IoT = The 2nd Innovation Era

Since the decision to host the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, opportunities to discuss the "future" five to ten years ahead seem to have increased dramatically. In this series, while introducing our Dentsu Inc. Marketing Solutions Bureau project "Mi-Life Innovation 2025," we aim to explore how we can envision the future, starting from the evolution of technology and Life Innovation.

 

The Challenge of Weaving "Technology" into Future Scenarios

Thinking about the near future—five or ten years ahead—is exciting and stimulates the imagination. Yet, translating that into concrete scenarios is incredibly difficult. We believe the particular challenge lies in how to weave in the element of "technology."

One well-known framework for creating "the future" is "PEST analysis." This analytical method takes its name from the initials of four elements: P (Politics), E (Economy), S (Society), and T (Technology). Anyone who has attempted this analysis even once will recognize that the first three elements—P (Politics), E (Economy), and S (Society)—can be derived fairly comprehensively by logically extracting relevant items.

However, the final element, "Technology," is the most challenging. While it represents a variable with significant influence—what technologies will emerge and how they will impact society—it also has the greatest margin of uncertainty when it comes to prediction.

Conversely, when starting from "Technology" to envision the future, we often face the challenge that it inevitably leads only to "future lifestyle scenarios" visible as extensions of existing technologies. This seems to be a common challenge among companies actually engaged in technology R&D, and it appears to be the background behind the frequent consultations our team receives.

Therefore, our "Mi-Life Innovation 2025" project defines the changes brought to our lives by "the evolution and adoption of technology" as "Life Innovation." We aim to explore the core of this Life Innovation while envisioning life scenarios and new services for 2025.

 

The 1st Life Innovation was the revolution of "distance"

It's widely agreed that one of the technologies most impacting our lives in recent years was the emergence and spread of the "Internet." So, what exactly was the core Life Innovation the Internet brought us?

We believe it was "distance."

The explosive proliferation of mobile phones and smartphones normalized the use of email, chat, and social media, eliminating the distance between people. Furthermore, the widespread adoption of online shopping eliminated the distance between people and stores. And above all, the normalization of searching for information online eliminated the distance between people and information.

In other words, I believe the first major innovation brought about by the advent and spread of the internet over the past 20 years was a revolution concerning "distance."

 

Key Technologies Driving 2nd Life Innovation

Meanwhile, a new technology trend has been emerging since around 2014: IoT (Internet of Things). This concept extends beyond mobile devices to encompass the connection of virtually everything to the internet.

According to predictions by Gartner, the IoT market is expected to expand rapidly over the next five years, surpassing 25 billion connected devices by 2020.
Considering this IoT trend, let's examine the key technologies expected to form the core of the next wave of 2nd Life Innovation.

[IoT Device Adoption Forecast]