Making All Things High-Tech More Human
December 19, 2019
November/December 2019
More articles in this issue:
Imagine checking into a hotel just by entering the lobby, purchasing a PC by nodding your head, or withdrawing cash from an ATM with a single glance. Courtesy of an ever-growing host of high-tech devices sporting biometrics technology which uses your voice, face, fingerprints, and other physical attributes to verify your identity and enable more intuitive interactions, this future isn’t far off.
Projected to be a nearly $60 billion industry within five years, according to Grand View Research, enhanced security and more streamlined shopping transactions are just the start. With delivering speedier service and better customer experiences suddenly top priorities for businesses, futuristic applications for this technology are quickly growing by leaps and bounds.
Uses for Biometrics
From providing better ways to fight fraud to delivering smarter customer service, high-tech hardware and software providers are also using these advancements to pioneer new ways to make high-tech interactions more human. Biometrics-enabled solutions (e.g. those sporting voice and retina scanners) provide a faster and more foolproof means of accessing electronic devices and physical locations than PIN numbers and keycards. But they also allow for more intelligent, automated, and rapid exchanges of all kinds, and vast improvements to the way in which individuals and organizations communicate.
Currently, millions worldwide use tools like fingerprint scanners and facial recognition systems to unlock smartphones and tablets. But within years, they’ll also be able to use everyday household devices — paired with self-learning artificial routines that recognize unique behavioral and speech patterns — to instantly identify themselves, and share personal preferences, everywhere they go. This means it won’t be long before you can grab items off the shelf at your favorite store and walk right out; and access customer support helplines that can predict why you are calling the second you dial in.
Noting this, industry leaders are using biometrics tools to create competitive advantage by quickly recognizing individual shoppers and crafting customized offers or solutions to them. For instance, myriad airports worldwide now use biometrics tools to expedite security checks. Health care and hospital providers are also using these solutions to track patients’ progress to ensure that optimal treatment is provided. Similarly, HR leaders are leveraging biometrics to more accurately track workers’ performance on the job, while top pharmaceutical providers use them to allow lab technicians contactless access to workstations (and lowering potential health risks in the process).
Futuristic applications for this technology are quickly growing by leaps and bounds.
A Future Look
Unsurprisingly, studies by Spiceworks show that while 62% of organizations use biometric authentication technology, nearly nine in ten will employ it by the end of 2020. Picture TVs and computers that will soon offer the option to buy the season’s hottest high-tech toys just by talking to them. Now imagine home, car and garage doors that recognize as you approach and unlock your doors without a key. Drugstores will dispense medicine without requiring you to speak with a pharmacist. Football stadiums will know at a glance if you’ve purchased game tickets to global security checkpoints that will let you pass just by speaking your name instead of producing a passport, the sky’s the limit. Not to mention the hundreds of banks, universities and mortgage lenders using biometrics tools to verify students’ and clients’ identities.
Due to the increasing premium that shoppers are placing on ease of use and convenience, the future clearly lies in more natural and lifelike high-tech interaction. And the more that tomorrow’s leaders make a point to leverage biometrics technology as a ready-made means to minimize learning curves and overall friction associated with their solutions, the more successful they will be.
Scott Steinberg is an author and speaker. Visit AKeynoteSpeaker.com.
Join our community of innovators and shape the future of technology.
