Our spaces will not talk. They will scream, mass-produce data and turn into big, smart wonder boxes. Squares, streets, stores, hospitals, schools, offices, and so forth, will be populated with AI powered sensors and augmented reality features, which will be able to act, react and proactively serve what we need, instantly and in toto. Everything will be tracked, in full respect of local regulations, so that data will flow where needed, to make sure business or social objectives are met: getting a passport or buying furniture will be as simple as ordering a cappuccino at Starbucks.
You may not believe me. This is why we cross-checked our predictions with Andrea Abrams, founder and CEO at Phygicode, advisor, investor and board member. Abrams is a technology veteran, with a rich background in real estate and retail. She is based in the USA, but has clients everywhere in the world, as the “phygital revolution,” as she calls it, is something that affects us all.
“We have tons of brands, if you think about business, and some good operators, who sit in the middle and are still relevant. Physical will not die. The environment is key to sell anything, from retail to hospitality. The good thing about technology is that it forces us to rethink our sense of community and business. We kind of lost the plot of proper planning, the foundations.” Abrams shares with us.
We are moving into a hybrid future, where digital and physical will merge, work together, be in an ever moving balance, to surround humans and serve them at best. “The present is phygital. We chase access instead of possession. Culture and community are the true priorities.” confirms Abrams.
Doing business some thirty years ago was tough, if you wanted to make sense of it. Shopping malls had sales assistants going around with palm pilots (the ancestors of Ipads), asking five questions to all shoppers, from what they bought to why, from pricing to satisfaction. Data would be collected and processed by external agencies, who would brief mall owners and operators on how to better their services. The whole thing was cumbersome, inaccurate, slow, and rarely insightful.
We live in a different era now. The context around us will be able to track what people do, using wearable technologies and sensors spread around us. Data will flow into AI powered engines, able to make sense of it, predict and suggest, with the goal to simplify, inspire and delight our fans.
According to Abrams, the world will move along three avenues:
- Connected experiences: every product will be connected and have a digital twin; this is already happening, from fashion and luxury, to the industrial world
- Phygital environments: this will take a bit more time; thanks especially to augmented reality, digital and physical will interact to guide fans, to lead them through games, treasure hunts, discoveries, and so forth; phygital is a language, a code that every brand is going to use to engage users and build loyalty; sports is a great example of this, but business and government will greatly benefit from these new capabilities
- Data capture: this is where AI will play its pivotal role, feeding recommendations and real time propositions, for every human immersed into this phygital universe
There is, of course, room for blockchains in Abram’s vision. “If one thing is valuable with blockchain, it’s the fact that we get truth instead of trust, truth at a granular level. All flows are going to be recorded on public chains, transparent, immutable,” concludes Abrams.
There is a continuous loop that embraces fans in phygital marketing. Physical leads to digital, and vice versa, in a continuous vortex, where the person is at the center. Take a look at the case of Target and the pudgy penguins. “The physical objects and interface bridge to unique digital experiences. Shopping turns into access to a community and culture, recruiting new fans for Target. Communities merge, fans share their experiences, leveraging the brands’ values, being rewarded for their engagement and receiving social status for their participation. This is a good use case,” says Abram.
Technology gives operators and brands, governments and corporations the tools to nurture communities, but it forces them to fireproof the intent of everything they do, the reason why they exist in the first place. “We see a lot of deductive narrative, copy – paste, which is old school. Brands need to be authentic and have a long term plan, when it comes to managing communities. It all starts with company culture and mindset,” warns Abrams.
Welcome to the era of data, truth and authenticity. If done well, human connections will be heightened by technology. Technology is one piece of a puzzle made of space for fans to create, hardware and AI tools that track and interact, and infrastructure that is interoperable and so smooth that it becomes invisible. Walls will talk, so that we can, as humans, talk to each other better, deeper, faster. If the present is phygital, our future can be even more human.
