In what seems in many ways, such a long, long time ago (but was in actuality about 2002) I entered the brave new world of Mobile Media.
I joined an international media company based in Europe, to head up a North America-focused division of their very successful mobile sports content business – text alerts; subscription WAP, and burgeoning video.
From today’s perspective, our offerings seem so primitive and rudimentary but… in the day, we spent much of our time explaining the ins and outs of even such basics as SMS alerts to North American media executives who not only were unaware, but also, saw little potential for mobile as a media platform. (Oh, how times have changed!)
(Image courtesy of ITNEWSBUZZ.com)
Ah… the heady days of what we happily referred to, tongue-in-cheek, as a “Wild West Show.” Mobile content in North America was so new and exciting… guidelines were developed on the fly… we broke new ground…we struggled to educate our market… we “fought” for top-tier deck position with the carriers… we were warriors… we were evangelists for the future… (more of those experiences at a later date) we built an industry and analytics systems… as a result, worldwide mobile traffic has been greater in volume than desktop traffic for several years now and shows strong growth and …but… did we “REALLY” know our users?
So… what’s next?
Hive thinking has it that mobile Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be the game changer, in part driven by growing consumer use of virtual personal assistants (like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa) in increasingly smart devices, and the expected rollout of “faster, bigger, better” 5G networks.
AI in smartphones is not new… it has powered some basic smartphone functions for years. But Gartner Inc. predicts that by 2022, 80 percent of smartphones shipped will include AI functionality, up from 10 percent in 2017.
“With smartphones increasingly becoming a commodity device, vendors are looking for ways to differentiate their products," said CK Lu, a research director at Gartner. "Future AI capabilities will allow smartphones to learn, plan and solve problems for users. This isn't just about making the smartphone smarter, but augmenting people by reducing their cognitive load. However, AI capabilities on smartphones are still in very early stages."
The next wave of development is predicted to be based on Emotion artificial intelligence (EAI) systems and that those systems will become so sophisticated, that by 2022, personal devices will know more about an individual’s emotional state than their own family.
Yes, it’s game changing. Imagine the integration of Chat bots and mobile apps able to recognize and respond to your every emotional state, such as anger, frustration, irritation, happiness, grief – potentially personalizing EVERY interaction with our devices.
“Emotion AI systems and affective computing are allowing everyday objects to detect, analyze, process and respond to people’s emotional states and moods to provide better context and a more personalized experience,” said Roberta Cozza, a research director at Gartner. “Prototypes and commercial products already exist and adding emotional context by analyzing data points from facial expressions, voice intonation and behavioral patterns will significantly enhance the user experience,” added Ms. Cozza. “Beyond smartphones and connected home devices, wearables and connected vehicles will collect, analyze and process users’ emotional data via computer vision, audio or sensors capturing behavioral data to adapt or respond to a user’s wants and needs.”
In our opinion, both up and down-side potential and emergence of mobile EAI systems is something we need to watch closely. As we have seen, mobile technology trends have and increasingly do change the way we interact with any number of our devices - fixed and mobile - and have significantly affected our businesses, the technology market and the way we live every day.
In light of the current Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, amongst others, and resultant outrage over perceived intrusions into our privacy, how do you think EAI will be received?
