AI, Agric Receive Attention in New 'The Futurist' Report

Together with AT&T Foundry and RocketSpace, Ericsson has released the third installment of The Futurist Report series.

The report gives an inside look into the cutting-edge technologies and companies that are shaping the future for artificial intelligence, and what this means for consumers.

The report also explains how artificial intelligence (AI) and automation will affect the way we live our lives, and how brands will adapt and cater to changing consumer experiences.

AI will have an enormous impact on our daily lives. From enabling hyper-personalization to saving huge amounts of time on routine tasks, these new tools will fundamentally shift the way we interact with technology in our day-to-day lives.

The impact is already happening in sub-Saharan Africa, with start-ups developing solutions that have the potential to impact key socio-economic issues. For example, a Cape Town based company created an AI system to assist farming consultants in Africa to identify problem areas in crops such as wheat, macadamia nuts, citrus and sugar cane.

This technology will enable farmers to develop variable rate fertilisation application maps, predicting the yield of crops and identifying problem areas.

This is one example of how developing markets are adapting AI to address specific issues that are unique to regional challenges while taking advantage of the predicted mobile broadband growth in sub Saharan Africa.

“According to our latest Mobility Report, Mobile Broadband subscriptions in Middle East and Africa are expected to grow by almost 3 times between 2016 and 2022. This clearly illustrates the potential that AI will have across the region with the ability to impact growth in key areas that are critical for economic progress including agriculture, healthcare, education and infrastructure development said Rafiah Ibrahim, President of Ericsson Middle East and Africa.’’

To better understand developments in the AI space, over 50 successful entrepreneurs, executives and academics leading the charge on new technologies and applications were interviewed. In addition, five bold projections that showcase how AI will impact the consumer experience in coming years were developed.