We’re keen to find out what businesses and experts think of IoT, but what about the general public? What parts of IoT are they excited for, and, most importantly, talking about? Verdict announced the top five IoT Twitter trends in the first quarter of 2020 by looking at data from GlobalData’s Influencer Platform. This isn’t exactly what everyone is most interested in, but it at least gives us a rough idea of what people want from IoT.
So what are people talking about?
5. Digital Transformation (2334 Mentions)
Digital transformation is an odd term, so let’s break down what it means. It’s essentially how IoT can integrate within a certain area of our lives and change it, for better or for worse. It’s when something begins its journey into the digital world and the ripple effects it has on society.
Dr. Sally Eaves pointed out that AI, 5G, and robotics will all do their part in transforming our lives through IoT. Tamara McCleary, a technology futurist, believed that this year would be the year that consumers would begin to warm to fitness trackers, security systems, and smart thermostats.
4. 5G (3180 Mentions)
Surprisingly, the successor to the widely-adopted 4G technology only came in at #4. Presumably, this is because we know what 5G can do for IoT and what speeds to expect. It’s now just a matter of waiting for the 5G towers to roll out.
Still, the people who did discuss 5G were excited about how the new bandwidth and speed capabilities will allow users to do more. A while ago, we saw a surgeon successfully perform a remote surgery over 5G. Who knows what else it can do when it’s fully rolled out?
3. Machine Learning (3897 Mentions)
Machine learning is an exciting area of technology, and something that even laymen can understand and see the results of. Machine learning takes the process of studying a specific task or goal and creates a model through which a computer can learn how to perform it over time.
You can find fun machine-learning examples on YouTube. The above video where a machine learns how to play hide-and-seek with itself shows how machine learning is coming up with strategies that even the developers never thought of.
2. Big Data (3942 Mentions)
Another oddly-named trend, big data isn’t about magnifying your PowerPoint presentation to 200%. It’s collecting vast quantities of data, then combing through them to look for patterns and trends.
Big companies such as Facebook have equally-big data to analyze and use to create theories. Sometimes these companies harvest data from people without them even knowing, which has caused some controversy in the past.
However, as we move into a digital age, where smart devices ask us for personal information, big data will only become more and more profitable as time goes on.
1. Artificial Intelligence (7,534 Mentions)
Finally, with almost double the amount of mentions as big data is artificial intelligence. This is no big surprise. Artificial intelligence has the power to revolutionize IoT as we know it.
We’ve talked in the past about how AI can make IoT smarter, and artificial intelligence can be implemented almost everywhere. Edge computing is all about letting the smart devices think for themselves instead of sending data back to a central server. Smart cars need AI systems to drive. Otherwise they’d be incapable of handling any situation that deviates from the norm.
As such, AI is huge for IoT, which is why so many people are talking about it. Hopefully, 2020 will be the year where AI really makes a mark on the IoT world.
A Bright Future
Despite the unique situation the world is in, IoT still flourishes. As we can see from this Twitter analysis, people have high hopes for AI in the IoT space. They should; after all, as it may be what drives our cars in the future!
If you want to see more AI-based IoT, be sure to read about the AI-driven satellites we wrote about.
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