Gartner’s crystal ball foresees an emerging ‘super class’ of technologies Credit: Thinkstock ORLANDO – Gartner sees things like robots and drones replacing a third of all workers by 2025, and whether you want to believe it or not, is entirely your business. This is Gartner being provocative, as it typically is, at the start of its major U.S. conference, the Symposium/ITxpo. Take drones, for instance. “One day, a drone may be your eyes and ears,” said Peter Sondergaard, Gartner’s research director. In five years, drones will be a standard part of operations in many industries, used in agriculture, geographical surveys and oil and gas pipeline inspections. “Drones are just one of many kinds of emerging technologies that extend well beyond the traditional information technology world — these are smart machines,” said Sondergaard. Smart machines are an emerging “super class” of technologies that perform a wide variety of work, both the physical and the intellectual kind, said Sondergaard. Machines, for instance, have been grading multiple choice for years, but now they are grading essays and unstructured text. This cognitive capability in software will extend to other areas, including financial analysis, medical diagnostics and data analytic jobs of all sorts, says Gartner. “Knowledge work will be automated,” said Sondergaard, as will physical jobs with the arrival of smart robots. “Gartner predicts one in three jobs will be converted to software, robots and smart machines by 2025,” said Sondergaard. “New digital businesses require less labor; machines will be make sense of data faster than humans can.” Among those listening in this audience was Lawrence Strohmaier, the CIO of Nuverra Environmental Solutions, who said Gartner’s prediction is similar to what happened in other eras of technological advance. “The shift is from doing to implementing, so the doers go away but someone still has to implement,” said Strohmaier. IT is a shift, although a slow one, to new types of jobs, no different than what happened in the machine age, he said. The forecast of the impact of technology on jobs was also a warning to the CIOs and IT managers at this conference to consider how they will adapt. “The door is open for the CIO and the IT organization to be a major player in digital leadership,” said David Aron, a Gartner analyst. CIOs have been steadily gaining authority, and 41% of CIOs now report to the CEO, a record level, said Aron. That’s based on data from 2,810 CIOs globally. To be effective leaders, Gartner argues that CIOs have shifted from being focused on measuring things like cost to being able to lead with vision and describe what their business or government agency must do to take advantage of smarter technologies. Related content feature Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build? Get the latest info on new preview builds of Windows 11 as they roll out to Windows Insiders. Now updated for Build 22635.3566 for the Beta Channel, released on April 26, 2024. By Preston Gralla Apr 26, 2024 251 mins Small and Medium Business Microsoft Windows 11 news Dropbox adds end-to-end encryption for team folders Dropbox this week unveiled a range of features, including security updates and key management, and the ability to co-edit Microsoft 365 documents from within the file-sharing app. By Matthew Finnegan Apr 26, 2024 3 mins Cloud Storage Collaboration Software Productivity Software feature Android versions: A living history from 1.0 to 15 Explore Android's ongoing evolution with this visual timeline of versions, starting B.C. (Before Cupcake) and going all the way to 2024's Android 15 (beta) release. By JR Raphael Apr 26, 2024 23 mins Small and Medium Business Smartphones Android news analysis The unspoken obnoxiousness of Google's Gemini improvements Google's Gemini chatbot is seeing all sorts of upgrades on Android this week, but those advancements reveal a darker underlying reality. By JR Raphael Apr 26, 2024 12 mins Google Assistant Google Android Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe