2020 witnessed a surge in the utilisation of artificial intelligence (AI) as organisations and businesses across sectors grappled to stay above the competitive edge in the wake of wide-ranging economic development. AI played an important role, not only in saving lives but also in building economic resilience. From autonomous driving to natural language processing, AI was at the core of research and development (R&D).

Visual artificial intelligence technology

AI is influencing the future of virtually everyone on the planet. The accelerated adoption on AI will continue in 2021 as well, in more areas than before. Keeping the growth prospects in mind, Visual AI technology is projected to dominate the industry in 2021. Computer vision or visual AI has been a subject of expanding interest in the last few years. The method aims to infuse systems with the capability to “see”. It seeks to automate tasks which requires visual cognition. This makes creating AI systems that can perceive visual information which are more complicated.

Here’s a run-down of the sectors and areas where visual AI will bring about game-changing development in 2021

Photo editing and AI

Whether it be Skylum launching its photo-editor called Luminar or Adobe Photoshop’s announcement of new portrait editing pictures, the year 2020 witnessed AI photo editing coming up in a big way. It is no longer a fringe topic employed by smartphone manufacturers to entice users. AI has the potential to open up new frontiers in creativity and opportunities as it will minimise the time spent on repetitive tasks.

AI in photo editing will ensure great results for amateur photographers as well. Too often, people who start in the field find it difficult to find great results with their devices. AI can solve this problem by evaluating the user’s images and suggest several options that can enhance it.

The rise of podcasts

Podcasts go back to the 1980s and were initially called ‘audio blogging’. Audio blogging offers early bloggers an easy medium to share their experiences and thoughts with people. With the rise in portable audio devices in the early 2000s, these blogs started to become mainstream. What makes podcasts so popular is the fact that it is readily available and requires close to no preparation. If you have a smartphone, you can listen to any podcast of your choosing.

AI Podcasts Technology

This very format was widely used y publishers to attract, engage and retain audiences in 2020. There are significant growth opportunities in the areas for publishers. A report by Deloitte predicts that the podcast market could exceed $3.3 billion globally by 2025. That is three times its current size.

Content Authenticity Initiative

It was in November 2019 when Adobe, collaboration with The New York Times Company and Twitter, announced the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) to develop an industry standard for digital content distribution. CAI aims to bring transparency to the volume of digital content available to users. It’s easy for people to be misled when they do not know who is altering content or changing it.

Adobe, Twitter, Qualcomm, Truepic and The New York Times are already working to bring this technology to the mainstream. In 2021, we can expect CAI to come up in a big way and help users distinguish between authentic and altered images, be it for fun or nefarious reasons.

Smartwatches with cameras

The idea of fusing cameras with wearables is not a new one. Take Snapchat’s Spectacles or Google’s Google Glass Project. While these were honest ventures in the arena, it did not quite make the impact in the market. With the global smartwatch market expected to display a good growth with a CAGR of 18.44% between 2019 and 2024, the hybrid offerings are projected to make it big.

The market looks poised for dominant players such as Apple, Samsung ad Xiaomi to makes a head start in smartwatches with powerful camera capabilities.

The new frontier in 2021

Visual AI holds the same potential that touch had when it first made leeway to the smartphones. The impact of this unique technology will permeate across industries and open up new possibilities of what it possible. Furthermore, development in computer vision will accelerate and get us closer to edge computing. In some areas such as retail and healthcare, vision is uniquely poised to play a key role in managing inventory and enhancing customer experiences.

The shrinking cost of hardware and increased accessibility amongst the masses to opt for better technological innovation will further expand the reach and hold of visual AI. In 2021, we can expect it to go mainstream with various enterprises training and deploying computer vision algorithms aiding in product development.