Gartner Names the Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022 and Beyond

Gartner, Inc. released its annual list of top 12 strategic tech trends, forecasting that 2022 will keep businesses busy with new technological advances ranging from AI to automation and cybersecurity. This report was made public during the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2021 that was held online due to the pandemic. Gartner’s Research Vice President David Groombridge emphasised that the focus of the upcoming year will be on finding ways for businesses to establish direct digital connections with their customers, whilst at the same time remaining efficient and protecting margins and cash flow.

As companies spent most of 2020 and 2021 focusing on survival, which in many cases was achieved through innovative technology, the path to growth in 2022 also emphasizes creative use of technology.

Gartner’s strategic technology trends for 2022 include:

• Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Data Fabric
• AI Engineering
• Autonomic Systems
• Decision Intelligence
• Composable Applications
• Hyperautomation
• Cloud-native Platforms (CNPs)
• Privacy-enhancing Computation (PEC)
• Cybersecurity Mesh
• Distributed Enterprise
• Total Experience (TX)

Generative Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI is topping the list of strategic technology trends and is described by Gartner as one of the most visible and powerful AI techniques that are actively entering the market. Generative AI technology learns about the artifacts from data and then generates new and innovative creations that are completely original and very realistic. This technology can be used for a wide range of activities such as software development, target marketing and drug creation. At the moment Generative AI generates less than 1% of produced content, however it has a great potential and Gartner estimates that this figure will go up to 10% by 2025.

How Can Fashion Ecommerce Benefit From Generative AI?

Fashion retail & ecommerce is one of the industries that got heavily affected by the coronavirus pandemic and had to quickly adjust to the new reality. As a result of multiple lockdowns and shop closures, a large number of customers moved to shopping online causing online retail sales in the US to increase by 32.4% in 2020. As businesses had to compete for the clients and put ecommerce operations at the heart of their business activities, many have been looking for ways to improve their online shopping experience as well as the key ecommerce metrics.

GAN-Based Virtual Try-on Technology

Texel developed a solution that is based on Generative Adversarial Networks technology and can help ecommerce fashion brands achieve exactly that. Texel size advice and virtual try-on widget allows ecommerce fashion brands to increase customer engagement and improve overall user experience through simple technology integration.

The AI-powered virtual try-on feature allows clients to try-on any product on their own photograph within seconds and addresses the product fit issue whilst driving customer engagement and increasing the time spent on site. This virtual try-on feature also helps to increase consumer confidence and engagement, increase the adoption rate as well as increase the conversion rate by up to 50%. This tool is easy to use, simply requiring customers to upload a front-facing full-body photo of themselves to receive a visualisation of their chosen item on the uploaded photo in less than a minute.

Personalised Size-recommendation

In addition to the virtual try-on feature, brands can also integrate personalised size recommendation tech that helps customers to make a more informed purchasing decision size-wise, and therefore help brands to decrease their product returns. This piece of technology gives an accurate size recommendation and product fit guidance to the clients - based on several simple questions about their height, weight, age and body shape. With the help of this solution on the product details page, customers are able to make more informed decisions that result in 40% less product returns.

The combination of personalised size recommendation and the virtual try-on feature is the ultimate tool that is driving sustainable growth of ecommerce fashion businesses whilst helping to improve consumer confidence & brand loyalty. Resolved product returns problem, increased engagement levels, seamless integration processes and reduced product returns are just some of the benefits that are enjoyed by the early adopters of this technology.