>> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here, with theCUBE. We're at the Accenture Technology Vision 2018, it's actually the preview event, a couple of days before the report comes out. We came last year, it's really Accenture querying all their customers and partners, as to what are the hot topics for 2018? We're excited to have a return, from Accenture Labs, he's Marc Carrel-Billiard, the Global Lead for Accenture Labs. Last we saw you at the 30th anniversary. So, Marc, great to see you. >> Great to see you too, very happy to be here. >> Absolutely, and we saw you a year ago at this event as well. So, as you look at this Vision compared to last year's Vision, what really jumps out at you as being so different? >> I think what really jumps is just the fact that what we say here is that, you remember last year, it was all about technology for people, technology by people. What we see is that we move forward into, not just technology for people, by people, but how technology basically is shaping the society. And what people, basically I mean, like technology is changing their life, the way they work and everything. What we say to all this technology is that they're going to be a major impact in the society itself, and then companies need to work with people, need to work with society basically to change, basically, the new models. What we say also is that, something which is very important is that there's a transparency that needs to be brought out by this technology. I mean, it's like if you look at companies and everything they will have to build a social contract with these people. Bring in the technology. It's a two-way street now. >> Right, right. >> Like, you build a lot of technology, and people adopt this technology, and then need to bring back feedback. So what are you going to do about it? And it's not going to be about selling products, selling services, but building partnership. Partnership with the people, partnership to the society that you're going to build around them. That's very important. >> But it's kind of weird, because it's kind of bifurcated. On one hand, there's a personal level of connection that you've never had before. On the other hand, we're trying to automate, with software and data, as many processes as we can, which we've seen in Martek, probably on the cutting edge of that. And that sometimes can cause issues. So we're kind of bifurcating. Automate as much as you can, on the other hand, there's a personal touch and trust and a relationship that I never had before. >> I love this discussion, because I'll tell you this, I completely agree. But I think that people need to recognize that artificial intelligence, we've made tons of progress there. And you remember, we had so many winters along the way and everything. I think there will still be winters for artificial intelligence. Machines can do things very very well. >> Jeff: Right. >> But they still can't do what people can do. You know, for example, common sense learning. It's very difficult to explain to a machine what is common sense learning. You know what is common sense. For example, if I would like to build a robot that comes in your office, and picks, for example, a cup of coffee, and decide whether they want to throw it in the bin or basically reserve it for you, it's very difficult. You need to weigh the cup of coffee. You need to understand if it's warm or not warm. I mean, there's so many things that come to play. A robot would not be able to do that. You can do that, even your kids could do that. >> Pretty interesting. >> I know! >> So there's like five big things, I want to jump into a couple with you. One is, and you guys have twisted kind of common phrases-- >> We did, yeah >> A little bit of Accenture branding, of course, right? So one of them is the Internet of Thinking. So rather than the Internet of Things, which is very popular, and then, of course, we hear about the industrial Internet of Things. You talked about the Internet of Thinking. What do you mean by that? >> Okay, so Internet of Thinking is all about to recognize that every product in the world today will be very intelligent. We talk about artificial intelligence. We're baking the intelligence into systems. They all have matched learning, they all learn about what you're doing. So what we need to do is that, when we're going to build a new environment and everything, we need to understand exactly where all the processing power for this intelligence going to be sitting. Is it going to be, for example, if you have to reinvent the car of the future, where it's going to be driverless. You need to re-think about the cockpit of the future and the experience. There needs to be a lot of matched learning, intelligence, to understand exactly how they want to interact with you. Should sudoers sudo-vise? To recognizing your face when you're frowning, and stuff like that. I mean there's going to be so many things, so there's lot of processing power to put. Where do you put all this processing power? In the chip in the car? >> Right. >> Do you want to split it between the chip in the car and some other chip in the cloud? Where do you put all the data related to what you're going to be doing in this car? You want to look at all these data only in the platform in the car or you want to put a little bit in the cloud so you're going to be able to crunch all the data? You going to be sitting in a seat. American people spend on average, 500 hours per year in the car. Can you imagine what we can do there? Imagine we have sensors in the seats. We're going to be able to collect a lot of data about your wellness your well-being and everything. We want to make you more healthy. What are we going to do with all this data? Are we going to crunch the data basically in the car? Or in the cloud? So, what we want to say is that the Internet of Things is going to evolve to Internet of Thinking because we're going to have to be smarter. Not only to implement smart product in the car or something else, but to decide about our fixture. Where are we going to put all that stuff? Which process are we going to use? CPU, FPGA, GPU, even quantum computing? People need to think about where they're going to put the architecture. What type of flavor of architecture they want to have. All these things need to come into play. >> I know, I know! >> Marc we could go and go and go, unfortunately we're getting the hook, they're going to start their program so maybe we'll get you back after the program. >> Sure. >> Thanks for taking a few minutes, they're going to start the program behind us. I'm Jeff Frick, he's Marc, you're watching theCUBE at the Accenture Technology Vision 2018. We'll be right back after the presentation. >> Alright, sure. >> Thanks Marc. Alright, welcome back everybody! We are still the Accenture Tech Vision 2018 free event, the autonomous band is playing, very loudly. But it's good. So we've got Marc back, Marc Carrel-Billiard, and again he is Accenture Labs' Global Lead and he is also all on top of Extended Reality. >> Extended Reality. >> So Marc, we could talk about OR, VR, AR. >> Optics, olfactives, everything. >> Now it's ER? >> That's right. >> Extended reality. >> Extended reality's VR, I mean it's like, I think it takes every type of sensors or immersion, feeling and everything you can have because it's all about combinatory effect. If I combine the augmented reality with the audio, as well with the smell, as well as with the touch then you feel that something is happening. In fact-- >> How long until you just pass all the sensors and just go right to the wires? That's what I'm waiting for. (laughing) These things are not built to look at googles, right? >> I know, I know, I know. But it's coming. >> It's coming but what's interesting though, you guys put a play on it about distance. >> Marc: That's right. >> You guys are, you're positioning this as really a way to break down distance. >> Absolutely, I mean-- >> Jeff: How does that work? >> Well, we call that the end of distance because I think the feeling that we have is that what you're going to be doing is that, you know what I mean it's always the same stuff that you're looking for talent. You're looking for skill. You're looking for people. You're looking for information. Here. Where it's out there. How how are you going to bridge that? How are you going to reduce the distance? To bring people to you, to bring the skills you need, to build the information you need. Extended reality, virtual reality, that can help you out to do that. I'll give you an example, Komatsu, it's a Japanese company. >> Big tractors and things. >> That's right, big tractors and everything. Sometimes, I mean it's a lot of investment and everything, you want to try them out, you want to test them, but it's snowing, it's pouring, it's raining. You're not going to do it. What are you going to do? Why, you're going to use the vehicle a bit in virtual >> They're all autonomous though, and they all drive themselves around. >> But not now, there's some not there. But eventually you can use that in your office. You're going to be training in your office and when it stops raining, basically you're going to be there and you're going to be able to drive that and you're going to be able to use them. We see that in the oil and gas industry. We are building very complex platforms. It takes 10 years to build them, maybe less. The question is that, do you want to wait for five years, 10 years until the platform is delivered, to start training your people? No. I'm going to bring basically that to them directly. It's not only end of distance, it's end of time. I can reduce the time that this stuff is delivered, virtually, to train the people onboard and when they're going to be there. So they're going to be using virtual reality, to be trained on the platform, and then when they're going to be on the platform, they know how it works. But even more, then you go to augmented reality, When they can do maintenance on equipment by augmenting information, to make them more efficient. >> So what's the killer app going to be? Is it a killer app problem? Is it a hardware problem, right, we're still wearing the clunky goggles. What's the breakthrough? >> So the breakthrough is really new devices because right now, if you look at the market today in AR, VR, we're talking about $14 billion, one-four. The billion dollars-- >> Today? >> Yeah, today. Which is a lot. >> Yeah, it's a real number. >> But most of it is on the devices. Most of it is on gaming devices. You know, the stuff that you find on Xbox, the stuff that you find on the PlayStation, very consumer-driven. The big business is really enterprise business which is how you're going to use these devices in oil and gas industry, in automotive industry, in very toxic environments. Where the device needs to be lightweight, with long battery-life, it needs to be intrinsically safe as well. Safe in the-- >> Jeff: Environment, right. >> The devices are coming, and then by 2020 the estimate is that, that whole business is going to shift from $14 billion to $143, one forty three. >> By 2020? >> Yeah. >> Two years from now? That's right, two-three years, because the devices are there. And then, right now 70% of this business is consumer-driven, and 30% is enterprise. We're going to flip that. 70% is going to be enterprise, and 30% will be consumer. >> In 2020? >> Yes. >> Just right around the corner. >> Right around the corner. I mean, I met with a couple of companies, this company called RealWear, they doing amazing device. It's a device you wear, you can put that on the helmet, very very light. You can drop it from 10 meters, it bounce back. It works. And then basically you have bots with cognition in the very noisy environment, like this one, you can speak, you recognize everything. It can provide you with augmented reality information about what you need to do and everything. That's the typical device that we need. You can use it in toxic environments. It has other certification. I mean it's IPv6 and everything, you can run on it and it doesn't do anything, and that's exactly what we need to develop the new use case, that's going to drive these further. >> Yeah, cause we're still a long way from there but two years is not very long, >> It's not long. >> for the devices. >> I mean, it's acceleration. >> Right, right. Alright Marc, well we're excited. What's your favorite AR-VR-ER application? >> You and I, we go to Venice tomorrow, always virtual reality, and so with the combination of the olfactive, the sound, the sun and everything. You can be sitting there on the terrace, you can hear the Vaporetto passing by, you eat the bread, and I fake your brain with the olfactive stuff, you believe it's a pizza, and you drink the water and it's Chianti. That's what it's going to be. >> See I think the device is going to be when it plugs into your head. Again, avoid all these things and go straight in. And then it begs the question, did you really do it? >> I know, I know. Or not? That's way deep, we don't have time Marc. >> It was great to see you. >> Thanks for stopping by. He's Marc, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCube, Accenture Technology Vision preview party, thanks for watching. (bright music)

