Each year at CourtAvenue, we look around and think through exciting technology and industry shifts. We think about the convergence of technology, such as applying the concept of AI digital twins to a persona, where the persona can come alive versus being a static artifact. We also consider technologies gaining maturity, such as augmented and virtual reality, and how they may start to blend into the everyday web and mobile sites we commonly use. As AR/VR gains momentum, we imagine better-integrated customer experiences versus the more isolated customer experiences often seen today. Another area that sparked interest is redefining drive time as cars become more autonomous. How might we integrate the idea of driver and car in a very different way? How might the car become more of a mobile entertainment pod versus a conventional automobile?

As you can see, pointing out what is shifting is one thing, but asking what these shifts might impact and how is quite another. There are many opportunities on the horizon and we look forward to what the future holds. Please enjoy a few ideas from the team at CourtAvenue and the questions they bring up in our minds.

01 DIGITAL TWIN PERSONAS

As digital twins grow in adoption across manufacturing facilities, the idea has expanded beyond just digital twins of machinery and into digital twins of real-world customer personas. 

Digital twin personas are AI-based personas that incorporate real customer data to generate synthetic data predictions of real-world customer behavior, allowing brands to predict behaviors and test new ways to surprise and delight customers.

Predicted to reach widespread adoption in 5-10 years, digital twin personas are expected to revolutionize the Customer Experience.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What impact could digital twins make on the way a product’s life cycle is approached?
2. What ethical concerns exist around such a high fidelity model? Could you “retire” a digital twin when they don’t serve you anymore?
3. How might digital twin personas extend beyond purely virtual worlds and be integrated into everyday life?

02 REDEFINING DRIVE TIME

As autonomous vehicles gain traction and become the norm, time currently spent paying attention to the road will be free, giving drivers time for other tasks or activities. For both everyday consumers and company employees on the road, the question becomes how to best spend the extra commute or trip time.

Brands have the opportunity to not only use that time, but also to capitalize on the media opportunity that exists, and leverage the data autonomous vehicles can provide on location, estimated arrival times, destinations, and more.

The Autonomous Driving Automotive Market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 13.3% between 2021 and 2030.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How could location or trip data be used to provide relevant suggestions en route to a destination?
2. What right-to-win do non-entertainment brands have in this space, or should they focus efforts elsewhere?
3. Is it automakers’ responsibility to steward consumers’ data? Who has the right to data from autonomous vehicles?

03 FUNCTIONAL VS. FUN AR

With more than 200 AR devices set for launch in 2023 alone, a future in which AR is encountered multiple times a day for the majority of the population is quickly approaching. Thinking about AR as either fun or functional (or both) provides a framework for companies to start incorporating it into business models.

Functional AR

AR that provides value, such as QR codes that bring up instructional manuals or videos, or 3D product renderings that let customers visualize an item before purchasing it are all examples of functional AR.

Fun AR

Think of surprise and delight opportunities, like providing a mobile AR phone game for waiting customers, or showcasing videos of how a product was made through QR codes when a customer receives a new product as AR that adds fun.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How could a company embed surprise and delight AR capabilities within a functional AR tool to transform the overall customer experience?
2. How could AR capabilities combine with autonomous vehicles to provide location-based tools or entertainment?
3. What team or vertical should have responsibility for ensuring AR and other transformative technologies are incorporated into business models?

04 AUTONOMOUS RETAIL

From self-pouring beer bars to fully autonomous grocery stores such as Amazon Go, autonomous retail for consumers is already here, providing the ability to make purchases without having to interact with a single employee.

Pushing this idea beyond beer and grocery stores, autonomous retail has the potential to disrupt both B2B and B2C industries, decreasing labor costs and streamlining the shopping experience.

The number of autonomous stores worldwide is estimated to be at 5,000 as of 2022, up from a meager 350 in 2018, and expected to reach 10,000 by 2024.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What role exists for robotic in-store assistants who are able to answer questions and provide in-store directions?
2. What appetite exists in your industry for autonomous retail capabilities?
3. How might autonomous retail come to life for B2B businesses, through automated warehouses or facilities?

05 HQ IN THE METAVERSE

Imagine having a virtual version of your company’s physical HQ located only in the metaverse or online. Now imagine being able to bring people together on a global scale for events, press releases, or trainings without worrying about geographical location or room capacity. The beauty of having a virtual HQ in addition to a physical HQ offers all of this and more, providing a flexible space and endless possibilities.

