Machine learning has become a part of our everyday lives, including through predictive text features in Google Suite, speech recognition by Alexa and Siri, commute estimates in various mapping applications and more. Further, it’s made inroads in multiple industries, although it has affected some more than others.
Over the next five years, machine learning tools will only become more advanced, reaching into industries where they’ve been minimally leveraged before. Below, 16 Forbes Technology Council members discuss the industries and functions that will be affected most by machine learning in the next few years, and how.
Members pictured from left to right.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Healthcare
Machine learning has progressed tremendously in the past decade in almost every industry, so it is difficult for me to say which one will be affected the most. But I am always amazed by the changes in healthcare industries, where machine learning has propelled the development of bioinformatics and enabled progress in many applications such as biomarker discoveries and novel therapies. – Chengyang Yao, MagIC Lifescience
2. Telecommunications
The telecommunications industry is likely to be significantly impacted by machine learning in the next five years. Indeed, it can be used in a variety of ways to improve the performance and management of telecommunications networks, including network optimization, fraud detection, and 5G and 6G deployment at scale. It will also place mobile identity as a frontrunner for safer digital interactions. – Guillaume Bourcy, Enabld Technologies Inc.
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3. Financial Transactions
AI is set to be a game changer in the ways we live, work and interact. The one industry that is bound to be transformed in the next five years is the financial sector. AI is already being actively used to track fraudulent transactions. In the near future, we can expect to see a huge evolution in loan processes, trading, examinations and financial advising. – Geetika Tandon, Deloitte Consulting LLP
4. Financial Advising
I think one of the industries with the highest potential to be drastically transformed by AI and machine learning is the finance industry. Examples include the deployment of AI-powered robo-advisors or bionic advisors, which will combine machine learning with human insight to enhance client relationships and provide better service than either a machine or a human can provide alone. – Federico Menna, EIT Digital
5. Media And Content Creation
AI and ML will most affect media and content creation over the next five years. Generative AI is enabling the rapid and exponential generation of text and imagery; soon, it will be able to create audio, video, and even 3D content and characters for anyone with an idea of what they want to see, hear or experience (for example, for gaming and virtual and augmented realities). This won’t just affect producers and consumers of entertainment-based media—everything from marketing materials to customer service will be affected. – Gabriel Rene, VERSES
6. Network Communications
As the nervous system of AI itself, network communications will see the most benefit from AI over the next five years. The larger these neural entities grow, the more demand will be placed on networks. In this context, AI will not only consume but will be able to sense, characterize, automate and optimize its own communication pathways to assure its own health, performance and security. – Patrick Ostiguy, Accedian
7. Transportation
The transportation industry will be the most affected by the continuous improvement of ML. Automation has continued to improve over the past decade, and there are now large swaths of historical data available to companies. An untapped dataset from Uber and Lyft will accelerate innovation, and the transportation industry will take advantage of ML to generate value and create a significant impact. – Bharath Srinivas, Accenture
8. National Security
It’s essential that U.S. and allied defense departments improve their use of big data to protect citizens’ privacy and achieve better security outcomes. Machine learning is much more reliable and accurate than humans when it comes to finding discrete trends and anomalies, and well-written algorithms are devoid of human bias. – Gentry Lane, ANOVA Intelligence
9. Biotechnology
There is a huge wealth of collected data from the Human Genome Project (and other similar basic science projects) that has never been fully analyzed. This is likely to revolutionize the design and delivery of pharmaceuticals and, potentially, healthcare delivery generally. Customized medicines, gene therapy and computer-assisted diagnoses are just some of the possibilities. – Adam Sandman, Inflectra Corporation
10. Software Development
Software and technology will be the industries most affected by machine learning. As the advent and growth of machine learning begins to increase the ability of software engineers to generate and increase code output through AI tools, engineers will be able to create more work products for less and write better-quality, more efficient code faster. – Alex McCurry, Solidity.io
11. Retail And E-Commerce; Education
Healthcare, banking and transportation are a few sectors where machine learning utilization is now expanding significantly. But more specifically, through chatbots and virtual assistants, retail and e-commerce will use machine learning to improve the customer experience and customize product suggestions. And in education, ML will allow for more personalized learning experiences and the ability to identify and forecast student achievement. – Neelima Mangal, Nutcache
12. Energy Management
Machine learning will impact how microgrids are controlled. Advancements in ML will improve microgrid efficiency, reliability and cost-effectiveness through predictive maintenance, load forecasting, grid management and control automation. Algorithms will predict equipment failure, forecast energy demand, optimize the distribution of resources and continue to reduce the need for human intervention. – Michelle Galvani, SonKsuru
13. Computer Security
Computer security will be one of the fields most impacted by machine learning in the next five years. Over the last few years, the amount of data that has been collected around various access and behavior patterns in the internal infrastructure of various companies makes computer security ripe for seeing a deep impact from machine learning. – Debo Ray, DevZero
14. Image Recognition
We’ve all “select[ed] all squares with traffic lights” when logging in to resolve a captcha that is being used to train image recognition algorithms. Search engines such as PimEyes are scary-good at finding you in photos scattered across the Web. Image recognition is already going mainstream—among developments will be algorithms to detect cancers and other disorders earlier, which will have a huge impact on preventative care. – Michael Dunn, DentalRay
15. Supply Chain Management
I think within the next five years complex supply chain operations for discrete and continuous manufacturing across industries will be most affected. Machine learning will enable companies to take data and predict factors that will help them foresee disruptions, make near-real-time manufacturing decisions, gain a holistic view of the supply chain, and optimize and protect multiregional supply chains. – Oxana Pickeral, Sparta Systems, a Honeywell company
16. Government And Legislation
ML will significantly improve our ability to write laws and policies that are rigorously tested against a wide range of loopholes and failure scenarios. If you consider OpenAI’s experiment with ChatGPT, this essentially happened, with thousands of people successfully circumventing an initial set of “laws” and “policies” with rapid updates that ensured that the intended policies were being met. – Sounil Yu, JupiterOne
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