you hey welcome back everybody jeff rick here with the cube we're at the Accenture technology vision 2018 pre-event the actual paper comes out in a couple days we got invited for a preview or excited to be here we came last year and it's pretty wild you know five big trends influencing the technology world Accenture is at the leading edge so we're happy to be here we've got a new guest Jason well she's the managing director of a centers extended reality are you doing Rachel it see you nice to meet you so you guys are not doing a our VR ER BR you've come up with it you coulda grabbed at all in extender II out right sort of XR every one of it I like it so you're running this business you know give us kind of an update how its evolving you know we see the devices the movies are starting to come out but it's still so nascent it is but at you know what we're seeing we've seen a lot of it up shift from a year ago two years ago all this stuff was being done in the Innovation Lab so the corporate Innovation Lab sitting in Silicon Valley they were trying things out for concepts of what have you we've seen a ship now where it's the business starting to push the agenda so it maybe it's the VP of Operations maybe it's the chief Learning Officer and I think that trends a big difference because it starts to mean the business is seeing this as it could provide value now still we're seeing a lot of pilots so we've kind of moved into proof of concept to the pilot to some major deployments but it's a pretty big trend that we've done that that shift even you know we're starting to see our P's come out right but again is another key signpost that this is moving beyond that just test and learn phase - actually real implementations so it's pretty interesting we talked to bail BAP Studios and they make movies and MBR and it's you know it's kind of an interesting parallel when they used to make movies that's just filming what used to be on stage right and it takes a while to understand kind of this new platform and to start to operate in that new platform are there some examples that you can that you've seen where it's no longer just a 3d version of what I used to do is shoot 2d but actually starting to take advantage of this new medium yeah well I think in terms of the different types of trainings we look at immersive training or VR training probably the hottest segment of that you know we kind of have the world broken down into ten different segments the immersive training is definitely the hottest of the ten segments that we're seeing client interested and partially because it applies to every organization right now so they move them from CBT to VR type training and I think in that space there's still a lot of lot to be learned around okay how do I reinvent that experience I can do things in three dimensions I could create personally the idea of presence where I'm actually kind of getting to the subconscious level of people if I can recreate an experience to them it's pretty real right so just understanding how to use the medium and not just repeat that same CBT based training right it's an evolution that we're going through right now so you're the creative directors the experienced designers that are used to 2d or having to relearn this this medium and that's a specific use case where we're seeing the you know some of those challenges and some of the opportunities and what is it about that what are some of the things are discovering that that is either makes it easier learning better learning is it just a different type of experience or there is the type of experience that they can now throw in a training environment so different than they could ever represent before I think you know welcome one of the things is you can do training in in situations you couldn't have done before you know put somebody in a nuclear power plant meltdown but I can't really do that in the real world I can drop you into VR and again this idea if you do it really well you see the mind it's pretty much real right I could put someone through that pressure cooker multiple times over and over again and it's just I can't do that in the real world if I do that two dimensions on a flat screen I'm not getting that that lingering effect where you know I actually felt like I wanted it experience and you know the military's been doing that for years so recreating types of situational awareness simulations to basically get people prepared for that now you see companies like Walmart Paul talked about right at Walmart doing it for Black Friday right it's kind of crazy that's it out all black right exactly weeks before so I think those kind of you think about inclusion and diversity training you know sexual harassment training so things that the medical field has been looking at VR for like treating post-traumatic stress syndrome or you know addiction therapy they've been doing that for a number of years now so you know how do you take that in a good way in an ethical way and start to apply that right to training and you know the thing there is is I think this is why we're in the early stages some of that is we need more data around the effectiveness of it so the academic research says it's gonna be better like because because that's spatial awareness the fact that it's right I've recreated a real situation in my head but we just need more metrics and more data that shows the really the powerful effect of that over time okay I think that's what some of our clients are waiting for and you said there's two kind of 10 categories you guys have broken it down what are some of the other leading ones beyond education shirts so you know if I take on just run through them real quick we kind of break the world into enterprise use cases where the user of the glasses of the headsets is an employee and then the consumer base or customer base use cases on the enterprise side we're looking at the value chain from design and engineering kind of factoring in operations is the second category immersive training being the third pretty much the digital workplace so the idea if you saw the demo the teleportation so I replaced videoconferencing with with VR conferencing I don't know if I'm ready for that hey so how about tell the conference's we save that one to the end yeah I don't want to say I want to be sitting at home you know in my lounge where I'm trying to die and then you get stuck on the conference and then on the consumer side there's sort of the obvious use case immersive marketing right we've had digital marketing for years we had the web we had mobile now we're gonna have AR and VR that's gonna be a big advertising space for for brands then you look at companies like unity are doubling down and how they're gonna enable that so immersive marketing the ARV our commerce post-sale services and and then you know a big category is the you know not just a our VR and how it enables the value chain but how is it going to become a product feature for brand new products the companies to go after so you know I've been a reality in the car we already have HUDs up displays but we have driverless cars you're gonna start to put v are inside the driverless cars as an entertainment platform so it's a whole different sort of segment beyond just how do i how do i been able to value troy how do i actually start to to create new products to services a new monetization so early really still to figure out you know what to do with this medium which you really haven't had before and in fact the guys that bail Bob said don't only they have to figure out to do the medium but the only way to do it is to actually do the development inside the medium you know you don't develop outside then go in and check it out it doesn't work you got to be actually in the medium itself to be doing really effective velvet well I think what's interesting is you look at the studios that are really kind of moved into the VR space for entertainment Penrose Studios here in San Francisco great studio they're just so amazed amazing work they are ones that are pushing the envelope just like the movie industry did on the tools to create VR right well let those those those innovations will find their way into the main street tools for those of us who aren't coding and entertainment you know but we still need the tools to create these types of experiences alright Jason well it's gonna be an exciting year and I look forward to to an update a year from now that sounds good all right he's Jason wells I'm Jeff Rick you're watching the queue from the Accenture technology vision 2018 thanks for watching to catch you next time

(clicking) >> Hey, welcome back, everybody, Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're at the Accenture Technology Vision event 2018. It's the preview event. The actual report will come out in a couple days. We're excited to be here and get a preview. About 200 some odd people downtown San Francisco and it's exciting times. There's a survey that goes out to thousands of executives, of really what are the big themes for 2018? We're excited to have one of the authors of the survey, Michael Biltz. He's the managing director of Accenture Technology Vision. Michael, great to see you. >> It's great to have you in here. >> So how long have you been doing these Vision-- >> I think I've been doing it for the last 10 years. >> 10 years? >> It's a long, long time. >> So 2018, things are moving, I can't believe we're already 18 years into this new century. What are some of the surprises that came out this year? >> I mean, I think the biggest surprise is how onboard everybody is with the technology transformations we're going through. We've been talking about this need for companies to really become this digital business for so long that it was really surprising that this year, nobody's talking about that. It's all assumed. And so now, companies are really starting to take that bigger look at how they're changing their industry, how they're embedding themselves into peoples' lives, and more and more, they're starting to talk about what are their real responsibilities to society as a whole, if their businesses, their technology, their services are actually going to start changing the way that people live. >> Yes, it's pretty amazing, and also really changing the way people interact with businesses. I mean, it's been happening in banking for a long time, where, you know, kids don't go to branches. They don't even know what a branch is. They hardly know what cash is, much less an ATM, or