The Internet of Everything

This concept is also not exclusive to individuals. It extends out to homes, workplaces, and even entire cities, as everything around us becomes connected and synergised. We have moved beyond the Internet of Things (IoT) – the future is the Internet of Everything (IoE).

Communications tools such as Skype and Google Hangouts are making the days of communal meeting spaces seem outdated and unnecessary, and with more organisations offering flexible, remote working, the traditional 9-5 environment is undergoing a dramatic reformation.

Dell and Intel’s Future Workforce Study 2016 which analysed nearly 4,000 employees across nine different global markets, revealed that:

However, given the majority of workplaces as still resolutely “old school”, the study highlighted how the majority of employees are “increasingly dissatisfied with workplace capabilities”, simply because as it currently stands, workplaces are not evolving at a uniform rate with the rest of life’s technological advances. According to the study, 44% of employees feel that their workspace is not smart enough, but over half (57%) expect to be working in a smart office within five years.

What’s more, 62% of global employees agree that their job could be made easier with the assistance of artificial intelligence, and employees reported that they were most excited about the incorporation of innovative technologies and increasing wireless connectivity within the workplace – to bring workplaces up to the standard of smart homes.

It’s clear that organisations will need to adapt by providing technology-enabled workplace networks which allow for greater agility and flexibility for both the organisation and the employee, not to mention a potential boost in productivity.

In addition to employee-biased technologies, however, there are also emerging technologies which are changing the face of the workplace as we know it.

Forward-thinking companies are increasingly harnessing the use of augmented reality or virtual reality technologies, for simulated training situations. Personal analytics, while still in the early stages of development, are providing a vision of what an office that tracks teamwork, engagement and face-to-face interaction may look like. Companies such as Humanyze are using these types of metrics to efficiently organise teams, create more effective lines of communication and track individual development.

Biometric technologies are also becoming more prevalent, with iris/voice/fingerprint recognition tools for access control and room bookings, as well as smart energy-management technologies and automation. It’s safe to say that we are only on the verge of the smart workplace and that there is a lot more to come in this space, as individual elements become connected to form a complete digital network of virtually ‘everything’.

Once a thing of sci-fi fantasy, robots are now playing tangible roles within organisations, and one company, Fetch Robotics, launched robots in the US earlier this year to fill a sizeable employment gap in warehouses.

CEO Melonee Wise, emphasised how the organisation’s robots aren’t currently designed to replace humans, but rather that the company recognised “the need for not just pure autonomy but collaborative autonomy as well”. On the subject of people, it was a case of designing robots which could play a supporting role for pickers in warehouses, addressing the question: “How can we make it easier for them to do that task [and] get more productive time out of them?”.

Local government is one area which is already taking advantage of artificial intelligence. Enfield Council has recently launched ‘Amelia’; an intelligent personal assistant robot which is capable of analysing natural language, applying logic, resolving problems and even sensing human emotion. She is fundamentally a ‘chatbot’, providing assistance to residential applicants and simplifying some of the council’s internal processes.

Due to be deployed later this year, it has been estimated that Amelia will be 60% cheaper than a human employee, and with a proposed budget cut of £56m to be imposed over the next four years, this could very well be a concept which rolls out to councils nationwide. 

Fulfilling high volume, low value-added tasks, robotics (which consists of software applications rather than robots), can standardise the management and completion of repetitive administrative work. In the financial services industry, where the combination of high transaction volumes and increased regulation places a premium on an organisation’s ability to streamline operations and ensure appropriate levels of control, robotics is the ideal solution.

Robotics provides the kind of workload flexibility which human employment does not offer – it can be scaled up or down as required without the need for performance reviews, pay increases, employee overheads and does not incur the challenges around employee turnover. Does this mean that robots will replace humans in the workplace?

A report by Deloitte revealed that 29% of administrative and support services jobs and 72% of transport and storage roles in London, are at “high risk” of automation. However, without proof of concept, this is predominantly based on estimation and is also indicative of possible overestimation in the role that technology can play in the future workplace.

Robots are not likely to replace the need for human input, but it is highly probable that machines will work in conjunction with humans to ease them from more tedious, low-level responsibilities – playing vital support roles which will be able to speed up operations, automate processes, mitigate risks of errors and improve output.

Urban Automation

Amidst the rise of IoE, the ‘smart city’ is borne. This is where technology plays a role in the way which cities operate – from the simplicity of using an app to find a car parking space, to completely connected and automated systems, such as autonomous vehicles.

The vision of the smart city is a seamlessly connected, integrated and highly innovative concept providing solutions to many of modern life’s problems, and at the very least, making life more efficient. Sensors are now being installed in streetlights, curbs and buildings to monitor parking, traffic and air pollution – even crime.

Leeds University is leading a £4.2m project to create a fleet of robot repair workers that can identify infrastructure problems before they become disruptive.

Some cities have seen the implementation of smart bins, which notify collection crews when they are full – improving efficiencies around time and travel for waste management companies. The Volvo Group, in partnership with universities in Sweden and the United States, has even developed a robot which has the ability to automatically collect bins from the street and take them to a waiting rubbish truck.

With the on-set of driverless vehicles, it’s easy to see a future where collection crews will no longer be required. Lyon recently became the world’s first city to launch a driverless bus service, and while the 15-seater electric bus isn’t currently capable of avoiding traffic and therefore follows a designated traffic-free route, it is only one step away from a future of driverless vehicles operating in city centres.

With pressure on the UK government to continue boosting technology and innovation and to improve overall productivity, smart machines and automation may well be the answer in the quest to safeguard the UK economy.  While we may be a long way away from robots controlling humans in some kind of sci-fi fantasy uprising, countries around the world are inventing new technologies which change the way we live, work and communicate with the objects around us, and it’s certainly an exciting time to see this convergence in the Internet of Everything.