Advanced sensors, artificial intelligence (AI), digital twins and extended realities (XR), and robotics will change technology-driven markets substantially, establishing novel applications and alter competitive environments. Not only will existing markets benefit tremendously by combinations of these technologies, but also will new markets materialise that are difficult to foresee at this early stage of development.
Similarly, the growth of the internet and its ecosystem in the 1990s and early 2000s brought to light innumerable opportunities for large corporations, specialised players, startups and individual entrepreneurs – opportunities that were not obvious at the beginning of the communication network’s journey; in fact, new use cases still emerge.
The emerging network of mutualistic technologies not only benefits large players and markets. The network will also enable a vast number of small pockets and niche sections of the economy that promise high margins as they develop a novel commercial fabric.
Beneficial intersections of technologies
Advancing and proliferating sensors as well as increasing powerful AI are mutually beneficial and will establish the foundation for the upcoming technological fabric of the next economic boom – they are the glue that connects devices and applications.
Sensors here represent a wide range of data-collecting technologies, ranging from the traditional interpretation of an electronic sensor to machine vision to audio capture to location tracking, and so on. The true impact of the portfolio of rapidly improving sensors lies in the synergistic effect of combining data that can be increasingly easily collected.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) lists “collaborative sensing” as one of the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2025. “Sensing devices are now ubiquitous,” it says. “These distributed sensors are increasingly being connected to each other and integrated with AI-infused systems, paving the way for rapid advances in collaborative sensing.”
Again, AI is the glue that stitches together the growing amount of diverse data in meaningful ways. Such sensing collaboration is empowering connected systems to make context-aware decisions. Sensors already are ubiquitous. Industrial facilities and manufacturing plants, transportation infrastructures and smart cities, utility networks and dedicated environmental sensing platforms feature a wide range of sensors for dedicated commercial purposes.
Even consumer devices now see a proliferating number of sensors. Smart phones, cars and smart home environments have more and more sensors. But the next decades will see a true explosion of sensor technologies as costs come down and capabilities increase. The result will be an increasing number of types of sensors that will exist in larger numbers, and such a proliferation of sensing potential will enable more advanced applications.
But collaborative sensing – the opportunity to connect data from various devices, systems, and infrastructures – will enable putting data in a broader context, connecting data across application areas. The impact will be vast and dramatic.
Artificial intelligence has been around for decades, but the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT at the end of 2022 has unleashed tremendous commercial interest and mobilised investment resources over the past three years. The potential, adoption, concerns and dangers of the growing use of AI has been a staple in technology publications, trade magazines and the media at large.
During that period, the costs of applications have come down – although proper implementation of related systems still is a matter of concern – and the performance of the systems has increased dramatically, although issues clearly persist.
Purpose and effect of mutualistic technologies
The most impactful aspect of the widespread use of AI, particularly generative AI (GenAI), is the transferability of many applications. Whereas in the past AI applications were confined to the specialised use cases they were programmed for, the new breed of generative AI can find use across application areas – an improvement in one application therefore can benefit a wide range of applications across entire ecosystems.
Extended reality (XR) applications and digital twins are advancing rapidly, already changing operations with use cases across industries with digital twins in particular driving efficiency across machines and infrastructure with use cases and benefits across industries and operational applications.
Although the hype about XR has been subdued in recent years – partly because of the overwhelming interest in AI – related applications continue to evolve. Types of applications proliferate, and interoperability of applications and digital twins is increasing.
Over time nested applications will emerge. For instance, digital twins of equipment and systems will sit inside digital twins of entire facilities and plants that will connect to digital twins of supply chains and smart cities. Like collaborative sensing, the true impact of digital twins will emerge as siloed applications connect.
Industrial robotics have taken over most manufacturing and production facilities in past decades. Now, autonomous equipment and robotics are spreading far beyond caged applications in well-defined environments. Warehouse robots, collaborative robots, self-driving cars, autonomous military vehicles, home robotics, humanoids and many more are diffusing to an increasing number of markets. Types are proliferating and functionalities are expanding. Use cases have multiplied since the turn of the century, and robotic applications are now seeping into virtually every conceivable application area – slowly but steadily.
Purpose and effect of these crucial technologies
Advanced sensors, AI, digital twins and robotics all advance rapidly individually, creating untold opportunities by themselves. Crucially, all these technologies are starting to interact with each other, revealing their true potential and providing a glimpse of future commercial impact. Each of these technologies fulfils a very important purpose, and all of them are addressing system-relevant functionalities, creating a network of technological capabilities, a fabric of commercial opportunities.
Sensors sense and extract real-world phenomena and provide an increasingly powerful stream of data for devices and software. Artificial intelligence then processes and interprets the data to provide information for applications for practically any use case conceivable. With this foundation, digital twins and extended reality help humans understand captured real-world phenomena and contexts to operate devices, machinery and systems.
Finally, robotics execute and actuate human or systems’ commands. Moreover, robotics also find use as platforms for sensors to capture information of environments difficult to reach otherwise, closing the circle of mutualistic relationships between these technologies.
This circle establishes a fabric that connects physical and virtual applications, rendering the real world processable by electronic means and materialising virtual applications in the real world. The effects are profound, finally accompanying the value the internet created in the virtual realm with physical actions. The real world is becoming addressable; physical actions are becoming controllable.
Sensors move the cycle from physical to digitised, and AI transforms digitised data to digitalised information. Digital twins and XR convert digitalised information to virtual applications, rendering algorithms into intuitively accessible dashboards. And robotics translate virtual applications into physical operations.
Over time, applications will be adjusted, calibrated and refined as operations are cycling through this circle, creating positive feedback loops. Mutualistic technologies are symbiotic, synergistic and reinforcing.
These technologies support each other in a variety of ways. For example, sensors provide information for AI and digital twins. And digital twins help to plan robotics applications with the support of AI. Robotics offer powerful mobile sensor platforms, and AI is pre-processing captured data to connect effectively to other systems, including digital twins.
The commercial impact of mutualistic technologies
Advanced sensors, AI, robotic, and digital twins and XR are already having a substantial effect on markets. These technologies are advancing rapidly in capabilities, types, cost effectiveness and numbers. They are part of the puzzle of creating genuinely smart spaces. Each technology contributes important aspects to real-world and virtual interactions.
Crucially, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Sensors capture physical attributes to make them accessible digitally; AI is interpreting the data according to intended application. XR allows humans to step into digitised applications and direct operations from within these virtual worlds. Robotics executes virtual commands. Virtual and physical merge.
AI provides the glue to connect these technologies in meaningful ways. AI enables systems to manage the overwhelming amount of data sensors collect to make sense of real-world phenomena and to make the data useable for digital applications.
AI also will fill in necessary information in virtual applications. For instance, AI will enable engineers to populate virtual environments with individualised behaviour of systems and humans to simulate the wide range of behaviours that system’s elements display in urban environments.
Currently, companies are weaving connections towards a fabric of interconnected technologies. Similarly to the internet in the early 1990s, the true impact of such a network will only emerge over time. Many unforeseen applications and benefits will see the light of day as collaboration and interactions between these technologies proliferate.
After all, futurist Roy Amara summarised the effect of truly disruptive technologies in what since became known as Amara’s law: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”
Martin Schwirn is the author of “Small data, big disruptions: How to spot signals of change and manage uncertainty” (ISBN 9781632651921). He is also senior adviser for strategic foresight at Business Finland, helping startups and incumbents to find their position in tomorrow’s marketplace.