the neighborhood trusted banker. >> No, and the funny thing is is that it's intentional, is that when we started looking at the survey, what we found was that there was a remarkable shift that big companies, so think Global 2000 companies, they actually believe fundamentally that they are going to be competing based off of trust. And so they know that if they don't have the trust of their employees, the trust of the government, the trust of all of their consumers, is that all the things that they want to do they're not going to be able to do, and so they're really starting to employ this with how they act and interact with everybody. >> Right, it's funny how the market really drives the values, 'cause the other one obviously is increasing diversity, social responsibility. That's really being driven, well hey, it is good business, but it's not so much top down as bottom up not only for the customers, but those same customers that you're trying to employ, as these younger kids are coming into the work force. >> That's right, I mean, everybody's starting to read the label of companies, is that-- >> I love that. >> They're fundamentally actually looking at not just what they're producing, but why they're producing it, what the ripple effects are, and how it's going to affect things at larger, and companies are taking notice. >> That's funny you say, "Read the label." I sat talking to Michelle Dennedy, from Cisco, she's their chief privacy officer. And she was comparing the GDPR to kind of when they enacted labeling on food, right? Before we didn't know what was in the food, we just kind of trusted, suddenly the law goes into effect, there's a lot of things that have to go into place, kind of of a pain in the butt, but, at the end of the day, it's a much better and much more trusted open information flow. >> No, it definitely is, but I think there's a difference between what's happening now, versus what's happening then, is the reason that everybody's so concerned about it now is 'cause it's personal. Is that there are machines in your home that have a potential to listen to you. You cars are making decisions on braking that are going to determine whether you're going to get into accidents, and so, this connection the companies have and they want, to get your data, understand who you are, and push things to your goals, those are the same things that are causing people to really stand up and pay attention, and it goes whoa, I have to actually understand why they're doing this, and what they're going to do with it, and honestly, it's making for not only better products, because they have more information, but it's making for more socially conscious companies. >> Yeah, but it's interesting, right? Because when people start collecting data for a certain purpose, they might not know other uses for that data down the road, so it's kind of a tough situation when you don't really know what the purposes of that data might become. >> No, that's right, but I think that's the real positive note of what we're starting to see, there's obviously going to be bad actors, we're never saying that there are not going to be flaws, or people who are going to do the wrong thing, but we're at this really interesting point that companies know that if they can't get the trust, and the data to make those next set of products, that they're not going to be in business, and so they're policing themselves more than they have in the past. >> Right. There's this kind of interesting thing that's going on with all the automation, 'cause on one hand, it is a much more personal connection that you're going to have with a company. On the other hand, we want to drive as much software automation based on data as we can. If you look at the ad tech market as one of the more mature versions, you're starting to see some impacts of that, where it's kind of crashing into the social, things recently at YouTube, and Facebook, where, a technology platform is suddenly being looked at to have responsibility, has to do some type of monitoring, which then, of course, begs a whole 'nother question, as to, your tomato is my tomato, there's a whole free speech element-- >> Yeah? >> Well, so open that up to a much broader set of interactions, it's going to be interesting times. >> It is, and I think that's where everybody's coming to, is that, on one hand, you have this huge pressure around automation. It says, it's just going to be more efficient to have machines doing a lot of the things that these companies do in scale, but at the same point in time, is that the moment that you automate something, you change it. You change how you do your supply chain, you change how you provide medical care, you change the way the transportation system works, and the problem that people are running into, as companies, is that in order to automate, you have to have the people that are going to be comfortable with the change, that means regulators have to be comfortable with the change, your employees have to be comfortable with the change, and your consumers do too, and so now, that big picture of what you're looking at means that I'm not a product company anymore, I'm not a service company anymore, I'm actually shaping the whole market. >> Yeah, I want to dig into one thing, of your five trends that we're going to be talking about later tonight, and that's the extended reality. 'Cause there's a lot of AR, VR, there's so many Rs, and you guys just went with the big E. Rolls it all into one. >> You got to go broad, it's the end distance, yeah. >> But it's pretty interesting, 'cause there's a bunch of demos downstairs, we just the interview at Baobab Studios, he's trying to drive innovation around move-making and storytelling in VR, but it's really, I think, it's the mix which is really going to see the quickest uptake, and the quickest kind of eye delivery. >> It is, and we're super excited about this trend, fundamentally because, we're at this tipping point right now, is that we're finally getting to a point where you see big companies like GE are using it to rewire turbines, you see folks downstairs that are helping you to build new cars, to sell vehicles, and do a lot of new training things, and all of these things are real, happening now, but they beauty of it is that it's really just that first step to something bigger, where folks are talking about, as you said, what if I'm walking around and I could have any experience or any information at my fingertips, and that's got to big change from everything from education, to healthcare, to just how we live and interact with other people. >> Never-ending opportunity for a century, I don't think. >> No. (Jeff laughs) It is a really good time to be a technology company, and I think that's why we keep pushing every company to do it, is that this is just the beginning, every time we have something new, there's so much new opportunity out there, and there's so much opportunity to really make peoples' lives better, and so you got a potential to have it both ways, make money, and really help people out. >> Alright, Mike, well the autonomous jazz band is getting a little loud-- >> It is-- >> So I'm going to cut you loose and say thanks for taking a minute. >> Thanks for having me. >> Alright, he's Michael, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE for the Accenture Technology Vision 2018. Thanks for watching. (soothing electronic music)

>> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frich here with theCUBE. We're at the Accenture Technology Vision 2018 event at the San Francisco mini gallery. Really loud, they got autonomous jazz players in the back, but we're excited to be here with Paul Daugherty. He's the chief technology and innovation officer for Accenture, and he's running this whole thing. Paul great to see you again. >> Great to be here and great to have you here at this event. It's a big event for us to talk about what we see happening with technology and where it's all going, and what it means for individuals and businesses, so it's going to be a fun night. >> So you did the survey last year we were here, really cool event. You did it again in 2018. What are some of the highlights? What are some of the things that jumped out to you a year later? >> I think the highlight and the real core of the vision team that we have this year is around what we the intelligent enterprise unleashed. Intelligent enterprise unleashed, and we're talking about is a fundamental different role that companies need to play as their thinking about the next evolution of the products and services they're offering to their customers. And one thing we talk about is the fact that technology isn't just a peripheral or something people use. Technology is core to the human experience. >> Jeff: Right. >> And how you and I work and how we live our lives and how every person does. And what that means is that companies have to think differently about the way they engage with customers, the way they build their technology. Because the trust you build with the consumers and workers and others using technology is fundamental to getting the right to deliver these profound, intrinsic services that people are demanding and that companies are providing. So it's really pivot point I think in terms of thinking about how companies provide technology. >> It's really interesting. It's bifurcation 'cause on one hand, you want software defined data automation as much as you can. On the other hand, people have an opportunity now through social media and all these channels to have a direct engagement with the company that they never had before. Combine that with the fact that most of your interaction, most of the time is through some type of technology interface whether it's a mobile app or a chat bot or whatever. So it's an interesting polarization of the way people engage with companies. >> Yeah, it really is and if you think about it. You look at it right now, and the average kid spends about eight and a half hours in front of a screen. They're immersed and engaged whether it's their phone or TV. They're immersed to the screen. You and I, you look at the average population. I would say that we touch our phones over 2600 times a day. >> Jeff: 2600? >> 2600. >> Oh that's scary. >> The phone has become part of our life. >> Right. >> The first thing people check when they wake up in the morning, probably. For most people, and that's only with the device that's been around for 10 years. Think about what's going to happen as we have ubiquitous voice communication, natural language understanding, extended reality interfaces to connect people in more rich interfaces. And that's this next generation of experience that we're moving toward. >> Yeah, it's interesting, you said extend the reality, which is one of your five topics for later this evening. >> Right. >> It's funny 'cause everyone's talking about augment reality, mixed reality, artificial reality. >> Right. >> And you've really rolled it up into one that it's a new way to blend data and intelligence. You talk about space with the reality that we're in right now. >> Yeah, exactly. We came up with the term extended reality because we believe it's about extending the experience of the individual and providing access to virtual reality, mixed reality, augmented reality, just your base interface, other types of technologies. And really the power of extended reality is it's the end of distance, is what we call it. The end of distance. So it's the end of distance to people. The end of distance to information. The end of distance to experiences. You can access what you want and the experience you want, when you want to use it. For example, Walmart for Black Friday last year used Oculus and mixed reality to give their store managers a simulation of what could happen on Black Fridays. So that they were better prepared to handle the high volume. The incidents that could happen. The unexpected circumstances. So it brought that experience right to them, and that's that end of experience. And end of access era that we're moving into. >> Right. The other conventional thing is this whole robot and autonomous vehicle thing. Boston dynamics. >> Like a robot Jazz player. >> I was going to say, you got a robot Jazz player and the band is working with the other players in the band. And it's this interesting thing. One one hand, people are afraid of robots. They're going to take my job. They're suppose to do the menial work. On the other hand, there aren't enough people to fill the open Rex, and really again, It's going to be the two working together, that's going to get us to one plus one makes three. >> Yeah, it's exactly our belief is that, we believe that the future is really about human plus machine working together. We talk about this formula. Human plus machine equals super powers. It provides people with super powers so they can do different jobs and do jobs more effectively. And sure point, we don't have a jobs issue right now. We have roughly as many open jobs and the U.S. as we have unemployed. The issue is matching the people with the right skills to fill those jobs. >> Jeff: Right. >> And one thing we haven't talked about enough is the power to use technology to amplify people's capabilities, so that they could fill more of those jobs. We talked about innovation in the new book we're working on is the real power to provide people with those capabilities. >> Right, so you travel a lot. If you need some great travel advice, just watch Paul's Twitter feed. And I want to talk to you. You're were at Davos in the world economic forum. >> Right. >> Right, and there's again, everything's bifurcated. There's doom and gloom about fake news and tech taking over and automated fake news, and what's going to happen in the job thing. On the other hand, there's a whole lot of great, positive opportunities. So I wondered if you can share some of your thoughts and your insights that you brought back from Davos, which is not a tech conference. It's a much bigger, higher level thinking about what's happening with this technological evolution. >> Yeah, the take a way from Davos is that there's tremendous power to use technology to address some of the fundamental issues that we have in society and in the world today. So a great example was what we just talked about with human plus machine. We believe that rather than the fear of machines taking over the world, and machines putting everybody out of work. We don't believe that's the future. There's tremendous opportunity and there's industries we don't yet know of that are being created right now, that are creating new jobs, in addition to real jobs are being created today that we can point to. And the discussion Davos says how do we use the art of the technology to both help the people who need access to new skills and technology, and prepare people for those new jobs. We also talked a lot in Davos about how to use technology to solve some of the big problems we have in the world toady. One of the really exciting discussions we have was on this idea of innovation with purpose. Not just innovation but innovating to solve a problem with purpose and a great example of that was an announcement that Accenture made with Microsoft, along with an organization called ID2020. To use blockchain technology powered by the cloud with artificial intelligence to provide identity and credentials to a billion people in the world that lack identity today. So it's refugees and others who don't have documented identity and can't access the services they need. And that's an example of a multi-stakeholder community coming together at Davos. Governments, tech companies and NGO's working together to solve a real problem using innovative technology. That's what we call innovation with purpose. >> Yeah, it's still so much opportunity. There's still so many fundamental problem. The fundamental job thing, I saw some treat the other day. Said go back 1860. How many jobs do you think they're qualified to do back then? So if the job changes right, the market changes. >> Yeah and the real issue we'd have to deal with 'cause I don't want to sound like Pollyanna in this. Is that there are real issues we need to deal with in terms of jobs that would be eliminated more quickly than in previous technology revolutions 'cause the pace of this is so fast. >> Right. >> But it really comes down to us getting a grip around how do we prepare people with the right skills. And that's one of the things we're very focused on in our tech vision, and in the other work we're doing at Accenture is the idea of how do you prepare the future work force. And we just put out a report on this recently as well. And one of the things we found is that over half of executives believe that a lot of their employees lack the skills that need for the AI that's coming. Over half of the executives. Only 3% of executives are increasing their investment in training, and that's a problem. If you believe the workforce isn't prepared. There's an obligation to begin investing to prepare the work force. It's something we take very seriously at Accenture. Investing a billion dollars a year in trading to continually rotate our people to the next thing that's ahead. We think that, that's the mindset around responsible investment in technology and in people >> Right. >> And the skills that gets us this human plus machine future. >> Takes a much bigger conversation around just the structure of our education system, which is so front loaded to the young age. And it just really doesn't match this continuous learning that people are going to have to do at a faster rate than ever before. >> Yeah, I think that's exactly right. We need to create lifelong learning platforms for people in our society, but also in the companies that we create. And it's something we're very focused on, and we do have to do a lot with K through 12 education. We do have to do a lot with higher ed. We need to do a lot more with apprenticeships in other alternative routes into the workforce as well. And you put all that together and tie it to new learning platforms for many career professionals. And that's I think what the future work force and education of the future workforce looks like. >> Right, alright Paul. Well you're the master of ceremonies. You got a big presentation to do and 200 something odd people here waiting for you. So I appreciate you taking a minute. But before I let you go, I got something new that's coming up. >> Oh yeah. >> That is coming out in a month or so. You got to get it out here. >> The very first copy. I don't know if they can see this. >> The very first copy. Hold it steady, they'll zoom in on it. >> This is the very first copy of the-- >> Is this your first? This is not your first book? >> It is my first book. >> It is your first book, congratulations. >> It's by Carl and Jill Wilson. Jim Wilson and I partnered together on this. This is Jim's second book, and it's Human + Machine: Re-imagining Work in the age of Artificial Intelligence. We're talking about precisely about the issues we just talked about. It's a leader's guide to how you deploy AI in a responsible fashion to read to your work force, and equip them with super powers, and really reconfigure your enterprise for what's coming with artificial intelligence. >> Paul, it's always great to catch up. Always love to see you here at the cutting edge. You go to so many cool events and this is one of them, so break a leg up there in an hour, and we'll see you after it's over. >> Not literally, but okay thank you. >> Yeah, yeah the theatrical way. >> Good to see you Jeff, bye. >> He's Paul Daugherty. I'm Jeff Frick. You're watching theCUBE. Thanks for watching. (uptempo techno music)

>> From the Salesforce tower in downtown San Francisco, it's theCUBE, covering Accenture Tech Vision 2019 brought to you by Silicon Angle Media. (upbeat music) >> Hey welcome back, everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are in an exciting new location. Last year we covered the Accenture technology vision release 2018. It was at Minna Gallery, cool event. But this year the venue is off the hook and 33 stories high and we're really excited to be in the brand-new Accenture Innovation Hub and joining me here our first guest, John Del Santo, he is the senior managing director for the West region for Accenture and he is responsible for this beautiful five-story. So John, first off congratulations to you and the team. >> Thanks, it's been a big project opening up this place over the last year, but it's come together great. >> Yeah and this morning they had a nice ribbon cutting, all kinds of dignitaries so, you know, what does this mean in terms of kind of, you've been with the center a long time. Your presence in the Bay Area specifically, but also as part of more of this global innovation effort. >> Well I think it's this, this is bringing together all the best of Accenture that we already had in the Bay Area. We're putting it all under one roof. We're relocating everybody and we're expanding the team. So we announced 500 new technology jobs here in this location over the next year and expanding our apprentice program. But basically, it's all about bringing more talent to this location in San Francisco to do more projects with clients in this space. >> Right. So we'll get into it with some of the other folks that we have scheduled, but it's both a coworking space for the Accenture people in town and three solid floors of all kinds of labs and innovation, kind of hands-on spaces, if you will, to do this work with your clients. >> Absolutely, that co-creation, we think, is what is really differentiating us from our competitors and it's really allowing our clients to work with us and our experts, our technology experts, and the ecosystem partners that we do a ton of work with, real time to solve a problem. Brainstorm a problem, prototype it, solve it over a very short period of time. >> Yeah, I think it's a pretty unique approach that you guys have, which is imagine the future and then create the future. >> Yeah >> As opposed to just reacting to the future. And you made an interesting comment this morning about, you know, be the disrupter, not the disruptee. And my question is really, as you see the leadership at these traditional companies that are afraid of being disrupted, how are they kind of changing the way that they do things, knowing that the digital natives and the threats that they don't even see coming from a completely different direction are now bearing down, and they have to get with the program. >> Well they do have to. And then it's really our job, our purpose, you know, the talent that we have in this company's purpose is to make our clients succeed and be disrupters. Because if they're not, they will be disrupted. And so it's in our best interest to make sure we're bringin' in the best talent, pushing their thinking on ideas, and actually getting to a solution that can actually allow them to differentiate and serve their customers better. >> Right. >> So that's what we're all about, is making sure our clients are successful. >> And draggin' 'em kicking and screaming? Or are they, are they seeing-- >> Absolutely not. >> Are they seeing it in their competition? I mean, in terms of kind of that board-level discussion, where, you know, it's passe that everybody's a technology company, and everybody's doing digital disruption, but you're down in the weeds helping these people actually execute the detail. >> Yeah, well it's funny, you say everyone's a digital company, that was our big theme a few years ago at this exact event. >> Right, right. >> Absolutely, not kicking and screaming. Most executive teams, most business teams that we work with understand that they need to change. The pace of change at