Winter 2015/2016 - The Innovation Highway Newsletter | Page 12

DECEMBER 2015 – JANUARY 2016

Artificial Intelligence
What Will Consumers Demand in 2016
Rising numbers of consumers will demand that brands use increasingly powerful and accessible artificial
intelligence technology to put truly smart products and services into their pockets, homes, inboxes and more.
Big brands are promoting their AI efforts: Toyota announced a USD 1 billion investment in 2015. Even
small developers are now able to leverage big AI resources. IBM's Watson Developer Cloud lets developers
access cognitive computing; it's used by 77,000 developers globally.

Beneficial Intelligence
This AI Trend is about serving the expectations that all of
2016's AI hype will create. Serve those, and you'll delight
customers.
That's the real point of this, and every, consumer trend.
Example: IBM’s Watson is being leveraged by
CogniToys’ developers; Google, Facebook and Airbnb
have recently all opened-sourced their machine
learning libraries

Shift Your Perspective on Pricing
Reposition your product or service in order to offer perspective shifts that shock customers into a radically
new appreciation of the value you’re offering. Driving this trend are the new funding mechanisms and
business models, digital innovations and new perceptions of value that have rendered pricing more fluid than
ever. In 2015, they only accelerated – and became more visible. For just one glimpse of that, consider the
music industry. Pay for music on Jay-Z's Tidal platform? No way! Directly fund a musician on
crowdfunding site Patreon? Sure – musician Amanda Palmer is now raising USD 36,000 a month direct
from fans on the site.
The result? Consumers will be more open than ever to innovations that play with – and attempt to disrupt –
their thinking around value. Just make it fun!

Paying Attention to Trends
Trends are important indicators providing information
about what to pay attention to that will bring you more
customers.
Trends are the “secret weapon” that helps you turn trends
overwhelmingly to your advantage.

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