New Year, New Trends: What Experts Are Saying About Tech In 2022

Man builds computer. Man programs operating system to recognize voice commands. Interactive machine assists man through adventures in space. Man lives long and prospers.

Sound familiar? That’s because over 50 years ago, a little show called Star Trek first presented unimaginable technical concepts as science fiction television fantasy. Universal translators helped Captain Kirk decipher complex languages, PADDs (or tablet computers) assisted Captain Picard’s missions on the USS Enterprise and special communicators allowed everyone on board to talk to each other.

“As any Star Trek fan would point out, the idea of interacting with computers has been in the realm of science fiction for years,” said Gradient AI CTO Hereen Pathak. “Today, we all have a taste of this experience when we talk to voice assistants like Siri or Alexa, use interactive voice response systems when calling businesses, or use online chat bots to help answer questions.”

The correlation? These ideas were all simply conceptualizations until pioneers brought them into the conversation — first as futuristic possibilities and then as modern trends whose growth was based on product influence. And while not every trend has the same impact as the Star Trek communicator leading to the real-life cellular phone, many tech experts are able to predict what big prospects are on the horizon by keeping their finger on the pulse of innovation and adapting their work accordingly.

Built In Boston caught up with six local leaders to discuss what trends will be making waves as we head into 2022, the biggest impacts each could have on their respective industries and how these trends could boldly take us where no man has gone before.

Heeren Pathak

CTO - Gradient AI

What’s one tech trend you’ll be watching closely in 2022?

Artificial intelligence and machine learning — still in their early stages of development — hold much promise to revolutionize society. In fact, many prognosticators expect AI to have a greater impact on the world than the PC or smartphone. A key element to fully realizing the benefits of this technology will be the ability to unlock the vast amounts of information stored in emails and other business documents.

All these techniques use specialized natural language processing algorithms (NLP) for supporting these limited interactions. Research in NLP continues to advance, and expanding the use of NLP is key in unlocking more intelligent interactions across a wider area of uses, which is the technology I am focused on in 2022.

Many prognosticators expect AI to have a greater impact on the world than the PC or smartphone.

What impact do you think this trend will have on your industry in particular?

At Gradient AI, we are bringing the benefits of AI and machine learning to insurance. Given that insurance is something we all use for our cars, houses, businesses and even health, the work we do has widespread impact. To date, we have focused mostly on structured data for our predictions. However, there is untapped information found in documents that we haven’t yet accessed.

Why is this information important? Consider an accident where someone was injured while driving a construction vehicle. Processing this injury creates a range of structured data and documents. The structured data provides information about the accident which is often limited. Free-form documents such as notes from the adjustor, repair shop, doctor’s office and physical therapists provide a more detailed and richer context.

The technology needed to leverage the information in these documents is still in the early stages. There is substantial effort and learning that will be required to unlock this information — something I look forward to working with my team on during this upcoming year as we continue our work in helping the insurance industry operate more effectively and efficiently.

To read the entire article: https://www.builtinboston.com/2021/12/1/experts-predict-tech-trends-2022