their business is rapid, it's faster and faster, and every year it gets faster, and so they need to actually be a lot more agile in that >> Right. >> And move quickly. >> So one of the big things in like the singularity and accelerating pace of change. And some of these big kind of macro trends that we're experiencing is that there's no single person that sees all the innovation change across this broad front, by industry, by role, etc. You guys are in a pretty unique position 'cause you actually get to see the technology innovation and the disruption and the digitization across a number of industries as well as a number of roles. So you can kind of see this big huge glacier that's moving down the valley. >> That's one of the really cool things about this particular geography and location is that literally steps from our door here on Mission Street in San Francisco, we've got clients from ten, fifteen different industries that we serve, and we can bring talent from ten or fifteen plus different industries plus the technology skills to make sure they're looking at the problem from all angles. So if it's a retailer, are they really thinking about financial services, 'cause we've got both skills here. If it's a retailer, are they thinking about platform-based selling? Do they have an omnichannel strategy? We've got the skills in this location cross-industry to help serve banks, retailers, products companies, software platform companies, etc. And I don't think you can find that anywhere else, at least in the Continental United States, given kind of where we are in our geography. >> Right. So you had a couple of special guests this morning at the ribbon cutting. You had a customer, which is great, but you also had a representative from City of San Francisco and I just want to shift gears and talk about, you know, what it is to be kind of an active member of the community. You know, the responsibility of companies we're seeing, with kind of this backlash, if you will, against some of the mega-companies out there. It's more than just taking care of your customers. It's more than just taking care of your employees and even your stockholders. But now companies are being asked to be more kind of responsible and active participants in their local community. That's always been sort of part of our ethos. It's always been part of our vision to help our clients succeed, but also to change the way the world works and lives. And therefore, we have to be really active in our communities. We're being a little bit more explicit about it lately. But it's our view that we need to be able to improve where we're working and living, 'cause our people are active and it's important that we help serve 'em. We have a very strong public service business. We serve the State of California, we serve the City and County of San Francisco as well as well as other entities in California. And it's critical for us to help improve California as we improve the businesses in California. And so it's clearly part of our mission. >> Right. The other thing I think it's interesting is kind of companies' roles with higher education. We've seen a lot of work that Accenture's doing with community colleges and, you know, it's more than just helping so that you get good talent to feed your own system, >> Right. >> But it's really, as the pace of change just continues to accelerate, you know, historical institutions aren't necessarily best-equipped to move that fast. So again, you guys are taking a much more active, you probably done it before, but more active vocal role in the local academic institutions as well. >> Absolutely, I mean, our university relationships are really, really strong, always have been. But it's always been a little selfish on our end. We're always trying to get the best talent out of the universities locally here and there's obviously great schools in the Bay Area. We want to be more engaged with those universities on projects together as well. We want more of a 360-degree relationship. We've got great examples of where we've done research with some of the universities here locally, where we've co-innovated with some of them and we want to do more of that so that there's more of a solid relationship. It's not just about us, you know, helping them find the best students to work here, >> Right. >> Which we want, (laughs) and we do every year, but making sure that we're actually involvin' them from a research perspective and any other kind of, you know, philanthropic idea that we might have together. >> Right. So big event tonight, big event this morning, >> Yeah. >> So before I let you go, it's a brand-new space, I wonder if you could share a couple fun facts for the people who haven't come to visit yet, but hopefully will come as part of a project and a co-creation about some of the cool unique features that you guys have-- >> Well some >> Built in this thing. >> Unique features in the building. First of all, there's unique features with the talent. So we have researchers here, labbers, we call 'em, from our labs, that have, you know, Accenture has thousands of patents. More than 10% of them have been actually invented here. So our inventors are a secret that we've had in Northern California for a long time and they're all based here now. We've got some really cool spaces. We've got an augmented reality room, which is basically a 360-degree room where you can, rather than having to wear virtual-reality goggles, you can actually go inside of a computer, go inside of a lab, go inside of a hospital, and get an experience that's much more hands-on and a lot more immersive, if you will, than you could any other way. We've got a maker lab where we actually are makin' stuff. So we've got a design business here where we've helped physically make not only software, we make a lot of software, everyone knows that, but we've actually made products that have embedded software in them and so there's that fabrication capability we actually have in this building as well, which is pretty unique for a high-rise. (laughs) so >> Right. No, we saw all the machines back there, >> Yup. >> Had a good tour earlier today so-- >> Oh lots of robots and toys and all that good stuff, too. >> Yeah, that's right, it's all the robot room. All right, well, John, thanks for taking a few minutes of your time. Really exciting day for you and the team, >> Yeah. >> And nothing but congratulations. >> Thank you so much. >> All right. >> Thank you, thanks for coming. >> He's John, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE. We're at the brand-new Accenture Innovation Hub in downtown San Francisco in the Salesforce tower. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> From the Salesforce Tower in downtown San Francisco, it's theCUBE, covering Accenture Tech Vision 2019, brought to you by SiliconANGLE Media. >> Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in downtown San Francisco with a brand newly open Salesforce Tower, the 33rd floor, the middle of the brand new Accenture Innovation Hub. We're excited to have our next guest, who's been part of the Innovation Labs and the Innovation Hubs and a lot of innovation in the center for years and years and years. You've seen him before, we're at the 30th anniversary, I think last year. All the way from Paris, is Marc Carrel-Billiard. He is the Senior Managing Director for Accenture Labs. Marc, great to see you again. >> Great to see you Jeff again as well, I'm so happy. >> So, what do you think of the new space here? >> I love it, I just love it. I saw it building and everything and now it's ready, and we open it today, I mean it's just amazing. The stairs, did you see the stairs? >> I saw the stairs, yes. >> Really amazing, everything's good there. I think it's not an office, like Paul already said, it's really something better and I think it's a tool for explaining what is innovation at Accenture at play, I mean, how we use it, how we connect the labs, we use the liquid studio, all the ventures and everything, that's great. >> Great. But now it's all brought together, right? You had a couple satellite locations in the Bay Area-- >> Yeah and I think that with the story of putting all this stuff in what we call the Innovation Center, the Innovation Hub, and so putting everything in the same building and have different floors where we can address different talking with our clients. Are we talking about research? Are we talking about more polythiophene? Are we talking about, I mean ideally, it's all about driving innovation at scale. >> Right, right. >> At scale. >> So, we're here for the technology vision-- >> We are. >> Which will be in, in a little bit and then, Paul and they team will present-- >> Yep, they will. >> Five new transfer for 2018. One of the ones they called is DARQ, D-A-R-Q, >> I know. >> Which is distributed ledger technologies, formerly known as blockchain, but we don't want to call it blockchain. AI, extended reality, which is every kind of form, extended, augmented-- >> Mix relating everything, that's right. >> And quantum computer. >> You bet. >> So, from the labs point of view, from an Accenture kind of innovation looking forward, inventing the future, as you like to say, which I think is a great tagline, what are some of your priorities going forward, now that you got this great new space? Which is one of what I think 11 in the United States, right? >> So, my priorities are all of them, I mean, all of the above! Because I was like, do you remember at the time we were talking about SMAC? Like Social Mobility, there was analytics and cloud. I would say that DARQ is the new SMAC. So, we saw that basically, that technology has evolved and, from analytics, we'd like more AI work and everything, but it's still being combined and everything. You can still think about social media, collaborative stuff, we going to go through immersive reality where we going to continue collaborating. Think about cloud. I mean, just like cloud will bring you height, throughput computing power through the cloud. Well, I mean, also quantum computing can give you like amazing capability in terms of computing power. So I would say probably, like, DARQ is a new SMAC and so the lab has been working on it since, I would say, not since day one, but at the very beginning. And so, well obviously distributed ledger, you know that we have a lab in Sophia Antipolis, they're really spending a lot of time in the blockchains. So there's a couple of things that we're doing. I give you a couple of ideas. One is, maybe people talk about blockchains, and there's bunch of blockchains all over, there's like blockchains for manufacturing, there's blockchains for trade finance, there's blockchains for this and that. Problem is there's no very good interoperability between those blockchains. One thing that the lab is going to be working is how we can interoperate between those different blockchains. So you are basically a supply chain, you want to connect to a financial organization, how their blockchain will connect to your blockchain. Number one. The second thing we're going to be working on is the SMAC contract. The lab believes the SMAC contract is not smart enough. So we going to add more artificial intelligence in the SMAC contract to see what we could do better. Think about this SMAC contract as a stock procedure in database. How we make those stock procedure a little bit better. I mean, it's just analogy type of thing. >> Obviously, the blockchain conversation, any kind of demo, talking about DHL-- >> Yeah, DHL, exactly. >> But is that logistics, that merchandise move through their system, as you said, there's a lot of different touch points with a lot of different systems. So it's not an aggregated system, it's a problem, and the other thing is you don't necessarily need all the data for each person, >> You don't. >> Or transaction all along the line, right? >> You're