Greater Access to Emerging Technologies to Foster Next Era in Creativity, Community and Data Privacy, Forecasts Accenture Life Trends 2023 Report
The Accenture Life Trends 2023 report forecasts significant shifts in business dynamics driven by evolving consumer behaviors and emerging technologies. Mark Curtis from Accenture highlights the adaptation to instability, while the report identifies five key trends: adaptation in a permacrisis, the rise of community-focused brands, the importance of intangible workplace benefits, AI as a creative co-pilot, and digital wallets as a solution to the digital identity crisis. These trends indicate new power dynamics that companies must navigate to engage with customers effectively.
- Emerging technologies such as AI and digital wallets are expected to reshape customer engagement.
- Increased focus on community and belonging may enhance brand loyalty and participation.
- Businesses may struggle with adapting to constant global instability affecting consumer behavior.
- Loss of intangible benefits from in-person work could hinder innovation and mentorship.
Annual Report Identifies Five Macro Trends Projected to Shift the Relationship Dynamic Between People and Businesses in the Coming Year
In turn, businesses and leaders should prepare for shifts in business models due to changing customer behaviors as they find increasing value in new, emerging technologies, forecasts the Accenture Life Trends 2023 report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN).
Building on the 15-year legacy of Fjord Trends, this report — now titled Accenture Life Trends 2023 —identifies five global macro movements across human behavior that will shape business, culture, and society in the coming year.
From learning to live in permacrisis to increasingly seeking to belong in online communities to missing work’s intangible benefits and using emerging technology such as AI to accelerate creativity, the landscape of day-to-day life has been greatly altered. This shift will push businesses and leaders to operate in radically new landscapes, further cites the report.
“Disruptive moments have people questioning what sense of control they have over their own lives. As they inevitably adapt and get a handle on things, the decisions made to exercise more control will affect the brands and organizations they interact with,” said
Crowdsourced insight and intelligence from Accenture Song’s global network of designers, creatives, technologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, the annual bellwether forecast — which leveraged AI for the report’s imagery — includes the following trends and actions for businesses to heed in 2023.
1. We are in a permacrisis but will adapt – The world is moving from one global catastrophe to the next. But, as humanity has for millennia, people are adapting to instability by switching between four responses: fight, flight, focus, and freeze, which will affect what they buy, and how they view brands and their employers — and companies need to be ready.
2. What’s next for loyalty – In an unstable world, people seek out places where they feel they belong. As a result, modern brands will be built as communities first, reshaping loyalty and brand participation. For example, the majority of Accenture’s research focus group participants have tried new hobbies or joined new communities in the past six to nine months. Emerging technology is largely driving the three threads to enable this model.
a. Communities of belonging: on platforms like Reddit, Discord, and Twitch.
b. Token-gating: exclusive access reserved for “token holders only.”
c. Collectibles: digital arts, autographs, trading cards, and more.
3. The importance of work intangibles – As the debate continues around the return to the office, one thing is clear: it’s not yet a success for many people. Everyone has felt the loss of intangible office benefits, like chance encounters and consistent, close guidance of junior talent. Now the consequences of the loss are becoming clear. Without in-person engagement, companies can stand to lose mentorship, innovation, culture and inclusion. It’s time leaders went back to the drawing board to make a logical, mutually beneficial plan.
4. AI is becoming people’s co-pilot for creativity – Artificial Intelligence is now in the hands of the everyday user and is a new tool for the creative process. Suddenly, neural networks have been made widely available to create language, images and music with very little effort or skill. Developments within AI are also hitting the market at an astonishing speed. At scale, this is an incredible breakthrough for creativity. Companies need to consider how they will stand out in the sea of AI-generated content and how they use AI to enhance the speed and originality of innovation.
5. Digital wallets could end the digital identity crisis – The use, and misuse, of personal data is long overdue for a transformation. Transparency and trust in online brand experiences are quickly diminishing in tandem. But control of their data could soon swing back to the user. Digital wallets containing tokens (representing payment methods, ID, loyalty cards and more) will allow people to decide how much data they share with — and even sell to — organizations. That’s great news for brands: the data that people do hand over will be even more valuable than the third-party information that is no longer collected in a cookieless world.
“Shifts in control ultimately lead to shifts in power, and these seemingly small — yet profound changes —in human behavior will alter the power dynamics between people and organizations,” said
To read this year’s full Life Trends 2023 report, which includes guidance for businesses and leaders, visit the link here.
The Accenture Life Trends 2023 report can also be explored in Accenture Foresight, Accenture’s new thought leadership app, which provides a personalized feed of the latest reports, case studies, blogs, interactive data charts, podcasts, and more. Visit http://www.accenture.com/foresight.
About Accenture
Accenture is a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and Consulting, Technology and Operations services and Accenture Song — all powered by the world’s largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our 721,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We embrace the power of change to create value and shared success for our clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at accenture.com.
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Source: Accenture
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