At the dawn of big data, data scientists were the unicorn of the hour. Talk to any one of these rarities, and they would say there were only about 100 of them in the world. When executives woke up to the potential of big data, it was also at the same time we were dealing with financial collapse. Balancing between the data economy and keeping regulators at bay created a new unicorn, the chief data officer. Digital has had its own unicorn story.

In the last few years, a number of industries have been permanently altered by technology. For instance, remember when getting a car service meant dialing a phone number, giving physical pickup and drop-off points, and hoping the driver would show up on time? Thanks to key disruptors like Uber and Lyft, the ride-sharing industry has transformed into a seamless, on-demand experience leveraging the GPS capabilities of smartphones. Today's forward-thinking professionals are constantly looking for tomorrow's disruptors, speculating about – and participating in – the next big technological shakeup. Below, Forbes Agency Council members share their thoughts on which industries will be next to disrupt the digital space.

Those were the fighting words Sony Pictures Chairman Tom Rothman threw out in front of hundreds of movie theater owners here Monday night, boasting about the studio's upcoming slate. While Sony unveiled footage from a handful of blockbuster hopefuls -- an adaptation of Stephen King's "Dark Tower," a reboot of the kids' flick "Jumanji" and the new "Spider-Man" flick -- the executive was most bullish about this summer's "Blade Runner 2049." Rothman made his Netflix diss after footage from the new Denis Villeneuve film played, insinuating that the movie's theatrical experience will exceed anything offered on the streaming site. A sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi classic, this time directed by Villeneuve, the film stars Harrison Ford and "an electrifying young star" -- Rothman's words -- in Ryan Gosling. Dressed in a hoodie and jean jacket, Gosling came out onstage to talk about his experience filming the movie in Budapest last year.

A software-first approach that combines industrial IoT with AI together with real-time agile business processes is key if industrial companies are to retain control of their customer-bases, according to Software AG chief executive Karl-Heinz Streibich. Without building a mechanism to understand every customer's interactions with their products in real-time, and respond intelligently, also in real-time, industrial companies risk losing their customer-bases to increasingly powerful digitally disruptive web-based intermediaries. The result of such a loss could entail falling value-add, dwindling profitability and loss of market control for industrial companies. Mr Streibich was talking in Rome at the eve of the enterprise software developer's global sales kick-off event. According to Mr Streibich, industrial companies are facing an existential threat from digital disruptors.

During the recent Consumer Goods Forum global summit here in Cape Town, I had the opportunity to briefly chat with Vivienne about some of the issues confronting the digital disruption of this industry sector. [The original transcript has been edited for clarity and space.] Named one of 10 Women to Watch in Tech in 2013 by Inc. Magazine, Vivienne Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist, technologist and entrepreneur. She co-founded Socos, where machine learning and cognitive neuroscience combine to maximize students' life outcomes. Vivienne is a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, where she pursues her research in neuroprosthetics. In her free time, Vivienne has developed a predictive model of diabetes to better manage the glucose levels of her diabetic son and systems to predict manic episodes in bipolar suffers. She sits on the boards of StartOut, The Palm Center, Emozia, and the Bay Area Rainbow Daycamp, and is an advisor to Credit Suisse, Cornerstone Capital, and BayesImpact. Dr. Ming also speaks frequently on issues of LGBT inclusion and gender in technology. Every once in a while I have the opportunity to discuss wide-ranging topics with an intellect that stimulates, is passionate and really cares about the bigger picture. Those opportunities are more rare than one would think. Although set in a somewhat unexpected venue (the elite innards of consumer capitalism) her observations on the inescapable disruption that the new wave of modern technologies are prescient and thoughtful. Ed: In a continent where there is a large focus on putting people to work, how do you see the challenges and disruptions resulting from AI, robotics, IoT, VR and other technologies playing out? These technologies, as did other disruptive technologies before them, tend to replace human workers with machine processes. Vivienne: There is almost no domain in which artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation will not have a profound and positive impact. Medicine, farming, transportation, etc. will all benefit. There will be a huge impact on human potential, and human work will change. I think this is inevitable, that we are well on the way to this AI-enabled future.