absolutely right. And I talk about interoperability between blockchains, but there's going to be also interoperability between the blockchain that you're implementing and the legacy environment that you have. And this needs to be addressed as well. So lot of thinking about blockchains, I've always said for me that blockchain is the digital right management of your future. That kind of protocol, and we're working with companies that are basically creating movies and stuff like that, and how we leverage blockchain to change those movies between different parties. I mean, there's going to be a lot of cool stuff that we're going to be able to do. So that's blockchain. The D for distributed ledger. A for artificial intelligence. So artificial intelligence obviously is something very beginner labs. We have three labs that are delegated to artificial intelligence. >> Three? >> Yup, out of seven. One here, San Francisco. The other one in Bangalore, and the third one in Dublin, Ireland. And each of them are covering a little part of the things that we want to do with artificial intelligence. It's all about accelerating the artificial intelligence, so how we're going to think about new infrastructure, a new way of doing machine learning, using weak labeling, it's all about explainable AI, how you're going to connect the knowledge graph with machine learning, so that's the probabilistic model will give you an explanation of why they've decided to select this picture, or this information and so forth. And basically the other things we're going to be working on, artificial intelligence, is that human-machine interaction, and one thing that we want to address is what we call the conversational aspect of virtual agents. If you look at virtual agents today, voice comment type of things. >> Right, right. >> You can't really engage in a conversation. I want to look at that. How they're going to understand context, and how you're going to be exchanging better, and how you're going to flow a better conversation with that. One thing that's going to be very important in everything that we're doing is going back to semantic network, knowledge management, knowledge graph. How we combine knowledge graph with all these machine learning capabilities. That's artificial intelligence in the lab. >> Then you get, we'll just work down the list, right, then you've got the extended reality. >> Extended reality. >> So whatever kind of reality it is. >> So we're going to continue doing a lot of stuff for extended reality, immersive learning, we're going to use that, I think what's going to be important for us is that not to look at extended reality just from a vision standpoint, but try to use the combinatorial effect of every immersive sense that you have. So like, basically, hearing, also, smelling, touching the aptic, and how you combine all those senses to change completely, not the vision, but the experience. What you really feel. In fact, if you go to this Innovation Hub, I don't know if you've seen that we have an igloo-- >> We did, I saw the 360. >> That's right the 360, to try to immerse you already in some quantum computing experience, I think it's a good segue way also for quantum. So quantum, is that we've been doing a lot of progress with quantum too, you know, two years ago we started already to work with D-wave and then we have work with this company called 1QBit, so we build a software, so we use their software development kit, to program the quantum computer, and then we work with Biogen to do drug discovery, and changing the way you do that, by accelerating that through quantum computing. But we've continued, we've announced basically some partnership with IBM to look at their platform, we're continuing working with other interesting platform like Fujitsu, their Digital Annealer, and so forth, and what we want to do is that Accenture is very, very agnostic related to all those vendors. What we want to do is that we want to understand more about how you program those different architecture, how you see what type of problems they can solve, and how based you can program them. And so if we use the Abstraction Layer on top of all the others, and we can program on top of that, this is really cool, this is exactly what we want to do. >> So how close is it? How close is it to getting the production ready? I mean, you got it in the new vision for 2019, I mean, what are people just playing with it or is it ready for prime-time. >> No, no, no. >> Where is it these days? >> So first of all, DARQ stuff, all the people, all of our clients-- >> I mean quantum specifically. >> Okay quantum-specific. I think we're talking about three to five years to start to have real solutions. Right now, we have prototype, but we're moving to more pilot, and I think the solution will come soon. Probably in five years time, we're starting to ascend soon. Let me give you another idea. >> So the order of magnitude difference in the way that you can compute, the AI. >> Exactly, and I think that's going to change the game. It's going to change the game on everything. Let me give you maybe a last example that I'm sure you're going to love. And it's all about optimization matchmaking. Our tech vision this year is all about hyper-personalization, plus on-demand delivery, and so that's how at the moment, you know, you're going to change the game. The momentary moment. How you're going to change the reality of people. What you're going to be able to do. I'm going to tell you that, where we're going to use quantum computing. We're going to use quantum computing to do a better matchmaking between a person who is waiting for an organ and an organ that you can transplant to this person. And the moment is the accident that happens on the street. There's going to be someone basically dying on the street, so someone dead and then you need, basically, to get this organ, it could be a kidney, for example, every organs have a time-lapse that you can use basically to transport that to someone else. Now the question is that you have the organ, it's in basically an ice-cubed environment-like box, and then you transplant that to someone, you have like few hours to figure out who are the best receiver. And this is hyper-personalization, because you need to understand the variable of all the body that is going to receive that but all the variables of the organ, until now is all main front to do the matchmaking. We're rethinking that using quantum computing. >> It's just wild, you know, what the cloud really enabled to concept. If you had infinite compute, infinite store, and infinite networking, at basically free, asymptotically approaching free, what would you build? And that's a very different way to think about problems. >> Not only will we build some amazing things, but I think we would change the reality of every people. Every people will have their own reality that they could use product and service the way they want it, and this will be a completely different, not a world, but a game set, that would be completely different. >> Marc, we're almost out of time, but I just want to ask you about Pierre, former CEO of Accenture passed away recently, and I was really struck by the linked investors. So many people, you know, I follow you, I follow Paul, a lot of people posted, what a special man, and what an impact he had, sounds really personally with most of the leadership here in Accenture. I was wondering if you could share a few thoughts. >> Well obviously, I mean, everyone's been very sad that we lost Pierre. I mean, he was just an amazing person. He was really a role model, not only in business, but in life. And he was so fun about fun of innovations, he loved the labs, he loved what we could do in it, I think he was really thinking about better future for the people, better future for the world, and everything, and it was really amazing for that. Everyone was struck really to see that. But I think there was so many testimonials pouring from our people, but what I was even more amazed was our clients. He really moved clients. And his visions is an amazing legacy for Accenture, and we're going to, I mean, this is so precious what he left us and I think that I really want the lab, every day that we're inventing something, I'm always thinking about Pierre and what he would have thought about these things. He was always enthusiastic reading our research paper and everything, so definitely the lab's going to continue to innovate, and I hope that Pierre, wherever he is, will be watching. >> I'm sure he's smiling down. >> And will be happy with that. >> Alright, well Marc, thanks a lot for taking a few minutes and congratulations on this continual evolution of what you guys are doing with labs and Innovation Centers, and now the Innovation Hub here in downtown San Francisco. >> Thanks, Jeff. >> Alright. He's Marc, I'm Jeff, you're watching theCUBE. We're at downtown San Francisco at the Accenture Innovation Hub as part of the Accenture Technology Vision 2019 presentation. Thanks for watching. See you next time. (light electro music)

(click) >> Hey welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with the Cube we're at the Accenture Technology Vision event 2018. The actual report comes out in a couple of days. We're here at the preview event. A couple hundred people in downtown San Francisco. A lot of demos of AR and VR downstairs. It's really a center kind of highlighting the top trends that they've surveyed their community and we're excited to be here to be joined by one of the experts. He's Tony Parisi, on the Cube a long time ago we looked at 2013 amazing. He's the global head of AR and VR for Unity technology. Tony great to see you again. >> Good to see you. >> So uh, so you've been on this AR VR virtual reality thing for a while. Amazing development in this space. >> I've been working in the field for a couple decades now in one form or another and it's just been great to see with the resurgence of virtual reality. And we had experiments 20 years ago trying to turn this into a consumer ready technology. Really wasn't ready yet. With the advent of oculus and some of these other technologies, we've seen something that a consumer could afford that enterprises can afford in large numbers. You know, some thousand dollar piece of hardware connected to a personal computer that's a few thousand dollars that can drive amazing VR experiences. These same kind of immersion techniques brought into a phone where you can take a smartphone and just look through it like a magic window into this extended reality where you're seeing 3D graphics that persist in the environment around you. And these are all working toward the future where we're going to have all this 3D amazingness. Digital magic in front of us. And it's just incredible to see how far we've come in all these years and how it's just about to be both consumer ready and be deployed into businesses for all kinds of different productivity opportunities. >> Yeah it's interesting >> Amazing - that a center role them all up into one. They went with the extended reality. Cause there's a lot of confusion, is it augmented reality, virtual reality you know, how much of it is virtual stuff overlayed to reality, how much reality is brought back into the virtual space. But at the end of the day it's a lot of blending. It's going to depend on the application. >> Definitely depends on the application. If you just take marketing terms and put them aside because everyone's got their own talking about this and agreed there's a little bit of confusion right now. If you just look at the common element, it is 3D graphics. It is graphics that represent objects, environments, places, people in a way that's much more realistic. It's much more intuitive for an enuser to grasp that touches us in our brains, in a place that a flat screen doesn't so that we remember it better, or learn it more