To date, the top 10 virtual world platforms have sold over $1.6B worth of land. Brands like Samsung, Nike, and JPMorgan have opened flagship stores and given nods to their physical HQs in the Metaverse.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How might a virtual HQ be integrated into company sites, or even into the physical HQ building?
2. What events, conferences, or announcements might your company leverage a virtual HQ for?
3. How large of a financial impact could a virtual HQ make on your company?

06 EVERYDAY AUTOMATION

As rapidly advancing technology brings us closer to the sci-fi movies of yesterday, the possibility of sentient AI becomes more real than ever before. Even more tangible and potentially useful however, is the idea of everyday automation - that AI and machine learning might be able to replace more menial labor tasks.

Already, AI assistants such as ACT-1 can surf the web for you, looking up items on Craigslist or logging entries into Salesforce, saving employees and consumers time.

Additionally, the AI model GPT-3 can produce writing on almost any subject that testers were only able to differentiate from human-written text 52% of the time, posing the question of what AI won’t eventually be able to do.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Should everyday automation fully replace human employees or is there a world where they complement each other?
2. Who should be in charge of governing the use and use cases of AI models? Their creators? Individual Governments? The companies that use them?
3. What industries are most ripe for everyday automation?

07 MICRO MARKET RESEARCH

A potentially unintended side-effect of today’s shorter attention spans is the ability to gain instantaneous customer insights from short-form, quick-turn survey platforms like Pollfish or Suzy. This ability makes it a no-brainer for brands to understand customer needs before making major (or sometimes even minor) decisions, ensuring the customer remains at the center of business decisions.

Leveraging 10 questions and around $1000, companies can now answer questions ranging from which creative is preferred to how a customer approaches a shopping journey, in a matter of minutes.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Could we imagine a world in which micro market research makes traditional market research obsolete?
2. What decisions in your business could benefit from higher levels of rapid customer input?
3. How might companies strike a balance between prioritizing their customer based on insights and appeasing stakeholders who might have different opinions?

08 DAOS DISRUPTIVE POWER

DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, are communities governed by their members, with no central ownership.Typically based on blockchain platforms, DAOs are often built with a crypto currency at the core and a governing team guiding product-market fit.

Currently, DAOs act as governance mechanisms behind various Web3 projects, but more importantly they signal the potential for services that could be provided by a community versus a corporation. In such a model, value exchange is not reliant on a corporation, but the community itself.

Think of reaching subject matter experts without needing a Forrester or Gartner, simply just reach out to the expert or an entire expert community.

While DAOs today are concentrated around crypto currencies, any two-sided market with a middle man may be disrupted by a DOA in the future.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How should companies think about the services they use where a middle-man dominates the industry?
2. What use cases exist for leveraging DAOs vs. traditional companies?
3. When should a company consider leveraging a DAO as part of their own business model?

09 CONSUMER TRANSPARENCY:SUPPLY CHAIN

In today’s world, supply-chain delays are not only understood, but expected. Consumers are often left in the dark about when they might actually receive an item, or out of luck if they order multiple items that go together but all come at different times.

A prime example of this is the journey of buying an electric vehicle. Although customers can often get their electric vehicle almost immediately, it might be 3-4 months before they’re able to get a L2 home charger for that vehicle, forcing them to think outside the box when it comes to charging their brand new vehicle.

Supply chain disruptions aren’t going to disappear. We believe brands should offer procurement advice to consumers, helping them understand current supply chain difficulties and giving advice on how to best purchase everything in a timely manner.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What balance is there between providing transparency for consumers and providing an overwhelming amount of information?
2. In what ways might supply chain transparency for consumers come to life?
3. What concierge services might brands be able to offer to customers, offering the ensure they get what they need when they need it?

10 THE ACCELERATING FORCE OF TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS

After digesting a few of the reasons we at CourtAvenue are more than excited about the future ahead, you may be asking yourself what is driving this faster-than-the-speed-of-light advancement.

The answer lies partly in the large advancements being made in areas such as AI, ML, blockchain, and computing power, but equally as important is the proliferation of 5g networks, which gives more of the population access to fast, reliable internet, allowing consumers to interact with advancing technologies more readily and helping to grow the market.

Barriers to adoption are falling more quickly than ever before, lowering cost of entry and letting more of society interact with new technologies.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How should companies think about the services they use where a middle-man dominates the industry?
2. What use cases exist for leveraging DAOs vs. traditional companies?
3. When should a company consider leveraging a DAO as part of their own business model?