Virtual Labor Will Fuel Digital Initiatives

It's now a strategic imperative that business leaders conceptualize how business and IT services can be bundled with "smart" technologies, like cognitive computing or machine learning, to create innovative service models and intellectual property (IP) for new revenue streams. Speaking ahead of the Gartner Sourcing & Strategic Vendor Relationships Summit 2016 in London, Frances Karamouzis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, said, "Smart machines are not future fantasy. They are commercially available -- it has been estimated that more than 10 billion of smart machine technologies have already been purchased through more than 2,500 companies. Services related to smart machines may be five to 10 times the size of the aggregate technology market. The new normal is that "recruited" smart algorithms, smart machines, robots and cognitive bots (with artificial intelligence) will occupy the domains of expertise historically fulfilled by people.