Digital Transformation is generating a myriad of changes in multiple industries around the world. Because of these advances, the companies are asking themselves: Is my company really at the forefront of technology implementation?

One of the greatest risks of this new era is the technological lag that threatens business competitiveness. In this context, Adext, provides the main trends for organizations in the IT field so they can keep and increase their competitiveness:

1) Big data to power an intelligent system: Data is something that all companies have, and their most important resource. Big data was created to analyze and manage the huge amount of digitally-available information, whose primary objective is to make smarter decisions and more accurate predictions for companies.

2) Machine learning will make great strides: Also known as automated learning, machine learning is expected to be consolidated as a tool that helps companies obtain a greater commercial value and benefit from the data they already own.

So, in addition to ensuring the collection and storage of vast amounts of data, it's important to know how to use them, group them in clusters and create projective learning models by developing algorithms that make the interpretation and benefit from the available information possible. This will help you detect similar behavioral patterns and make more accurate predictions.

And this doesn't necessarily mean that you must be the one that creates these learning models for each area of the company. Rather, what's important is making sure that your company: 1) hires specialized suppliers or 2) acquires tools that use big data and machine learning in their processes.

Let's look at an innovative example for marketing departments. Adext. It's the first and only AMaaS (Audience Management as a Software) tool that uses machine learning and data science to find the best audience for any ad, and intelligently manages your advertising budget on Google AdWords and Facebook. It guarantees under contract to generate a higher number of conversions (potential customers or sales) at a lower cost.

3) Artificial intelligence as the key to business breakthrough: Quintessentially, this is the tool of the New Age. Artificial intelligence aims to emulate human behavior (the ability to make decisions, learn, comprehend, develop language and communicate interpersonally, etc.) and even improve it (cognitive computing). In fact, many of the other trends only make sense or work thanks to AI.

Developing intelligent systems that can run independently and self-adapt will be an important goal for technology experts and suppliers. Investments in AI made by organizations should focus on arranging and integrating data, creating algorithms, selecting training methodology, and creating models.

The International Data Corporation (ICD) predicts that 50% of development teams will incorporate cognitive abilities in their applications in 2018.

4) The sudden use of blockchain: Cryptocurrencies took their first steps. And developers are starting to find new ways to use them outside of finance. The possibility of creating easily distributed, public, and resistant databases is definitely gaining attention. Blockchain technology will transform the way we store and manage data, creating a database that will be lightyears ahead of the current centralized models.

5) Edge computing, the new cloud: Within this context, IT experts seek to create the most diverse and advanced artificial intelligence capacities in a platform environment on the open cloud. Edge computing was created to revolutionize the traditional idea behind the cloud. It refers to the power of data processing around a network, instead of handling it in a cloud or central data repository.

Each link in the chain operates independently and is able to determine what information should be stored locally and what should be sent to the cloud for its later use.

6) The Internet of things (IoT) will continue to take the lead: The Internet of things has been one of the most popular terms over the past few years in the technology industry. It refers to the networking of all kinds of things through the Internet. It aims to make devices communicate with each other and, as a result, become more intelligent and independent.

For example, watches are no longer used solely to display time, they can also connect to the Internet, exchange data with external servers and respond to the information they receive from the sensors and servers.

7) Cybersecurity, first and foremost: Safeguarding a company's data and information has become an indisputable priority. Protecting information and keeping it far from any possible attack is very important. That's why cybersecurity is one of the fastest growing areas in the Information Technology Sector.

It incorporates a set of tools and tech solutions dedicated to protect information assets in a digital format. Cybersecurity will be necessary for all the trends above, as well as how they interact with each other.