effectively. That's what all of these different techniques have in common. So, you know, call it what you want. Accenture's rolling forward with all of that. My company Unity's supplying the core technology to power all of that across 30 platforms and you look at the whole industry. Game platforms, which is where we were born. And now in the VR and AR it's you know, a dozen platforms at least that look like they could be viable. The common element for anybody who's developing is that it's 3D graphics and they're going to make investments in certain kinds of software, certain kinds of application design and techniques and knowledge that's going to transfer among all of these different kinds of hardware platforms. Because we know at the end of the day there'll be a handful there will be 3 or 4 that end up dominating just like in any other part of the computer industry with any other digital technology. So, you know we're moment because it's so early where the technology um, we don't know how to talk about it yet. But I think if you look back, probably the same thing was true of mobile and the PC at the time if you were in the middle of it. - Right >> People call it the PC, or they called it the internet, or they called it the web, or then they called it mobile or a smartphone. You know, there's just all these terms for it but that, you know, that'll be in the the rear view mirror in a couple years. And we'll just all take this for granted as, oh there's 3D stuff now in front of us. Or there's a 3D place I go into in a VR headset. >> Yeah even we were at Baobab Studios last week and, you know, even in entertainment right? Early early television replicated just a stage right? And early movies replicated just a stage before they figured out what they could do with the medium. Same thing here and it's interestingly common, how much is interactive kind of game-like. How much of it's narrative storytelling like a movie. And he's like, don't think of it that way. It's a completely different medium with a completely different opportunity to tell stories, to do things in a completely different way. >> One hundred percent. That team at Baobab is amazing. They use Unity a lot to create their experiences. And they're the first to tell you, we don't quite know what it's going to look like in a few years. We're trying lot's of things, we are going to start from some, you know touchstones, some places we already know. Game design, linear storytelling. But this is a different beast and we don't know what we're going to get. Baobab is a great example of a company that's not afraid to experiment. They're going to try and put you, I mean, what they do is they make Pixar kind of quality, high production value animated content like a Pixar movie but you're in it in VR. You can look all around, you can see the entire action unfolding around you. And more than that, they've made you a part of the story. They make you a character. Usually a secondary character. So the whole burden is not on you as the viewer to have to figure this story out. But someone who can help the story along so you feel fully involved. And if you play that forward, if you think about where that's going to go in a few years, we may be the folks who are making the stories up. I mean, it starts with just kind of being a secondary character, but as we learn this as users, as we learn how to do this, we may start making the stories up and being a much more active part of it. But, somehow still having that sweet spot where we're giving the director and the content creator the final say in sort of how this world is being created. Uh, Brett Letter the famous director did Lawnmower Man if you know his work in a 90s work in a movie about VR. He's back in the world here also doing VR again. And he likens this to world building. He thinks VR creation for entertainment is much more like creating a Disney theme park. A world that you can inhabit and be part of and have fun for hours, days at a time versus telling one story from start to finish. So I mean, think about it what's going to happen in the next couple years. It's mind blowing where this could go. And we really don't know, none of us could predict. >> So you're deep into it Tony. I wonder if you could share a story of maybe some applications that you're seeing in production or kind of in development. Where people are not thinking, you know, men like me obviously we know entertainment, we know games, we know some of the industrial stuff like walking a shop floor and seeing the RPMs of a machine. But what are some of the applications that we don't know that you see coming down the pipe. >> Well if you just think about take one industry, like the auto industry. Right? I think you can imagine like you said if you're somewhat versed in this. The idea that you could use virtual reality to design a car instead of what they do today which is they use some 3D design packages but they still build a physical prototype of the car out of clay and, you know, companywide a Ford, or a Volkswagon, or a company like that will spend millions for every new car building these physical prototypes. They want to replace that with purely digital and virtual processes at some point which is going to save them a heck of a lot of time and money and materials cost. Right? But now you just take that one example and you take that car design and do the entire life cycle of that car to when it's assembled, manufactured, you can train people in VR how to do that. When it's getting rolled out onto a show floor, to people who are selling it. All the way to when that car is a self driving car that you put somebody into and they get in the cabin of that thing and the cabin because there's no driver in there, you now have a lot of room in there. Right? It's an entertainment center. So these kind of augmented and virtual reality technologies could potentially touch every phase in the lifecycle of not just the development, but the deployment, and the ongoing operation of a motor vehicle as we know it. So that's going to radically transform things sometime in the next 5 to 10 years. >> Alright Tony I'm going to let you go, the party's underway. We got the autonomous robots are playing in the band. In 5 years from now we can't wait 5 years because I don't even know what's going to be here. >> I hope we do this again. >> It'll be crazy different. - Well in advance of 5 years from now. >> So thanks for talking with me a few minutes. Tony Parisi, Jeff Rick, you're watching the Cube from the Accenture Technology Vision 2018. Thanks for watching. (upbeat digital music)

>> Hey welcome back, everybody. Jeff Frick here with the CUBE. We're at the Accenture Technology Vision 2018, actually, the preview event, 'about 200 people. The actual report comes out in a couple of days. A lot of interesting conversations about what are the big trends in 2018 in Accenture. Surveyed Paul Daugherty and team and really excited. Just was a panel discussion to get into a little bit of the not exactly a technology, but really the trust and ethics conversations. We're joined by Dr. Shannon Vallor. She's a professor at Santa Clara University. Dr. Vallor, great to see you. >> Great to be here, thank you! >> So you were just on the panel, and of course there was a car guy on the panel. So everybody loves this talk about cars and autonomous vehicles. You didn't get enough time. (chuckles) So we've got a little more time, which is great. >> Great! >> But one of the things that you brought up that I think was pretty interesting is really, kind of a higher-level view of what role technology plays in our life before. And you said before it was ancillary, it was a toy, it was a gimmick. It was a cool new car, a status symbol, or whatever. But now technology is really defining who we are, what we do, how we interact, not only with the technology of other people. It's really taken such a much more fundamental role with a bunch more new challenges. >> Yeah, and fundamentally that means that these new technologies are helping to determine how our lives go, not just whether we have the latest gadget or status symbol. Previously, as I said, we tended to take on technologies as ornaments to our life, as luxuries to enrich our life. Increasingly, they are the medium through which we live our lives, right? They're the ways that we find the people we want to marry. They're the ways that we access resources, capital, healthcare, knowledge. They're the ways that we participate as citizens in a democracy. They are entering our bodies. They're entering our homes. And the level of trust that's required to really welcome technology in this way without ambivalence or fear, it's a kind of trust that many technology companies weren't prepared to earn. >> Jeff: Right, Right. >> Because it goes much deeper than simply having to behave in a lawful manner, or satisfy your shareholders, right? It means actually having to think about whether your technologies are helping people live better lives, and whether you're earning the trust that your marketing department, your engineers, your salespeople are out there trying to get from your customers. >> Right. And it's this really interesting. When you talked about a refrigerator, I just love that example 'cause most people would never let their next door neighbor look into their refrigerator. >> Shannon: Or their medicine cabinet, right? >> Or their medicine cabinet, right. And now you want to open that up to automatic replenishment. And it's interesting 'cause I don't think a lot of companies that came into the business with the idea that they were going to have this intimate relationship with their customers to a degree, and a personal responsibility to that data. They just want to sell them some good stuff and move on >> Sure. >> to the next customer. >> Yes. >> So it's a very different mindset. Are they adjusting? How are the legacy folks dealing with this? >> Well, the good news is, is that there are a lot more conversations happening about technology and ethics within industry circles. And you even see large organizations coming together to try to lead in an effort to develop more ethical approaches to technology design and development. So, for example, the big five leaders in AI have come together to form the partnership for AI and social good. And this is a really groundbreaking movement that could potentially lead other industry participants to say, "Hey we need to get on board with this, "and we have to start thinking >> Right. >> "about what ethical leadership looks like for us," as opposed to just a sort of PR kind of thing. Yeah, we throw the word "ethics" on a few websites or slides and then we're good, right? >> Right. >> It has to go much deeper than that. And that's going to be a challenge. But it has to be at a level where rank and file workers and project managers have procedures that they know how to go through that involve ethical analysis, prediction, and preparing ethical responses to failures or conflicts that might arise. >> Right, there's just so many layers to this that we could go on for a long time. >> Sure. >> But the autonomous band has kicked up. >> Yes, yes! >> But one of the things is when you're collecting the data for a specific purpose, and you put all the efficacy in as to why and how, and what you're going to treat, what you don't know is how that data might be used by someone else next week, >> Yes. >> next year, >> Yes. >> ten years from now. >> Absolutely. >> And you can't really know because there's maybe things that you aren't aware of. So a very difficult challenge. >> And I think we have to just start thinking in terms of different kinds of metaphors. So data up until now has been seen as something that had value and very little risk associated with it. Now our attitudes are starting to shift, and we're starting to understand that data carries not just value, not just