms meet Bits
The Accenture Technology Vision 2023, “When Atoms Meet Bits: The Foundations of Our New Reality,” explores the technology trends underpinning the convergence of the physical and digital, as businesses look to accelerate enterprise reinvention in the here and now.
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Accenture Technology Vision
Accenture Technology Vision 2023
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your data, my data, our data
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From insights to action, the path to extraordinary value starts here.
Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Foreword Businesses must embrace the foundations of our new reali While standing at the edge of the next great Yet our research shows that only 8% of companies The goal is not incremental improvement, but a step technological era, enterprises must navigate economic are adopting a strategy of total enterprise reinvention. change towards total reinvention. Not everyone may and geopolitical uncertainty. The natural inclination of These are the Reinventors, and we believe every be ready for this change, but leaders must prepare many organizations is to pull back. We have a different company must aspire to be one. Among that now for the future where the movement between perspective. Now more than ever is the time for leaders backdrop, our Technology Vision provides insights worlds is seamless and often simultaneous. to lean into strategies powered by technology to create to enable leaders and their organizations to act now differentiation. In fact, 10 years ago we predicted every to embrace technology and use the foundations of a We look forward to sharing our latest Technology business is a digital business, and this could not be new reality as a path towards reinvention. Vision and building the foundations of a new reality more accurate today. with you. With this vision, we examine our movement between We’ve talked about the 昀椀ve key forces of change two types of worlds, physical and digital. Over Technology is the answer. The time is now. that companies must harness over the next decade, the years, enterprises and individuals have taken including the need for total enterprise reinvention. many steps to create their presence in the digital Cloud, AI, and the metaverse, in particular, have space, consciously moving back and forth between accelerated to such degrees that they dramatically physical reality and the digital ones they created. speed up change, bend the innovation curve and We believe the time has come to change that. The Julie Sweet Paul Daugherty create more and more value for every business next wave of business transformation will erase the Chief Executive Of昀椀cer Group Chief Executive - Technology & Chief Technology Of昀椀cer and organization. demarcation between those worlds to fuse them into a new reality.
Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Contents
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Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision3 02 2 ision When Atoms meet Bits: echnology V The foundations of our new reality T We live in two parallel realities, one of atoms and one of bits. When we shop, we either go into a store or pull been leading with the digital ones we’ve been up a webpage. We work in person or remote. We rapidly expanding. The goal is not incremental collaborate with people and computers, but usually improvement, but a step change. An online store not at the same time. We live our lives split between here or a smarter object there may have been good the digital and the physical, and, frankly, moving enough in the past, but we are now realizing that across these separate realities is exhausting and the true value of combining digital and physical inef昀椀cient. Transitioning between them can be together goes much further. Look at generative AI. challenging, confusing, or impossible, and while it Interest in generative AI is surging, with new tools can be easier to focus on just one or the other, doing capturing the world’s attention faster than any other so is fundamentally limiting. recent technology. But how people are using them right now—to create digital images and content— So, it’s time to change that. The next wave of is just the beginning. We can already see that this business transformation will shift from creating technology is poised to shape the future of science, isolated digital capabilities to creating the enterprise data, how we design and manufacture foundations of a new reality—a shared reality that products, and so much more. seamlessly converges the physical lives we’ve
Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Is it challenging? Yes. But even at a time when the facilities for its barley upcycling company, EverGrain, world faces an uncertain economic climate and is which uses technology and science to 昀椀nd new still in the shadow of recovery from COVID-19, we applications for byproducts of the beer-making 4, 5 are seeing enterprises make some of their most process. The company created a new barley milk- ambitious bets yet. They are fueling a new wave of based coffee drink with Airship Coffee, is developing digital-physical convergence that’s pushing us closer snacks with barley-based ingredients with Post to a seamlessly shared reality—leveraging the best of Holdings, and even developed barley straw-based atoms and bits to drive novel possibilties. packaging for Corona, turning a traditionally discarded byproduct into paper board boxes that 6, 7, 8 In healthcare, this shared reality is pushing us take 90% less water to fabricate. towards personalized care. With funding from the European Union, a consortium of hospitals, But not everyone is ready for this step change. For researchers, and startups have joined the Neurotwin many years the guiding pillar of enterprise innovation project, an effort to build digital twins of individual has been taking processes, even whole parts of the 1, 2 human brains. Each twin would be used to help organization, and digitizing them—from how the healthcare providers understand and predict triggers factory 昀氀oor is run, to loyalty programs, advertising, for neurological diseases and improve preventative supply chains, and recently the entire workforce. interventions. The project is set to launch two For people, the story has been no different. People studies on individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s and have spent years building a digital life: from how we 3 epilepsy in 2023. do our banking, to establishing ourselves on social media, to choosing streaming over cable—which the Even problems as big as sustainability are being relative majority of TV watchers did for the 昀椀rst time re-examined through the lens of what we can do 9 this past summer. when we combine physical sciences and digital technology. In 2022, AB InBev expanded production
Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision While we have built a rich and meaningful digital big step after digital transformation. Though some world, we haven’t really reconciled it with the may see the metaverse as the culmination of the last physical one. Challenges with digital identity and wave of digital disruption, it’s better viewed as the data interoperability leave people overwhelmed beginning of the next. The metaverse is a watershed with technology and exposed to new dimensions of moment for the convergence of atoms and bits, fraud and risk. Many enterprises watched their entire accelerating the path to a singular shared reality. workforce go digital and are now suffering attrition Across the metaverse continuum we are making the as they struggle to 昀椀gure out how to hybridize a digital world behave more like how we experience remote workforce. We haven’t even really accounted the physical, and conversely we are using metaverse for the direct impact our digital efforts have had technologies to reimagine what we do in the on the physical world, like how an estimated 昀椀ve physical world. It is the nexus between digital and billion mobile phones will be thrown out in 2022 physical—which is why some of the most powerful alone, or how for all of cloud computing’s ef昀椀ciency ways we have seen the metaverse used are ways in bene昀椀ts, it has surpassed commercial airlines in its which we fuse the two. 10, 11 contributions to global CO emissions. 2 For example, the very 昀椀rst 3D-printed steel bridge in Given how disconnected and disjointed our digital the world was built in Amsterdam and was designed and physical worlds can feel, it’s no wonder that with this kind of digital-physical hybridization the next decade of innovative efforts is starting to 12 Not only was the bridge created with in mind. 3D-printing and robotic arms, but it was also be de昀椀ned by how we fuse the two together. The foundations of this new reality are already being put designed speci昀椀cally to coexist with a digital twin. It in place, so the time to make your own mark is now. was embedded with a cutting-edge sensor network that now feeds a digital twin with real-time data on Last year, in Accenture’s 2022 Technology Vision, vibration, strain, weather conditions, and more. The we called out the Metaverse Continuum as the next twin can predict how the bridge will behave, such
TTechnology Vechnology Vision 2ision 2023 023 | When A | When Attoms meet Bitsoms meet Bits #T#TechVechVisionision that maintenance needs can be quickly resolved and While the budding metaverse continuum is the engineers can better understand how 3D-printed most attention-grabbing frontier on the path to steel might be used in future projects. our new reality, it’s hardly the only one. OpenAI open-sourced one of the most powerful Automatic Other companies are endeavoring to thread Speech Recognition (ASR) neural networks, called digital back into physical. Google has been slowly Whisper, which was trained on nearly 700,000 hours integrating a new way昀椀nding feature into Google of speech-related data and approaches human- Maps called Live View. It creates an overlay of details 16 ASR and natural language like levels of accuracy. about, or directions around, users’ environments via processing are fusing the digital and physical by 13 And Snap doing away with today’s abstractions like keyboards geolocators and smartphone cameras. has been expanding its AR technology far beyond and gestures and allowing people to engage 昀椀lters, partnering with companies like Amazon, the digital world in one of the most human ways Puma, and Ralph Lauren to integrate 3D product possible: speech. modeling and augmented reality try-on features 14, 15 into the shopping experience. This blurring of Or consider the growing trend of cobots the digital-physical boundary is now exposing new (collaborative robots), a market that is set to expand We’ve arrived at an exciting frontier of technology modes of commerce: the company is rolling out a 17 These machines let the innovation for businesses, one where we’re not just to $16.3 billion by 2028. new “Dress Up” feature where users can discover, power of machine intelligence and automation digitizing but starting to put that digital foundation try on, and shop for new products directly in the app, bleed into the physical world, allowing people to to work. Fusing digital and physical is not only and the company reported 250 million people had work more naturally and unearth new ef昀椀ciencies. generating new products and services, it’s the force In one example, Moxi, a cobot designed for used its AR shopping lenses over 昀椀ve billion times behind a new era of scienti昀椀c research. Leaders are in just one year alone. hospitals, was able to save healthcare workers at one creating the next set of tools and disruptions poised hospital 3,200 hours by taking care of routine tasks to rewrite how the world works. And what’s become like deliveries and allowing the staff to spend more clear is that when atoms and bits collide, truly new 18 time giving care to patients. possibilities emerge.
Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision 2023 Technology Vision: e foundations of our new reali The convergence of our parallel realities will evolve over the next ten years. Enterprises will 昀椀rst 昀椀nd opportunity from it in speci昀椀c, narrower circumstances. It might begin as a digital twin for a single bridge, a robotics deployment in a hospital, or pairing a product designer with generative AI. But as these innovations proliferate, we will see them grow into entirely new physical environments, new ways of working in the metaverse, and more. Ultimately, the fusion of atoms and bits will disrupt the fabric of our worlds, where materials and living things are interlaced with technology and technology’s capabilities expand exponentially—leading us to a new frontier.
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Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision This year’s 2023 Technology Vision explores the will need to rethink their data collection and technology trends driving this new reality, and the architecture design to begin exposing the data steps enterprises will need to take to thrive in it. that matters. Leaders have an unprecedented We chart the path that begins with blurring physical opportunity to build trust with partners and and digital, continues through the intractable customers by proactively becoming more problems companies are starting to be able to transparent—or risk having someone else do it solve, and concludes with the science technology for them. revolution that’s bringing true novelty to businesses and the world. But the task of building this new reality won’t just be for humans. Generalizing AI explores how a new In digital identity we discuss how identity is the category of AI—spurred on by foundation models quiet catalyst of this next generation of innovation. and large language models—is becoming table Our biggest technological ambitions are being held stakes for any business operating in tomorrow’s back by old models of identity. The physical-digital market. With the sheer volume of data and insights convergence will only be sparked when people needed to drive solutions for the problems and things have identity that can traverse both enterprises face, business leaders will need to lean sides. And emerging forms of digital ID are 昀椀nally on the full capabilities that generative AI and the breaking down the walls that divide enterprises and next generation of AI advances provide. people’s physical and digital lives, sparking a torrent of change. And 昀椀nally, our forever frontier gives enterprises a window into what lies farther down the line: the Your data, my data, our data explores how science technology revolution. It explores how the transparency will be a precious resource for feedback loop between science and technology enterprises looking to lead these changes. is getting faster, with each accelerating the Supply and demand for data among all enterprise advancement of the other, in ways that begin stakeholders is dramatically increasing. Enterprises to unlock the world’s grand challenges.
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Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Bringing Atoms and Bits together: From IT and OT to ST Igniting a science technology revolution is the inevitable result of enterprises bringing atoms and bits together. As our digital and physical realities converge into one shared reality, physical science and digital technology are increasingly used to amplify one another, fundamentally reshaping the world around us. Companies already have a technology strategy that encompasses managing their information (IT) and controlling their physical systems (OT). To fully unlock the opportunity of our new reality, enterprises need to extend that strategy to a third dimension—Science Tech (ST).
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Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Take AlphaFold, a recent innovation out of DeepMind. related to protein folding—a restriction eliminated While other efforts like AlphaGo and AlphaStar by AlphaFold. In the short time since its creation, explored AI’s ability to win different types of games, AlphaFold has become a critical tool in the 昀椀eld of AlphaFold turned to a far more practical and biology, accelerating activities like drug discovery 19 Proteins are signi昀椀cant application: protein folding. and the study of novel bacteria and plant structures, the building blocks of biology, and their unique three- and deepening our understanding of deadly 21 dimensional structures determine what function they diseases. This is the true power of bringing science will perform. So, for instance, if a pharmaceutical and technology together, not just ef昀椀ciency or even company were developing a new drug, understanding acceleration—but how it completely reframes the various protein shapes would be critical to horizon of possibility, shattering what were once understanding how the drug will interact with the considered insurmountable constraints. person it is being administered to. The problem is, historically, these are extremely labor intensive to Leaders need to reorient around this mindset shift. It study, or computationally intensive to simulate. But is subtle, but profound. When enterprises approach in the summer of 2022, DeepMind publicly released digital transformation, it is often inward looking. It is a database of 200 million different protein structures about disrupting the enterprise, its partnerships, and —which covers nearly every protein known to its relationship to the market, and even demonstrating human beings—now available to all companies and new models to the market that force others to react. researchers around the world.20 The focus is on gaining advantage in the competitive landscape. But enterprises that look to science The takeaway goes beyond protein folding. AlphaFold technology are going one step beyond: They aren’t unlocked a grand challenge, and for enterprise getting a leg up in the same competition, they are leaders in all industries, that signals a brand-new rede昀椀ning the rules of the game. world of possibility. The 昀椀eld of biology has always been limited by the time it took to perform operations
Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Computational chemistry researchers at the University generation of disruption is no longer about devising of New Mexico used high performance computing a technology strategy alone, it is about designing to accomplish in just four years research that would an innovation strategy that targets digital-physical have taken 7,257 years on a single laptop.22 Solugen, convergence. The companies that succeed will 昀椀nd a biotech startup, used science and technology themselves at the center of the science technology to develop a new method of fabricating industrial revolution, and for better or worse, enterprises aren’t chemicals out of sugar instead of fossil fuels, and is hurting for areas to make their play. already partnering with water treatment providers.23 And Nokia is partnering with AST SpaceMobile to enable direct-to-cell phone connectivity from space to rural or otherwise underserved communities.24 This is the next generation of technology disruption— not just digitizing the present but accelerating towards a previously unimaginable future. The path forward will be challenging. There is no one clearly de昀椀ned technology to invest in. Though there are some likely contributors like quantum computing, arti昀椀cial intelligence, and extended reality, the point is that this
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Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Grand Challenges: Taking action in our new shared reali Becoming a leader in building a shared reality and investing in the science and technology tools to get ahead of disruption are no small tasks. Understandably, every enterprise leader might wonder what the imperative is. Why try to get ahead, and why do we need to start now?
