Predictions for the new decade: Perry Nightingale

To mark the start of the 2020s, we’ve asked a selection of our regular columnists to offer up some predictions of what lies ahead for the creative industries. Here, creative technologist Perry Nightingale outlines some wildcard moments in tech that may happen this decade

A new decade is like a fresh canvas. By 2030 our daily lives will have changed in all sorts of ways and there will be technologies we probably couldn’t imagine living without. If the last ten years brought us Alexa, Uber, Tinder and Instagram, what will the next ten years bring?

I’m going to say first, with firm conviction, that this is the decade that people start caring about how equally companies treat people. Expect to see accessibility, diversity, gender-equality, inclusivity and purpose play a far greater role in content and marketing.

There are no more invisible markets or silent minorities – if you make an offensive ad or you pander to stereotypes, if you ignore consumers on the grounds of ability or age, your business will suffer. The only way you will make the right ads and the right content is to make sure you have the right representation in the teams that make it. This will be a huge and positive trend in the creative industries.

As for technology I have had a theory for a while that whilst the iPhone and social media were fantastic advances for our personal lives, they made us less productive at work – productivity in the UK seems to have flatlined after Facebook, the smartphone and cat videos were invented.

For that reason I’ve expected to see new enterprise technologies do well over the last few years, from business-focused companies like Microsoft, and that is exactly what’s happened. Cloud computing and data-driven AI are absolutely booming and I see that continuing, trillions of dollars of value creation will take place in these two areas by 2030.

Those are the safe answers.