It turns out the “Internet of Things” is already out there and “robobosses” may be undergoing their finishing touches as I write this post – in the hopes that they will still be OK with firing and “not exterminating” potential slackers who are likely to end up reporting to a roboboss in the years to come.

Gartner’s recently released report “Top Strategic Predictions for 2016 and Beyond: The Future Is a Digital Thing” revealed interesting findings and assumptions as to how the future would look like – still no sign of a hoverboard though.

Highlights from the report:

• By 2018, 20% of all business content will be authored by machines.
• By 2018, 6 billion connected “things” will be requesting support.

“Marketing Charts of 2015” by Percolate, source: BI Intelligence

• By 2020, autonomous software agents outside of human control will participate in 5% of all economic transactions.
• By 2018, more than 3 million workers globally will be supervised by a “roboboss.”
• By YE18, 20% of smart buildings will have suffered from digital vandalism.
• By 2018, 50% of the fastest-growing companies will have fewer employees than instances of smart machines.
• By YE18, customer digital assistants will recognize individuals by face and voice across channels and partners.
• By 2018, 2 million employees will be required to wear health and fitness tracking devices as a condition of employment.
• By 2020, smart agents will facilitate 40% of mobile interactions, and the post-app era will begin to dominate.
• Through 2020, 95% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault.

Click here to access the full report by Gartner.