📈Chartpack: Not AI - other new tech trends to inform your product’s strategy
AI fatigue is real. Don’t forget other new tech trends for your product strategy.
🔒Chartpacks are in-depth analysis of the data and trends you need to help you make stronger strategic decisions. These product-focused insights will broaden your perspective beyond your immediate environment.
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Hi product people 👋,
AI fatigue is real. And while it’s still essential to stay on top of some of the more significant developments in AI and how they might impact your product’s strategy, in this Chartpack we’re purposely looking at new tech trends that are not AI.
We’ll explore what top companies like Apple and Snap are spending their R&D budgets on and take a look at some of the most impactful tech advancements happening right now that don’t involve AI. Some will be relevant to your product and some won’t be but you can use this to expand your thinking beyond the advances in AI to inform your product’s strategy.
Coming up:
R&D spend: what non-AI activities are top tech companies like Amazon, Google and others spending their R&D budgets on?
New technologies that are not AI - and what they mean for your product strategy including: Connected devices, Edge computing, Blockchain and crypto and more
The startup funding landscape: which industries are getting funded?
PS, if you missed some of our previous 📈Chartpacks, here’s a selection of some recently published chartpacks:
R&D budgets - what are top tier tech companies investing in right now?
Before we get deeper into the specific new technologies outside of AI that are worth knowing about, it’s helpful to set the context by getting an understanding of how much companies are spending in research and development - and what they’re spending it on.
Here’s the R&D spend for major big tech companies including Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Snap, Amazon and Alphabet:
Amazon is still far ahead of its competitors in terms of R&D spend. In fact, it currently outspends many major European economies and is the world’s largest spender in research and development. R&D expenses for the twelve months ending December 31, 2023 were a massive $85.622B, a 16.95% increase year-over-year.
Some of Amazon’s R&D projects which don’t involve AI include its broadband from space initiative Project Kuiper, which completed its first successful tests of its optical mesh network in December. Similar to Elon Musk’s Starlink, the mesh network is designed to bring internet connectivity to the millions of people currently without access to high speed internet. Project Kuiper is beginning satellite manufacturing ahead of a full-scale deployment that starts in the first half of 2024, and Amazon expects to have enough satellites deployed to begin early customer pilots in the second half of 2024.
Other major projects outside of AI include the development of its home robot Astro, major robotic innovations at its warehouses including technologies that remove barcodes and of course, it’s much talked about delivery drones which are still yet to hit the market. The Amazon app has also added a series of new features in the past few months which might be helpful to use as inspiration for your product, including:
Find on Amazon - which allows users to take a photo of anything they see online and buy it
View in your room - using AR to see how a product looks in your room
Consult a friend - allowing users to share a product with a friend for some feedback before purchasing which allows a user to feedback with comments and emojis
Quizzes for products like skincare to personalise the shopping experience
3D models and renderings of products before buying
Amazon allows users to sign up to what it calls Day 1 editions where users can take part in experiments to trial a new hardware device and feedback to Amazon so if you’re the kind of person who likes to be an early adopter, this might be of interest.
“Snap, also known as the R&D department for Meta.” -@profgalloway
Other companies worth mentioning include Snap. Despite sitting bottom of the shortlist in terms of overall R&D spend, Snap is a notorious spender on R&D. In 2023 it cut back spend to $1.9 billion which is a 9.43% decline year on year. Some of its major investments include its augmented reality platform which now includes over 3.5 million lenses for 250 million DAUs, its spectacles and a selfie drone called Pixy (which was recently recalled over safety fears in its batteries).
If you’re interested in what some of the other companies are spending their R&D budgets on, here’s the links to some of their R&D and earnings pages for more information:
Microsoft: Microsoft Research & Development
Nvidia: Nvidia Research & Development
Apple: Machine Learning Research blog, Security research blog
Amazon: Amazon Research & Development
Alphabet: Alphabet Earnings
New emerging technologies you might not be thinking about - and what they mean for product teams
Now that we’ve set some context, let’s dig into some specific new emerging technologies which aren’t explicitly linked to AI that you might not be thinking about - and more importantly what impact, if any, they might have on product teams.