Gartner’s 2023 strategic technology trends were a portfolio of capabilities—not a ranking of gadgets. Announced on October 17, 2022, the ten trends were organized around optimize, scale and pioneer, with sustainability positioned as a responsibility across every investment. The list is useful for understanding Gartner’s priorities at the time; its figures for 2025–2027 are forecasts made in 2022, not current measurements or guaranteed outcomes.
How Gartner organized the 2023 technology trends
Gartner framed the trends around three strategic aims. Optimize concerns resilience, operations and trust. Scale concerns vertical solutions and product delivery. Pioneer concerns new forms of engagement, faster responses and new opportunities. Sustainability cuts across all three: the argument is that technology choices should also account for energy and material efficiency, traceability and environmental outcomes.
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The themes are a way to think about a technology portfolio, not a claim that every organization should adopt all ten trends. Some describe operating practices, some describe platforms, and others describe user-facing experiences. Their relevance depends on an organization’s goals, existing systems, data and ability to manage risk.
What are Gartner’s ten trends, and what do they mean?
Sustainability
Gartner treated sustainability as a cross-cutting technology concern rather than a stand-alone product category. Technology can support more efficient use of energy and materials, improve traceability and analytics, help integrate renewable energy, and contribute to customers’ sustainability outcomes. The practical test is whether a proposed investment has a measurable connection to those outcomes, alongside its operational or financial case.
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Metaverse
Gartner defined the metaverse as “a collective virtual 3D shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality.” In Gartner’s conception, a complete metaverse would persist over time, work independently of a particular device and not be controlled by one vendor. This is an aspirational definition, not a description of a single established product. The 2023 trend captured an expectation about future shared digital experiences; it did not guarantee that a universal metaverse would emerge.
Superapps
A superapp combines an application, a platform and an ecosystem. In addition to its core functions, it can host third-party mini-apps, allowing users to access multiple services through one environment. Gartner cited Microsoft Teams and Slack as desktop examples. For organizations considering this model, the value proposition is convenience and a common entry point; the corresponding questions are how third-party components are governed, secured and integrated.
Adaptive AI
Adaptive AI systems continually learn and retrain in development and runtime environments as new data arrives. They use feedback from real-world operation to adjust learning and goals rather than relying only on a model trained once and then left unchanged. That ability can help a system respond to changing conditions, but it also makes oversight important: teams need to know what data and feedback can change the model, how changes are evaluated, and how to detect harmful or unreliable behavior.
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Digital Immune System
A digital immune system is an approach to software and service resilience. Gartner’s formulation combines operational data insight, automated and rigorous testing, automated incident resolution, software engineering practices in IT operations, and software-supply-chain security. These capabilities are intended to help organizations prevent, withstand and recover from disruptions. It is not one tool to install; it depends on coordinated engineering and operations practices.
Applied Observability
Applied observability turns operational data into input for decisions. The data can include logs, traces, API calls, dwell time, downloads and file transfers. The distinction from simply collecting telemetry is the feedback loop: teams use those signals to understand behavior and act on it. Gartner analyst Frances Karamouzis described the aim as exploiting “data artifacts for competitive advantage.” The practical value depends on whether the organization can connect the signals to a decision, an accountable owner and an outcome.
AI Trust, Risk and Security Management (AI TRiSM)
AI TRiSM is a set of capabilities for model reliability, trustworthiness, security and data protection. Gartner emphasized that it requires cross-functional participation rather than being delegated to a model team alone. That matters especially when AI systems use sensitive data or affect consequential decisions. Organizations need governance that addresses the model, its data and its use in context, with clear responsibility for managing security, privacy and reliability risks.
Industry Cloud Platforms
Industry cloud platforms combine modular SaaS, PaaS and IaaS capabilities for particular industries or use cases. The aim is to give organizations a more tailored starting point, potentially shortening time to market without committing every workload to one rigid solution. “Modular” is central: buyers should assess how components fit existing systems, what can be changed or replaced, and whether the platform actually reduces the work required for their use case.
