Emerging Technology Trends You Need to Know in 2023

The frequency of emerging technology trends has been increasing at a rate that’s hard to fathom. In the past, new technologies may have arisen every few decades. Now, we live in a time when each new year brings with it a series of exciting new emerging technology trends, and 2023 is no exception. 

The COVID-19 pandemic ensured that even the most skeptical and conservative businesses shifted toward digital realms. Due to this wide-scale digital transformation, along with significant pandemic-related changes like remote work, 2023’s emerging technology trends aren’t just cool gadgets that are in vogue. They can truly be the tools that help the world build its future.   

If we look back at the tech trends of 2022, you’ll quickly notice a lot of talk about blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies, the Internet of Things (IoT), digital twins, and the rise of robotic process automation (RPA). We would see articles about edge computing and other IT advancements, and observe that hyper-automation was another buzzword. 

While most of those were (and still are) incredible and exciting, the emerging technologies of 2023 are likely to make them look archaic.

Let’s take a look at the emerging technology trends that are ready to set 2023 alight:

1. Green Tech 

In 2023, there’ll be nothing more important on this planet than sustainability. Most businesses know that simply maintaining the status quo when it comes to sustainability is insufficient. They need to mediate actual change. Therefore, one of the biggest common elements in new technology this year will be sustainability. 

The forecast for the Green Technology and Sustainability market sees a figure of $51.01 billion by 2029. This is a massive increase from the $11.49 billion valuation in 2021. This change will be seen at a compound annual growth rate of 20.6%. North America will lead this charge, and green computing, green printing, and green data centers are likely to be the norm very soon. 

2. Metaverse 

The word Metaverse has been on our radar for a long time. However, only now are we seeing the potential of its real-world manifestation. While a lot of our view on the Metaverse is influenced by the activities of Meta, it’s important to view the Metaverse as a web of technologies rather than a single company.

It’s all but certain that technologies like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will find industry-specific as well as everyday real-world applications. The Metaverse, and everything else that Web3 brings with it, is set to transform life as we know it.

As Metaverse hardware becomes increasingly less bulky and expensive, its potential to augment our lives will become stronger. As innovation accelerates in the coming years, you can bet that the lines between virtual and physical worlds will begin to blur.

3. Embedded Finance 

With a current market value of $54.3 billion, the embedded finance market is expected to rocket to $248.4 billion by 2032. 2023 appears to be a vital moment for embedded finance, which, fundamentally, is the integration of banking services into third-party apps that are often not banking-related. 

Rather than viewing this shift as the end of banking-as-a-service, it’s important to see this as a natural evolution that’s triggered by digital transformation and ever-changing consumer behaviors and expectations. 

The advancements in Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) provide banks and businesses with unlimited potential to be interconnected and symbiotic.  

4. Superapps 

Everyday-smartphone applications have evolved so rapidly that we take most of them for granted. In 2023, we are likely to see a rise in superapps, which are applications that help the user with a main set of services and also a series of sub-services that are easily accessed via mini-apps. These mini-apps can be accessed from the superapp itself instead of an app store. 

Superapps can transform the stories of businesses, their consumers, and also various third-party innovators who can integrate their mini-apps into a parent application. By nature, superapps are structurally unlimited. 

It’s difficult to imagine just how much value one superapp can potentially provide, which makes it one of the key emerging technology trends of 2023. 

5. Industry Cloud Platforms 

In the current competitive landscape, any business that doesn’t adopt cloud computing technology is likely to fall behind. After all, without the power and flexibility of the cloud, it will be near impossible for companies implementing big data initiatives to drive better decision-making.

Cloud-based infrastructure provides businesses with seamless connectivity and low latency. Furthermore, organizations also benefit from cost-saving, sustainable, and efficient solutions that suit the needs of the modern era.

2023 will see increased adoption of cloud services, including managed IT services, offered by leading providers, which is the logical next step after previous forms of cloud adoption. 

Industry cloud platforms are an amalgamation of cloud technologies that are configured to suit the common needs of a particular industry. These common needs could include workload management, compliance and regulation, and data management. Gartner reports that by 2027, businesses will leverage industry cloud platforms for more than half of their critical business.    

