Gartner's top strategic predictions for 2022 and beyond

Gartner’s top predictions explore three aspects of the lessons that business and IT leaders have learned during ongoing disruption and uncertainty – the push toward human centricity, the race to resilience and the ability to reach beyond expectations. The lesson of the pandemic has been to expect the unexpected and be prepared to move in multiple strategic directions at once. “Leaders that embrace options for workers, enhanced enterprise efficiency and accelerated transformation plans have greater resilience in dealing with change.

Resilience, opportunity and risk have always been components of good business strategy, but today these issues hold new meaning. This year’s predictions embody how resilience must be built in more non-traditional ways, from talent to business modularity, while opportunity and risk must be viewed with a greater sense of urgency than ever before.”

By 2024, 40% of consumers will trick behavior tracking metrics to intentionally devalue the personal data collected about them, making it difficult to monetize and by 2024, 30% of corporate teams will be without a boss due to the self-directed and hybrid nature of work. By 2025, synthetic data will reduce personal customer data collection, avoiding 70% of privacy violation sanctions. By 2024, a cyberattack will so damage critical infrastructure that a member of the G20 will reciprocate with a declared physical attack. By 2024, 80% of CIOs surveyed will list modular business redesign, through composability, as the top 5 reasons for accelerated business performance.

By 2025, 75% of companies will “break up” with poor-fit customers as the cost of retaining them eclipses good-fit customer acquisition costs. Through 2026, a 30% increase in developer talent across Africa will help transform it into a world-leading startup ecosystem, rivaling Asia in venture fund growth. By 2026, non-fungible token (NFT) gamification will propel an enterprise into the top 10 highest valued companies.

Going forward, by 2027, low orbit satellites will extend internet coverage to an additional billion of the world’s poorest people, raising 50% of them out of poverty. By 2027, a quarter of the Fortune 20 companies will be supplanted by companies that neuromine and influence subconscious behaviour at scale.