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Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Think about some of the biggest challenges facing This is the urgency. The problems enterprises enterprises today: a global labor realignment; supply are most affected by today are ones they are not chain disruptions; misinformation; mounting pressure yet equipped to solve. Yesterday’s strategies and from customers and governments for more sustainable technologies are proving to not be enough to solutions; a growing cyberthreat landscape. These overcome the grand challenges enterprises are problems are top of mind for every executive, but starting to stare down. Building a shared reality importantly, they are fundamentally different from the of atoms and bits is the necessary path to start problems of the past. These are massively interlocked tackling new problems in new ways. Technology problems, with numerous dimensions and a multitude has always risen to meet the needs of the time, and of different partners and stakeholders at play. now the challenges we face are bigger than any one company alone. It’s time to start forging the tools to Port delays and labor shortages across the food 昀椀x them, together. service industry are impacting the bottom line for food suppliers.25, 26 52% of companies have supply chain Think about sustainability. Environmental impact partners that have been impacted by ransomware.27 is one of the most pressing grand challenges And enterprises are poised to feel the impacts of that companies and the world face today, and climate change, even if they are managing to avoid increasingly more companies are eager to be part them today. In August 2022, for instance, companies of the solution. Though despite their eagerness, in China’s Sichuan province were forced to shut down many risk still missing their targets.29 When shared factories making solar panels, cement, and more, after solutions are built, however, the future starts to a worsening drought caused hydropower reservoirs become much more attainable. Take Mango to run low.28 Is it conceivable that any enterprise could Materials. The renewable bioproducts startup solve even one of these alone? Of course not. collaborated with researchers around the world to
Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision 30 develop a bacteria-produced bioplastic designed to decompose in the ocean. So far, 昀椀ve oceanographic equipment manufacturing partners have committed to replacing all their traditional plastic with this new degradable bioplastic once it’s ready, with commercialization and other product applications being 31 explored as the collaboration evolves. Or look at the grand challenge of delivering better healthcare. When it comes to using data to improve treatment, hospitals are typically limited to their own datasets for patient privacy reasons. But in a recent study published in Nature Medicine, 20 hospitals from around the world participated in training a federated learning model called EXAM, which predicted future oxygen 32 The model leveraged data, including requirements of COVID-19 patients. patient vital signs, laboratory data, and chest X-rays, from all of the participating hospitals—but each hospital trained their own copy of the AI model and periodically shared updates with a centralized server, which then aggregated them to train the global model. In this case, the hospitals created a shared reality that they couldn’t have before, using federated learning to safely share digital data on physical information to improve AI predictions.
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Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Foundations for a new reality Mounting challenges on the global stage are forcing enterprises to reorient their business objectives and tackle collective problems; generalizing AI provides imagine how they can best contribute to solving us with the machine power to aid us in doing so; and these collective problems. Some of today’s problems our forever frontier is rapidly expanding as we bring might have been considered unsolvable before—but physical sciences and information technology closer as the convergence of atoms and bits continues together. These foundations of our new reality are the to grow, the bounds of possibility expand. Digital path to taking action. identity gives us a foundation to traverse digital and physical worlds; transparency builds the trust and The world is watching. unlocks the data insights necessary to expose and What will you do next?
Technology Vision 2023 | When Atoms meet Bits #TechVision Our Four Technology Trends for 2023
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