The global cellular M2M market will nearly quintuple from over 620 million connections in 2019 to 3 billion connections in 2024, according to a new report by global tech market advisory firm, ABI Research. While connection revenues will double to $32 billion over the forecast period, these revenues will account for just 14% of all cellular M2M value-added services revenues in 2024. To capture greater share of the M2M revenue opportunity, global operators must expand their horizontal capabilities, partner with vertical specialists, and move up the value stack.

New data from Juniper Research forecasts that the value of AI underwritten insurance premiums will exceed $20 billion by 2024, up from an estimated $1.3 billion in 2019. This growth will be driven by streamlined underwriting processes, faster customer onboarding and reductions in operational costs enabled by AI.

Worldwide spending on blockchain solutions is forecast to be nearly $15.9 billion in 2023, according to a new update to the Worldwide Semiannual Blockchain Spending Guide from International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC expects blockchain spending to grow at a robust pace throughout the 2018-2023 forecast period with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 60.2%. Blockchain spending in 2019 is forecast to be $2.7 billion, an increase of 80% over 2018.

Uptake of smart home devices continues apace and is on track to ship 137 million units in 2019, worth $16 billion in trade value, according to a new market report from Futuresource Consulting. That represents a 37% volume increase on 2018, with a slowdown in home hub sales being eclipsed by accelerating growth in other categories. And although growth remains strong, it is now tracking slightly below previous Futuresource forecasts.

Consumers in Asia Pacific are some of the most advanced when it comes to digital engagement with financial services, with 73 percent of consumers believing that they should be able to accomplish any financial task on a mobile device, according to new data released by Forrester Research.

In 2021, artificial intelligence (AI) augmentation will create $2.9 trillion of business value and 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity globally, according to Gartner, Inc.

The global data analytics outsourcing market is expected to generate revenue of $25.56 billion by 2027, expanding to 21.84 percent CAGR over the forecast period from 2019 to 2027.

Dotscience, the pioneer in DevOps for machine learning (ML), today released the findings of its inaugural State of Development and Operations of AI Applications 2019 report which revealed that despite significant investment in AI, many companies are still struggling to stabilize and scale their AI initiatives.

According to analysts at Ponemon Research, the cost of a data breach has risen 12% over the past 5 years1 and now costs $3.92 million on average. These rising expenses are representative of the multiyear financial impact of breaches, increased regulation and the complex process of resolving criminal attacks.

New data from Juniper Research found that the number of voice assistants used to access smart home devices will reach 555 million by 2024; up from 105 million in 2019. By 2024, Juniper Research expects more than 90% of voice assistants to be used to control smart home devices; driven by increased participation from Chinese manufacturers.

With telecommunication service providers and cable television multiple system operators (MSO) continuing their fiber build-outs, the market for fiber optic test equipment (FOTE) is expected to grow from $781.3 million in 2018 to $1.31 billion in 2025. The lack of fiber expertise among access network technicians and the sheer volume of fiber deployments required in a short time will enable innovative FOTE manufacturers to differentiate themselves in the market.

The market for virtual assistants (VAs) shows strong positive momentum, driven forward by a combination of rising consumer demand and improvements in the enabling technologies. According to a new report from Futuresource Consulting, global shipments will exceed 2.3 billion units by 2023, up from a projected 1.1 billion for 2019, with a CAGR of 20% over the reporting period.

International Data Corporation (IDC) has published a new assessment profiling ten providers of managed cloud services worldwide. The IDC MarketScape report uses a comprehensive framework to assess the vendors relative to a set of criteria that explain success in the managed cloud services market and highlights the factors expected to be the most influential for success in both the short term and the long term. A significant component of this evaluation are the perceptions of buyers surveyed by IDC of both the key characteristics and the capabilities of these providers.

While the jury is out on what percentage of large digital transformation initiatives are successful, projects that focus on digitizing and improving specific operations have a proven track record of delivering tangible cost and efficiency benefits in 90-, 60- and even 30-day timeframes, according to Mike Rossi, Senior Vice President for Menlo Park, Calif.-based Vitria.

the number of people using government-issued digital identity credentials will grow by over 150% from an expected 1.7 billion in 2019 to over 5 billion in 2024, according to a new report from Juniper Research. Emerging economies in Asia and Africa are some of the biggest markets, as countries leapfrog analogue identities to benefit from the efficiencies digital registration and management bring.

Worldwide TV shipments are riding high, ending 2018 with the strongest growth rate this decade, with value up by 6%, according to a new market report from Futuresource Consulting.

By 2022, 75% of all databases will be deployed or migrated to a cloud platform, with only 5% ever considered for repatriation to on-premises, according to Gartner, Inc. This trend will largely be due to databases used for analytics, and the software-as a-service (SaaS) model.

Openness comes to most proprietary technologies, because it is a time honored way of bringing down pricing in any given market. Whether Open RAN concepts emerge in the next 12 months or over the next four years, it will have the same effect, according to a report from Rethink Research.

Rising from negligible levels this year, the global market for microLED displays is expected to grow to 15.5 million units in 2026 as steep declines in manufacturing costs make the emerging technology suitable for the mass market, according to  IHS Markit’s Micro LED Display Technology & Market report.

Three-quarters of organizations surveyed by Gartner, Inc. increased customer experience (CX) technology investments in 2018. Customer analytics continues to be one of the biggest investments, with 52% intending to increase funding in 2019, focusing on customer journey analysis, customer needs analysis, voice of the customer (VoC) and digital marketing.