the ability to monetized, but immense power. And that power can be both constructive or destructive. Data is like jet fuel, right? It can do great things. >> Right. >> But you've got to store it carefully. You have to make sure that the people handling it are properly trained. That they know what can go wrong. >> Right. >> Right? That they've got safety regimes in place. No one who handles jet fuel treats it the way that some companies treat data today. But today, data can cause disasters on a scale similar to a chemical explosion. People can die, lives can be ruined, and people can lose their life savings over a breach or a misuse of data that causes someone to be unjustly accused of fraud or a crime. So we have to start thinking about data as something much more powerful than we have in the past. >> Jeff: Right. >> And you have the responsibility to handle it appropriately. >> Right, but we're still so far away, right? We're still sending money to the Nigerian prince who needs help getting out of the airport at Newark Airport. I mean, even just the social, >> Yes. >> the social factors still haven't caught up. And then you've got this kind of whole API economy where so many apps are connected to so many apps. >> Right. >> So even, where is the data? >> Yeah. >> And that's before you even get into a plane flying over international borders while you send an email, I mean. >> Right, yes. >> The complexity is crazy! >> Yep, and we're never going to get a handle on all of it. So one of the things I like to tell people is, it's important not to let the perfect become the enemy of the good, right? >> Jeff: Right. >> So the idea is, yes, the problem is massive. Yes, it's incredibly complex. Can we address every possible risk? Can we forestall every possible disaster? No. Can we do much better than we're doing now? Absolutely. So, I think, the important thing is not to focus on how massive the problem or the complexities are, but think about how can we move forward from here to get ourselves in a better and more responsible position. And there's lots of ways to do that. Lots of companies are already leading the way in that direction. So I think that there's so much progress to be made that we don't have to worry too much about the progress that we might never get around to making. >> Right, right. But then there's this other interesting thing that's going on that we've seen with kind of the whole "fake news," right? Which is algorithms are determining what we see. >> Shannon: Yes. >> And if you look at the ad tech model as kind of where the market has taken over the way that that operates, >> Shannon: Yep. >> there's no people involved. So then you have things happen like what happened with YouTube, where advertisers' stuff is getting put into places where they don't want it. >> Yeah. >> But there's really no people, there's no monitoring. >> Yes. >> So how do you see that kind of evolving? 'Cause on one hand, you want more social responsibility and keeping track of things. On the other hand, so much is moving to software, automation, and giving people more of what they want, not necessarily what they need. >> Well, and that means that we have to do a much better job of investing in human intelligence. We have to, for every new form of artificial intelligence, we need an even more powerful provision of human intelligence to guide it, to provide oversight. So what I like to say is, AI is not ready for solo flight, right? And a lot of people would like that to be the case because, of course, you can save money if you can put an automated adjudication system in there and take the people out. But we've seen over and over again that that leads again and again to disaster and to huge reputational losses to companies, often huge legal liabilities, right? So we have to be able to get companies to understand that they are really protecting themselves and their long-term health if they invest in human expertise and human intelligence to support AI, to support data, to support all of the technologies that are giving these companies greater competitive advantage and profitability. >> But does the delta in the machine scale versus human scale just become unbearable? Or can we use the machine scale to filter out the relatively small number of things that need a person to get involved. I mean. >> Yeah, and the-- >> How do you see some kind of some best practices? >> Yeah, so the answer depends on the industry, depends upon the application. So there's no one size fits all solution. But what we can often do is recognize that typically human and AI function best together, right? So we can figure out the ways in which the AI can amplify the human expertise and wisdom, and the human expertise can fill in some of the gaps that still exist in artificial intelligence. Some of the things that AIs just don't see, just don't recognize, just aren't able to value or predict. And so when we figure out the ways that human and artificial intelligence can compliment each other in a particular stetting, then we can get the most reliable results, and often the fairest and safest results. They might not always be the most efficient from the narrow standpoint of speed and profit, right? >> Jeff: Right, right. >> So they have able to step back and say at the end of the day, quality matters, trust matters. And just as if we put together a shoddy project on the cheap and put it out there, it's going to come back to bite us. If we put shoddy AI in place of important human decisions that affect human lives, it's going to come back to bite us. So we need to invest in the human expertise and the human wisdom, which has that ethical insight to round out what AI still lacks. >> So do you think the execution of that trust building becomes the next great competitive advance? I mean, >> Yeah. >> nobody talks about that right? Data's the new oil, >> Sure! And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And software defined, AI driven automation, but that's not necessarily only to the goal in road, right? There's issues. >> Right. >> So is trust, you think? >> Absolutely. >> The next great competitive differentiator? >> Absolutely. I think in the long run it will be. If you look at, for example, the way that companies like Facebook and Equifax have really damaged, in pretty profound ways, the public perception of them as trustworthy actors in, not just the corporate space, right? But in the political space for Facebook, in the economic space for Equifax. And we have to be able to recognize that those associations of a major company with that level of failure are really lasting, right? Those things don't get forgotten in one news cycle. So I think we have to recognize that today people don't know who to trust, right? It used to be that you could trust the big names, the big Fortune 500 companies. >> The blue chips, right. >> The blue chips, right. >> Right. >> And then it was the little fly by night companies that you didn't really know whether you could trust, and maybe you'd be more cautious in dealing with them. Now the public has no way of understanding which companies will genuinely fulfill the trust in the relationship >> Right. >> that the customer gives them. And so there's a huge opportunity from a competitive standpoint for companies to step up and actually earn that trust and say, in a way that can be backed up by action and results, "Your data's safe with us," right? "Your property's safe with us. "Your bank account is safe with us. "Your personal privacy is safe with us. "Your votes are safe with us. "Your news is safe with us." >> Right. >> Right? And that's the next step. >> But everyone is so cynical that, unfortunately Walter Cronkite is dead, right? >> Sure. >> We don't trust politicians anymore. We don't trust news anymore. We don't trust, now more and more, the companies. So it's a really kind of rough world in the trust space. >> Yeah! >> So do you see any kind of (chuckles) silver lining? I mean, how do we execute in this kind of crazy world where you just don't know? >> Well, what I like to say is that you have to be cautiously optimistic about this because society simply doesn't keep going without some level of trust, right? Markets depend on trust. Democracy depends on trust. Neighborhoods depend on trust, right? >> Jeff: Right. >> So either trust comes back into our lives at some deep level or everything falls apart. Frankly, those are the only choices. So if nature abhors a vacuum, and right now we have a vacuum of trust, then there's a huge opportunity for people to start stepping into that space and filling that void. So I'd like to focus on the positive potential here rather than the worst case scenario, right? The worst case scenario is, we keep going as things have been going and trust in our most important institutions continues to crumble. Well, that just ends in societal collapse >> Right, right. >> one way or the other. If we don't want to do that, and I presume that if there's anything we can all agree on, it's that that's not where we want to go. >> Right. >> Then now is the time for companies, if need be, to come together and say, "We have to step into this space "and create new trusted institutions and practices "that will help stabilize society and drive progress "in ways that aren't just reflected in GDP "but are reflected in human wellbeing, "happiness, a sense of security, a sense of hope. "A sense that technology actually does gives us a future "that we want to to be happy about moving into." >> Right, right. >> Right? >> So I'll give you the last word. >> Sure. >> We'll end on a positive note. What are some examples of companies or practices that you see out there as kind of shining lights that other people should be either aware of, emulate. Let's talk about the positive before we >> Sure. cut you lose. >> Well, one thing that I mentioned already is the AI partnership that has come together with companies that are really leading the conversation along with a lot of other organizations like AI Now, which is an organization on the East Coast that's doing a lot of fantastic work. There are a lot of companies supporting research into ethical development, design, and implementation of new technologies. That's something we haven't seen before, right? This is something that's only happened in the last two or three years. It's an incredibly positive development. Now we just have to make sure that the recommendations that are developed by these groups are actually taken onboard and implemented. And it'll be up to many of the industry leaders to set an example of how that can be done because they have the resources >> Right. >> and the ability to lead in that way. I think one of the other things that we can look at is that people are starting to become less naive about technology. Perhaps the silver lining of the loss of trust is the ability of consumers to be a little wiser, a little more appropriately critical and skeptical, and to figure out ways that they can, in fact, protect their interests. That they can actually seek out and determine who earns their trust. >> Right. >> Where their data is safest. And so I'm optimistic that there will be a sort of meeting, if you will, of the public interest and the interests of technology developers who really need the public to be on board, right? >> Jeff: Right. >> You can't make a better world if society doesn't want to come along with you. >> Jeff: Right, right. >> So my hope is, and I'm cautiously optimistic about that, that these forces will come together and create a future for us that we actually want to move into. >> All right, good. I don't want to leave on a sad note! >> Great, yes. >> Dr. Shannon Vallor, she's positive about the future. It's all about trust. Thanks for taking a few minutes. >> Thank you. >> I'm Jeff Frick, she's Dr. Shannon. Thanks for watching. We'll catch you next time. (upbeat techno music)