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Trends in Security Information
The HSD Trendmonitor is designed to provide access to relevant content on various subjects in the safety and security domain, to identify relevant developments and to connect knowledge and organisations. The safety and security domain encompasses a vast number of subjects. Four relevant taxonomies (type of threat or opportunity, victim, source of threat and domain of application) have been constructed in order to visualize all of these subjects. The taxonomies and related category descriptions have been carefully composed according to other taxonomies, European and international standards and our own expertise.
In order to identify safety and security related trends, relevant reports and HSD news articles are continuously scanned, analysed and classified by hand according to the four taxonomies. This results in a wide array of observations, which we call ‘Trend Snippets’. Multiple Trend Snippets combined can provide insights into safety and security trends. The size of the circles shows the relative weight of the topic, the filters can be used to further select the most relevant content for you. If you have an addition, question or remark, drop us a line at info@securitydelta.nl.
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Reshaping human-machine connections through AI, neuroscience, and human-centered design
Early trend participants recognize that the stakes are high. The ability to leverage emotionally intelligent platforms to recognize and use emotional data at scale will be one of the biggest, most important opportunities for companies going forward. The human experience platforms trend reverses traditional design approaches by starting with the human and emotion-led experience we want to achieve, and then determining which combination of affective and AI technologies can deliver them. The big challenge that companies will face is identifying the specific responses and behaviors that will resonate with—and elicit an emotional response from—a diverse group of customers, employees, and other stakeholders, and then developing the emotional technologies that can recognize and replicate those traits in an experience.
In the coming months, we expect growing demand for technologies to become more human. We’ve reached a point in the digital revolution at which everyone’s connected to technology but not necessarily to each other
The human experiences platforms trend is fueled by a growing demand from system users that technologies engage us in more meaningful, human-like ways. In the coming years, we expect this demand to become a nonnegotiable expectation. Today, trend pioneers are integrating affective computing, AI, and neuroscientific research into their strategies and systems to transform the rules of user engagement. In the near future, “emotionally intelligent” technologies and tactics will likely give rise to new business models and ways of working.
AS YOU ENTER the last leg of a long drive home, a network of cameras, microphones, and sensors embedded throughout your car monitors your facial expressions, voice, and the way you are using the car’s functionality. Analyzing the inputs in real time, your car—using computer vision, voice recognition, and deep learning capabilities—determines that you are getting tired and distracted. In response, these AI-powered tools lower the thermostat and turn up the volume on the radio, and a conversational agent gently suggests you pull over or stop for a cup of coffee at a restaurant three miles ahead.1 These technologies are engaging you—a human driving a car—in human terms. Myriad technologies that detect physical states such as alertness are increasingly being used to infer emotional states such as happiness or sadness. Unlike their machine forebears that set rigid rules of engagement, these systems will follow rules, reading your mood, intuiting your needs, and responding in contextually and emotionally appropriate ways. Welcome to the next stage of human-machine interaction, in which a growing class of AI-powered solutions—referred to as “affective computing” or “emotion AI”—is redefining the way we experience technology. These experiences are hardly confined to automobiles. Retailers are integrating AI-powered bots with customer segmentation and CRM systems to personalize customer interactions while at the same time capturing valuable leadnurturing data.2 Apps are designing custom drinks and fragrances for fashion-show attendees based on emotional quotient (EQ) inputs.3 A global restaurant chain is tailoring its drive-through experiences based on changes in the weather.4 The list goes on. As part of the emerging human experience platforms trend, during the next 18 to 24 months more companies will ramp up their responses to a growing demand for technology to better understand humans and to respond to us more appropriately. System users increasingly expect the technologies they rely on to provide a greater sense of connection—an expectation that should not be ignored. In a recent Deloitte Digital survey of 800 consumers, 60 percent of long-term customers use emotional language to describe their connection to favored brands; likewise, 62 percent of consumers feel they have a relationship with a brand. Trustworthiness (83 percent), integrity (79 percent), and honesty (77 percent) are the emotional factors that consumers feel most align with their favorite brands.5 Historically, computers have been unable to correlate events with human emotions or emotional factors. But that is changing as innovators add an EQ to technology’s IQ, at scale. Using data and human-centered design (HCD) techniques—and technologies currently being used in neurological research to better understand human needs—affective systems will be able to recognize a system user’s emotional state and the context behind it, and then respond appropriately. Early trend participants recognize that the stakes are high. The ability to leverage emotionally intelligent platforms to recognize and use emotional data at scale will be one of the biggest, most important opportunities for companies going forward. Deloitte Digital research reveals that companies focusing on the human experience have been twice as likely to outperform their peers in revenue growth over a three-year period, with 17 times faster revenue growth than those who do not.6 Moreover, inaction could lead to more “experience debt”7 and user alienation as AI applications make us all feel a bit less human. Chances are, your competitors are already working toward this goal. Research and Markets projects that the size of the global affective computing market will grow from US$22 billion in 2019 to US$90 billion by 2024; this represents a compound annual growth rate of 32.3 percent.8 Time to get started. How will you create emotionally insightful human experiences for your customers, employees, and business partners? Knowing me, knowing you In Tech Trends 2019, we examined how marketing teams—by adopting new approaches to data gathering, decisioning, and delivery—can create personalized, contextualized, dynamic experiences for individual customers. These data-driven experiences, embodying the latest techniques in HCD, can inspire deep emotional connections to products and brands, which in turn drive loyalty and business growth.9 The human experience platforms trend takes that same quest for deeper insights and connections to the next level by broadening its scope to include not only customers but employees, business partners, and suppliers— basically anyone with whom you interact. In addition to data, human experience platforms leverage affective computing—which uses technologies such as natural language processing, facial expression recognition, eye tracking, and sentiment analysis algorithms—to recognize, understand, and respond to human emotion. Affective computing can help us achieve something truly disruptive: It makes it possible for us to be human at scale. What do we mean by that? Right now, true human connections are limited to the number of people we can fit into a room. Technologies such as phones or webcams connect us to other humans but remain only a conduit, and connections made through technology conduits are useful yet emotionally limited. But what if technology itself could become more human? What if a bot appearing on the screen in front of our faces could engage us with the kind of emotional acuity and perceptive nuance that we expect from human-human interaction? Today, you may walk into a clothing store and barely notice the screens mounted on shop walls, displaying items currently on sale; the ads aren’t particularly relevant, so you don’t give them a second thought. But imagine if you could walk into that same space and a bot appearing on the screen recognizes you and addresses you by name.10 This bot has been observing you walk around the store and has identified jackets you might love based on your mood today and your purchasing history. In this moment, technology engages you as an individual, and as a result, you experience this store in a very different, more human way. AI and affective technologies have scaled an experience with very human-like qualities to encompass an entire business environment. Designing for humans The human experience platforms trend reverses traditional design approaches by starting with the human and emotion-led experience we want to achieve, and then determining which combination of affective and AI technologies can deliver them. The big challenge that companies will face is identifying the specific responses and behaviors that will resonate with—and elicit an emotional response from—a diverse group of customers, employees, and other stakeholders, and then developing the emotional technologies that can recognize and replicate those traits in an experience.
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Now connecting The work of making technology more human is hardly new. Voice assistants that only a few Christmases ago were the coolest gift under the tree are now ubiquitous, and the kiosk bots that engage mall shoppers in amusing ways today will soon be old news. And there are much bigger human experience initiatives underway. We’re already seeing advanced use cases emerge in the biopharmaceutical sector, exploring ways to use augmented reality and virtual reality in care management.15 In the coming months, we expect growing demand for technologies to become more human. We’ve reached a point in the digital revolution at which everyone’s connected to technology but not necessarily to each other. We are disintermediating processes and interactions and engaging directly with machines. It is unsurprising, then, that we crave what we are rapidly losing: meaningful connections. In response, we increasingly expect technology to treat us in more human—and humane—ways. Designing technologies that can meet this expectation will require deeper insights into human behavior, and new innovations that enhance our ability to anticipate and respond to human needs. But the incentive is there. In the near future, human experiences will likely deliver a durable and lasting competitive advantage.