COVID-19 is changing the world and technology adjusts to the needs of the pandemic.
The Boston Consulting Group identified promising technology use cases to combat COVID-19 and what are the trends in this changing world. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI), more than 150 million articles from the English-language media from 30 countries were analyzed between December 2019 and May 2020.
The investigation focuses on media coverage and not on the advancement of technology. However, it highlights the conversations and topics that have been prioritized during the pandemic . Only half of the pre-Covid-19 issues remain on the list, which is equivalent to a change in the population’s concerns.
Image: World Economic Forum, Boston Consulting Group
Technological conversation after COVID-19
Among the new priorities is the protection of individuals. Therefore, topics such as biotechnology / medicine are related in the search for a vaccine against the virus. Also, other new topics such as telemedicine, virtual reality / augmented reality, and distance learning.
Additionally, conversations about delivery drones have increased by 57%, thanks to the increase in their role in delivering supplies, such as food and virus protection equipment. The 5G theme rises to second place during the pandemic, in this case, this technology was related to disinformation campaigns. The Data Analysis leads the list, even though before the conflictonse was in sixth place.
However, topics such as robotics, cybersecurity and Huawei , were no longer relevant during the confinement. Instead, AI and machine learning fell out of rank, but are still relevant to researchers when classifying massive amounts of data about the disease.
