When network demand slows ... what's the future of data?

Michael Bayler and Dr William Webb conclude this short series of discussions, based on their respective bodies of advisory work and published books.

They turn their attention this week to what might come next for networks, for data, and of course for AI, unpacking William's latest book, "The End of Telecoms History", and Michael's forthcoming book on "The Philosophy of Data".

The dance between networks and data has - sometimes steadily, sometimes explosively - played out since the Late Industrial Age (c. 1960-2000) to the present day.

But the growth in network demand has slowed by some 50% over the past 10 years, and - as yet - there are no credible reasons for this trend to reverse.

We're likely to see a quite dramatic paradigm shift, from quantity to quality of data. And while (counter-intuitively) it's unlikely - for reasons you'll learn here - that AI will require significantly greater volumes of Internet traffic, it certainly has a role to play in supporting this profound shift.

Finally, we explore whether the tools and techniques underpinning programmatic advertising and performance marketing might be repurposed, to facilitate fresh and intelligent forms of data-enabled service value ... thereby moving us closer to the potential of truly "intelligent brands".