During the onset of the pandemic, there was a magical period when just about every industry was flung into lockdown and forced to adapt to fewer hands and new restrictions.
Restaurants and retailers transitioned to pick-up, every non-essential job went remote, and physical interactions became video exchanges with metaphysical promises.
This past weekend, CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) had tech companies on full display with everything next-gen from heat-sensing baby monitors that can alert parents of an impending diaper change to self-driving lawnmowers.
Sure, all this tech is terrific, innovative and inspiring. But many of these products won’t have any influence on your day-to-day for a long time, if ever. This got us wondering, how much of the pandemic-era tech has actually stuck around?
AI & Robotics
By now, I’m sure everyone is familiar with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The incredibly human-like AI has made the news a lot, famously passing an AP English essay.
Artificial intelligence and robotics were some of the most nascent technologies that started to find their way into our lives. While this is still a very limited influence in life, the pandemic called labor into question and many companies started to explore how they can implement robotics to minimize labor-shortage risks in the future.
One of the applications of this technology that seems to have staying power is AI and robotics in fast-food restaurants. During the pandemic, restaurants like McDonald’s began testing AI and other automation to take and fulfill orders. Now, McDonald’s has opened its first fully automated store near Fort Worth, Texas.
Both the fast food industry and the restaurant industry as a whole have low profit margins. High labor turnover rates play a large role in that, as the fast food industry averages 130% turnover - meaning the company loses then hires and retrains more than its full workforce every year, equating to a significant investment in time and resources.
Besides restaurants, companies like Google and Microsoft are trying to work conversational AI into search engines in an effort to better answer questions and create a more intuitive and beneficial user experience.
Even Meta is getting in on the fun after introducing “Make-a-Video” which takes text prompts and creates short clips. This kind of technology could be used in video games to create infinitely unique places to explore. While that certainly seems a more down-the-line application than in 2023, short AI-generated clips in memes and marketing campaigns seem likely.
ChatGPT and other conversational AIs are also being explored as support lines by companies and could increasingly find itself as a typical first stop for online chat-based support claims. Further, for calling banks and such, conversational AI could start getting implemented to more efficiently pass callers onto the right end-point.
Metaverse
The metaverse was certainly an over-made promise throughout the pandemic, including digital crypto plots of land being sold for millions of dollars and Facebook changing its name to Meta.
While this has remained a niche product, Apple’s AR/VR launch is highly anticipated and could be a catalyst for the industry to finally find mainstream acceptance and use.
Besides Apple, HTC and others are unveiling new headsets this year as well. Just like how it is great for the end user that Tesla has more competition in the EV market (especially as Musk goes off the rails and leaves Tesla high-and-dry), Meta loosening its tight grip on the VR market would be a healthy development.
This won’t necessarily be a tech that permeates into day-to-day life in 2023 to quite the level of others. However, it still should be a breakout year that sets the stage for useful applications in social and work life.
Education & Work from Home
Education and work-from-home tech is here to stay in 2023 but should continue to trend more sideways. The pandemic moved all schooling online, but - for the most part - that was not permanent.
Now, just because students are back in school doesn’t mean that teachers aren’t relying heavily on the new tech. Applications like Zoom and Microsoft Teams have become commonplace, creating easier communication routes with parents and faculty. Further, a little down the line things like Meta’s Make-A-Video could find a use for helping visual learners better grasp new concepts/further personalize the learning experience for students.
While students are mostly back in schools except those choosing to take advantage of new, better online schooling, employees are heading back at lower rates as many continue to WFH.
Regardless of policy, companies were forced to become more lenient and even those heading back to the office still have some WFH opportunities. Barring some truly incredible developments out of the metaverse, it feels like this one has less room to develop this year, and, while the staying power is there, the staying power of its growth rate isn’t at this time.
Conclusion
All-in-all, much of the tech we got thrown into wasn’t quite ready to wow the world during the onset of the pandemic. However, much of the experimental tech is finding its way into the mainstream this year and could start making huge strides, particularly as AI-generated content trends even better.
While some areas like WFH still seem tapped, other areas like education could have renewed growth. Meanwhile, restaurants will continue to automate where they can and conversational AI will find its way into everyday life.
