Tech Trend Radar 25
Ok, story time!
Have you read it? And what does it mean for you?
Well. Imagine you are EverSteady Assurance, our intrepid, if initially somewhat waterlogged, insurance company.
Then this could be your story.
We’ve navigated the swirling vortexes of Data, AI, Health, Connectivity, Cyber, Crypto, and the Shifting Shapes of Industries, all with the Tech Trend Radar 2025 as our slightly damp map and the Azure Well-Architected Framework as our surprisingly buoyant lifeboat. The digital deluge hasn’t entirely subsided, mind you. It never really does. But EverSteady is no longer bailing with a teaspoon. They’ve got bilge pumps. Azure-powered bilge pumps, naturally.
Ms. Hyra Wall, the CISO, now speaks of Non-Human Identity (Adopt phase in the Radar) with a thoughtful expression rather than outright terror. She understands that the proliferation of APIs, IoT devices, and bots, all needing to talk to each other securely, is a reality. The Radar points out that 80% of identity breaches involved NHIs. That’s a sobering statistic. For EverSteady, this meant a robust strategy for managing these machine identities, likely using Azure Active Directory for service principals and managed identities, ensuring these non-human actors had just enough privilege to do their jobs and not a byte more. This is Security and Operational Excellence walking hand-in-hand, preventing their carefully constructed digital edifice from being undermined by a rogue automated toaster oven demanding access to the claims database.
Reg U. Lator, their compliance lead, even managed a wan smile when discussing the Digital Immune System (Assess phase). The Radar describes this as a holistic approach to mitigating risks and improving cybersecurity. For EverSteady, this wasn’t about buying one magic box. It was about integrating Azure Sentinel for intelligent security analytics, using Microsoft Defender for Cloud for continuous posture management, and fostering a culture where security was everyone’s responsibility. The aim, as the Radar suggests, is to build resilience, to make the entire IT infrastructure more like a well-functioning biological system, capable of identifying and neutralizing threats. This is Reliability in its most dynamic form.
Even Axel Rod, head of motor insurance, was looking beyond just Electric Vehicles. The Radar mentions Autonomous Mobility (Assess phase), the world of self-driving cars. While Level 5 autonomy, as the Radar projects, might not be widespread before 2035, the journey there is already changing the risk landscape. Liability shifts, new types of data, cybersecurity for vehicles — these are all things EverSteady is now beginning to model, perhaps using Microsoft Fabric to crunch the numbers on these future scenarios. The Performance Efficiency of their analytical platforms becomes key to staying ahead of this curve.
Future Gazing
And what of the further shores, the trends still hazy on the horizon? The Radar speaks of Artificial General Intelligence (Hold phase). The path to AGI, with its five conceptual levels, is something that makes even seasoned architects like myself pause for thought. EverSteady isn’t about to build an AGI in their spare server rack. But understanding the trajectory, and the immense ethical and governance challenges it presents, is part of responsible innovation. Azure AI’s principles of fairness, reliability and safety, transparency, privacy and security, inclusiveness, and accountability provide a framework for approaching these powerful technologies, even in their narrower current forms. This is long-term AI Governance at its most profound.
Then there’s Quantum Computing (Assess phase). The Radar notes its potential to solve complex problems far beyond today’s classical computers, but also the threat it poses to current encryption standards. For EverSteady, this is a ‘watch and prepare’ item. They might not need a quantum computer tomorrow to calculate premiums. But they do need to be aware of the implications for their long-term data Security. Azure is already exploring quantum-inspired algorithms and post-quantum cryptography. Being on a platform that is itself preparing for this shift gives EverSteady a measure of future-proofing.
The Radar also mentions Humanoid Robots (Assess phase). While EverSteady isn’t planning on replacing its claims adjusters with shiny metal humanoids just yet (Arthur Ritis breathed a sigh of relief), the increasing sophistication of robotics, especially when combined with AI, will undoubtedly create new insurance needs and new ways of assessing risk in various industries they cover. Imagine a factory insured by EverSteady, where humanoid robots work alongside humans. The liability and safety implications are complex. This is where the ability to adapt and innovate new products, supported by a flexible Azure backend, becomes a core competency.
Throughout this journey, from the initial shock of the Tech Trend Radar to a more confident, strategic approach, the Azure Well-Architected Framework has been EverSteady’s constant companion. Cost Optimization wasn’t an afterthought. It was built into their Azure consumption plans, their use of reserved instances, and their adoption of serverless technologies where appropriate. Operational Excellence was achieved through automation, robust monitoring with Azure Monitor, and a commitment to Infrastructure as Code. Performance Efficiency came from choosing the right Azure services for each workload, scaling dynamically, and optimizing their data architectures. Reliability was ensured through designing for failure, using Azure’s global regions for redundancy, and rigorous testing. And Security, as we’ve seen, was woven through every layer, from identity to data to network.
EverSteady Assurance hasn’t conquered the digital deluge. No one ever truly does. The currents of technology will continue to shift, new trends will emerge from the mist, and the Radar will, no doubt, be updated with even more exciting (and slightly alarming) prospects. But they are no longer adrift. They have learned to read the weather, to trim their sails, and to navigate with a purpose. They understand that the cloud, specifically a well-architected Azure environment, isn’t just about servers. It’s about agility, resilience, and the capacity to transform. They’ve moved from fearing the waves to, if not exactly surfing them, at least riding them with a certain style. Even the beige in their branding seems a little brighter.
The world is a book, and those who do not adapt remain stuck on the first page. True understanding is not the accumulation of facts, but the wisdom to navigate the spaces between them. The future is not a destination to be reached, but a path to be skillfully created.
Discover more strategies for navigating the technological currents — and get my book on everything IT Architecture now, while you are at it: https://itbookhub.com
