The hype may have dropped but Web3 use cases continue to grow: Gartner

As the hype around Web3 dwindles with the explosion in popularity of generative AI, the development and use cases of these Web3 technologies are still continuing to grow. 

Adrian Leow, VP analyst at Gartner discussed with Digital Nation why business leaders should still be considering experimenting with Web3 technologies like blockchain, NFTs and the metaverse.

He said the number one thing for business leaders to do is learn about these technologies.

“Don't stick your head in the sand. If you stick your head in the sand, you'll wake up in six, seven years' time, your whole market around you might have decentralised and you're the one left behind,” he said.

“Even though you might feel that the technology is not going anywhere. It's just evolving, it's constantly evolving. We didn't have NFTs, fungible tokens and immutable records before, but now we do.”

Leow said organisations should experiment with the technologies but understand the investment is tactical.

“Meaning that it is money you're willing to burn because whatever you create in a project, you probably have to throw it out in about 18 months' time,” he said.

“There'll be something that advances the technology more that you have to take advantage of.”

He said generative AI has “swallowed up” all of the interests of the enterprise at the moment to get business cases across the line.

“As a result, other emerging tech like Web3 and blockchain have suffered in terms of interests, but the actual possibilities have not gone away,” he explained.

Leow noted one of the biggest barriers to adoption is the lack of education around Web3 technologies.

“I ran this survey recently, which went out to 1400 respondents end users around the world. What we found was that the lack of education, and therefore the understanding of the actual technologies themselves is the biggest barrier to adoption,” he explained.

“That might sound pretty standard to be the case, but the other problem with that is where would they actually get the education for it? Would they go to forums, would they have to go to other people in the industry, it is a serious issue to adoption of the technologies because people don't understand it,” he explained.

“They say this thing that is just there out of their reach, that could have all this potential, but then they don't know what to do with it.”

Generative AI hype versus blockchain hype

While generative AI and blockchain have both been hyped by leaders, Leow said the hype is different.

He said the main difference is AI is being used now by organisations while blockchain is in its experimentation phase.

“A lot of the industries are still here on the rise, and then some like finance, like BFSI, some higher education, government they are slipping down into the trough of disillusionment,” he said.

“It is not that they lost faith, they've done the experimentations and they understand the limitations, they're waiting for the technology to catch up.”

Similar to the internet when it began, Leow said he is still unsure what the future looks like for blockchain.

People only know what they know, meaning that what they have put in front of them is what they understand. The possibilities of the future, to them, it's almost like sci fi, like what they could do with it?” He ended.