IDC FutureScape: Top 10 Predictions for the Future of Intelligence

Digital-first organizations will rapidly adapt to these unsettled conditions, slicing through the storms of disruption by transforming into a resilient digital business where value creation is based on the effective use of fast-evolving and innovative technologies.

International Data Corporation (IDC) announced its Future of Intelligence predictions for 2023 and beyond. IDC's enterprise intelligence benchmarking research shows that maturity in enterprise intelligence makes a material difference to business outcomes. Top-quartile enterprise intelligence performers are 2.7 times more likely to have experienced strong revenue growth over 2020–2022 and 3.6 times more likely to have accelerated their time to market for new products, services, experiences, and other initiatives.

Improving enterprise intelligence performance will often require concerted investment and action at multiple levels: from data platforms (to enable more openness, flexibility, scale, and connectivity) and pipelines and processes (to enable more effective, consistent processing of data to make it "insight ready") to tools (to build and deliver analytics and insights), decision-making and action-taking processes, and culture.

Organizations that invest in enterprise intelligence will find that they are more digitally resilient, agile, innovative, and dynamic than their peers.

"Enterprise intelligence allows organizations to thrive in all macroeconomic conditions. Predictions in this IDC FutureScape detail key trends that are going to occur in the next one to five years that executives should be aware of as they strive to increase their enterprise intelligence," said Chandana Gopal, research director, Future of Intelligence at IDC.

The following ten predictions represent the trends IDC expects to see across the four pillars of enterprise intelligence: data culture, information synthesis, information delivery and collective learning.

Prediction 1: By 2024, organizations with greater enterprise intelligence will have 5x institutional reaction time, resulting in persistent first-mover advantage in capitalizing on new opportunities.

Prediction 2: By the end of 2025, vigilant C-suite leaders of G2000 will invest 40% more on enterprise and market intelligence, helping them counter the recession and slice through the storms of disruption.

Prediction 3: By the end of 2024, 30% of enterprises using video surveillance technologies will also be using video data analytics to support operational decision making requiring more oversight.

Prediction 4: By 2024, 80% of G2000 companies will increase investment in intelligence about threats/opportunities to local operations posed by external threats such as supply chain disruptions.

Prediction 5: 30% of G2000 organizations will fail to deliver on their enterprise intelligence goals by 2026 because they have not centered trusted capabilities in their efforts to develop data culture.

Prediction 6: By 2025, real-time intelligence will be leveraged by 90% of G1000 to improve outcomes such as customer experience by using event-streaming technologies.

Prediction 7: By 2027, 66% of large enterprises will make major investments in data control plane technologies that can measure the risk inherent in data and reduce risk through security and screening.

Prediction 8: By the end of 2025, more than 50% of G2000 organizations will face penalties if they do not use AI for detection and automatic remediation of data due to growing complexity, volatility, and resource scarcity.

Prediction 9: Facing increased demand for enterprise intelligence skills and to meet employee expectations, 70% of G1000 will have formal programs fostering data literacy and upskilling by 2028.

Prediction 10: By 2026, 30% of G1000 companies will extend investments in AI infrastructure to performance-intensive computing to solve the most complex problems using HPC-driven simulations to improve outcomes.