6. Blockchain: Chapter 2 

Like most new and exciting technologies, the rhetoric around blockchain in 2022 was perhaps a little too dramatic. While blockchain technology is powerful and likely to transform industries like supply chain management, finance, cybersecurity, and banking, the reality is that blockchain architecture will likely co-exist with existing business models rather than completely replace them. 

Decentralization is becoming a priority for many institutions and individuals. The transparency, reduced costs, storage, speed, and security that blockchain architecture provides is an alluring option for various industries. In 2023, we are likely to see the destigmatization of blockchain technology. The unfolding of its next chapter has the world waiting with bated breath. 

7. Platform Engineering 

The foundation of a successful digital transformation and a robust digital ecosystem is platform engineering. Essentially, platform engineering is the development of a digital platform that leverages AI-powered automation that helps developers and developing teams design and deploy various digital software and services from the springboard of cloud-based infrastructure.

Platform engineering is all about customization and configuration. Even two businesses in the same industry may not benefit from the same platform because they are intricately tailored to the business logic of a particular company. Good platform engineering will hasten operations and allow businesses and their developers to serve their customers effectively and efficiently.

8. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (ML) have potentially been on every annual emerging technology list for a decade. However, 2023 is likely to see the widespread adoption of AI-based technologies across industries like healthcare, banking, manufacturing, and retail (customer experience).

This is because, for the first time, strong AI tools are available to everyone at low or no cost. This is largely thanks to accessible and inclusive low-code and no-code AI tools, and real-time data analytics protocols.

While AI is set to transform nearly every industry, one of the most exciting trends is generative AI. Generative AI, powered by algorithms, can learn from historical patterns and reproduce high-quality multimedia content that can potentially sidestep plagiarism. This AI jump, evolving from autofill to producing Hemingwayesque prose, will change content creation forever.    

9. Quantum Computing 

We are living in a time when it’s strange to say that computers are incapable of certain activities. Yet, that’s the truth, and it’s a truth that quantum computing is here to solve. Quantum computing is essentially a marriage of quantum mechanics and traditional computing to solve complex, high-variable problems that computers (even supercomputers) struggle to solve.

While quantum computing will have numerous and diverse use cases, McKinsey states that pharmaceuticals, chemicals, automotive, and finance will be the first industries to embrace and benefit from it. The quantum computing market is set to reach a value of $1765 million by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate of 30.6% from 2022. 

The six factors that McKinsey believes will influence the progress of quantum computing, funding, accessibility, standardization, industry consortia, talent, and digital infrastructure, are likely to evolve in 2023 and give quantum computing a solid push into the mainstream.  

10. Advanced Observability 

There’s been a lot of talk about applied observability, and that’s something 2023 is going to see in action. Observability is a measure of how well the internal elements of a system can be viewed, diagnosed, and protected by only studying its external features. Advanced observability will help businesses ensure that their systems are running properly without dismantling them.  

While the technical details of advanced observability could fill whole books, its benefits are what’s most compelling. Observability allows companies to save costs on the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of issues. It enhances scalability, automated remediation, and the accurate discovery of new problems, bugs, or threats that may have previously been unknown.   

It’s evident that 2023 is likely to be a glorious year for emerging technologies, particularly the trends featured in this article. Like every other year, some of these trends will dominate industries worldwide, and some will have more regional and specific uses. The most exciting is the prospect of currently unknown technologies emerging from the ether. 

Keeping a keen eye on these emerging technology trends will help companies, individuals, governments, and other institutions understand the possible arc of the future. Some of these trends may go on to have a significant impact on the next era and the direction of human advancement itself. Others may be fun reminders of the primitivity of our current times.

What’s certain is that the COVID-19 pandemic changed our world in profound ways. The losses we suffered were immense, and they were a grave reminder of the fragility of our existence. Inverse are these technology trends, whose potential and power allow our minds to wander and wonder about the tools we yield and their potential for positive change in 2023.