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Platform engineering builds and operates internal developer platforms that provide self-service capabilities to software teams. Rather than making each developer navigate infrastructure and operational requirements independently, a platform team offers supported tools and workflows that can improve developer experience and delivery speed. The platform still needs ongoing ownership: teams must decide what developers can do themselves, what guardrails apply, and how the platform responds to changing needs.
Wireless Value Realization
Wireless value realization treats connectivity as more than a way to connect devices. Gartner’s trend spans Wi-Fi, 5G, low-power services and radio connectivity, and emphasizes using those technologies to generate data and business value. The right mix depends on the setting and use case; the strategic question is what new operational visibility, service or capability the connection enables—not simply how many wireless standards an organization deploys.
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Which trends are most relevant to CIOs and technology leaders?
The list does not identify a universal priority order. A useful way to select from it is to start with the problem and the evidence an organization can measure, then determine which capability addresses it:
- For resilience and dependable operations: examine digital immune system practices and applied observability. The former spans engineering, testing, incident response and supply-chain security; the latter helps turn operational signals into decisions.
- For AI adoption: consider adaptive AI only alongside AI TRiSM. Continuous learning may improve responsiveness, but governance for reliability, security, privacy and data protection must account for models that can change in operation.
- For faster software delivery: platform engineering is relevant where developer friction or inconsistent workflows are a real constraint. Assess whether a self-service platform would remove that friction without creating a new bottleneck.
- For industry-specific modernization: evaluate industry cloud platforms against the actual workload, integration needs and ability to change providers or components.
- For customer or employee engagement: superapps and metaverse experiences concern new interfaces and ecosystems. Treat them as experience choices to validate with users, not as mandatory infrastructure investments.
- For connected operations: wireless value realization is relevant where connectivity can produce useful operational data or enable a service. Define the outcome before choosing a technology mix.
- Across the portfolio: include sustainability outcomes in investment criteria rather than treating them as a separate technology program.
These are practical interpretations of Gartner’s themes, not a Gartner ranking by implementation maturity or time to value. The forecasts below should not be used as proof that a trend has since become commonplace.
What did Gartner forecast for 2025–2027?
Gartner published these estimates in 2022. Each is a forecast with a future target year, not a present-day adoption statistic. The figures describe Gartner’s predictions as reported at the time:
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| Trend | Gartner’s 2022 forecast | Target year |
|---|---|---|
| Wireless technologies | 60% of enterprises would be using five or more wireless technologies simultaneously. | 2025 |
| Digital immunity | Organizations investing in digital immunity could reduce system downtime by up to 80%. | 2025 |
| Superapps | More than 50% of the global population would be daily active users of multiple superapps. | 2027 |
| Industry cloud platforms | More than 50% of enterprises would use industry cloud platforms. | 2027 |
| Platform engineering | 80% of software engineering organizations would establish platform teams, and 75% of those teams would include developer self-service portals. | 2026 |
| AI privacy and security | In Gartner’s 2022 survey of organizations in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, 41% reported having experienced an AI privacy breach or security incident. | Survey finding; no forecast target year |
The 41% figure is a survey result for the stated countries, not a forecast about all organizations worldwide. Likewise, the other percentages are Gartner predictions, not independently verified outcomes in this article.
How to use the 2023 list without treating it as a checklist
- Name the business or operational outcome. Specify what should improve—such as recovery, developer delivery, decision speed, customer experience or resource efficiency—before choosing a trend label.
- Identify the capability gap. Determine whether the need is a new platform, an operating practice, a data feedback loop or a user-facing experience. The ten trends are not interchangeable implementations.
- Check dependencies and accountability. Map required data, infrastructure, integrations, skills and owners. For AI and connected systems, include security, privacy and reliability responsibilities in the design.
- Define a measurable test. Establish a baseline and a specific result that would justify expansion. For forecasts from 2022, use actual current organizational or market evidence rather than assuming the predicted target was achieved.
- Reassess sustainability and flexibility. Consider energy and material implications as well as the practical ability to adapt or replace components where requirements change.
Gartner analyst David Groombridge summarized the sustainability dimension this way: “‘Sustainable by default’ as an objective requires sustainable technology.” Together, the three themes and ten trends describe a strategic lens for investment decisions—not a mandate to adopt every technology named.
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