Digital twin trends are evolving as the market continues to shift. Once considered a futuristic solution for the industrial landscape, digital twins are now influencing countless companies from every sector.
In the enterprise, these technologies allow businesses to test and optimize processes, products, and more in the virtual world. In fact, the rising adoption of digital twins across landscapes is fostering astronomical growth. Some analysts predict the global market size for digital twins will be worth over $195.4 billion by 2030, representing a CAGR of 41.3%.
Today we’re looking at some of the most significant digital twin trends influencing enterprises and evolving companies in 2024.
1. Increasing Adoption of Digital Twins
As mentioned above, in previous years, digital twin adoption was most common among industrial companies exploring the new opportunities of Industry 4.0. By 2023, however, 75% of enterprises had also adopted digital twin solutions to support their digital transformation efforts.
Companies from a wider range of sectors are now leveraging digital twins to help them create unique hybrid and remote work environments for employees, enhance customer experience, and streamline product development. These technologies can also minimize operational and maintenance costs and assist businesses with boosting sustainability efforts.
Leaders in many industries will find various ways to incorporate technologies for process mining, compliance monitoring, and risk analysis into their digital twin solutions moving forward. This will pave the way to a future where digital twins permeate every space, from healthcare to retail.
2. IoT, 5G and Digital Twin Trends
Perhaps unsurprisingly, digital twin trends are being heavily influenced by the rising adoption of IoT devices, and enhanced connectivity options. Countless industries are now leveraging IoT technologies to help track employee and system performance, access insights into customer journeys, and more.
As the number of IoT-connected devices continues to grow, this will pave the way for more powerful digital twin initiatives, unlocking endless data for organizations. What’s more, new connectivity options will help streamline the transfer of data. Widespread adoption of 5G networks will revolutionize the landscape with high speed and lower latency.
This will lead to better solutions for real-time synchronization, remote monitoring, and control in various industries. Plus, edge computing solutions will empower companies to maintain more control over their connections and data transfer options.
3. Digital Twins and Extended Reality
Extended reality and digital twins are closely connected. Using twins with extended reality unlocks limitless opportunities for enterprise leaders. Companies can use XR and the metaverse to help companies streamline the product development strategy, empowering teams to experiment with a wide range of designs.
They can also leverage extended reality and metaverse environments powered by digital twins to create more immersive training and onboarding experiences for employees. This technology can allow employees to remotely interact with a range of devices in a controlled space. This improves both the safety and efficiency of training exercises.
Plus, with AR/VR solutions and digital twins, companies can deliver more effective customer experiences. They can use digital twins and IoT devices to monitor the health of products and systems and then remotely assist customers in troubleshooting and addressing issues.
4. AI in Digital Twin Trends
Artificial intelligence is another technology frequently aligned with digital twin trends. Many companies offering digital twin solutions leverage artificial intelligence to help companies analyze the data they collect from IoT devices and automatically monitor trends.
AI systems can also empower employees to apply real-time fixes to products and systems with intelligent workflows. Some AI tools can even help companies predict potential issues in advance by monitoring both real-time data and historical information.
Many companies, such as BMW and GM, are already using AI and digital twins to simulate crash tests, enhance designs, and more. Plus, as generative AI makes its way into the XR landscape, new opportunities will continue to emerge. Increasingly, we’re seeing growing interest in the concept of “cognitive digital twins.”
Generative AI digital twins can more effectively track fault patterns, give suggestions to team members, and enhance productivity for anyone leveraging a digital landscape.
5. Greater Security Awareness
Embracing digital twins, the metaverse, IoT, and XR technologies present new challenges for companies to overcome regarding security and compliance. Though companies are now designing IoT devices and digital twin solutions with a focus on security to help minimize risks, there are still threats that need to be addressed.
This will be particularly important as AI solutions become more integrated into digital twin technologies. Since digital twin systems rely on large amounts of valuable data, enterprise leaders will need to take a careful approach to implementation.
We’re likely to see a growing focus from organizations on implementing measures to protect intellectual property, personal data, and confidential information. This could mean accessing more advanced user authentication methods, using secure networks, and running regular security audits to track the movement of data.
6. Evolutions in the Blockchain
The market for blockchain technology is growing just as fast as the digital twin landscape. By 2032, this market will be worth more than $69 billion, representing a CAGR of 68%. Blockchain could significantly impact digital twin trends going forward. Already, innovators are looking for ways to connect the technologies.
BlockTwins, for instance, connect blockchain technology to digital twin systems and process mining capabilities. Combined with edge computing capabilities, these solutions will introduce new opportunities for real-time analytics and decision-making at the network’s edge.
Digital twins with integrated process mining and blockchain tools will help companies simulate and improve business processes. They’ll empower teams to analyze and mitigate risks, forecast and enhance automation processes, and optimize compliance. Plus, they’ll allow for significant updates to overall digital twin management, auditing, and security analysis.
7. Continued Focus on Sustainability
Sustainability has emerged as a critical trend for virtually all enterprises in recent years. Customers and investors are prioritizing working with companies that look for ways to actively reduce their carbon footprint. Fortunately, digital twin trends are taking the demand for sustainability into account.
Digital twin vendors are experimenting with new ways to make access to this technology more eco-friendly. For instance, leading tech vendors now offer digital twin as a service solutions intended to help reduce the hardware footprint and energy consumption patterns of enterprise brands.
Digital twin technologies can also now allow companies to access deeper insights into their data, introducing new ways to improve efficiency. The right technologies can monitor energy usage and waste, helping companies to reduce operational costs and carbon emissions.
Based on utilization data, they can assist businesses in designing more cost-efficient and eco-friendly offices. They can also give companies an effective way to experiment with product design strategies that use more sustainable materials and resources.
The Evolution of Digital Twin Trends
Digital twin trends are clearly having a significant impact on the future of the enterprise. No longer simply a solution for the industrial metaverse, digital twins are helping all kinds of companies to digitally transform. The right solutions can empower companies to minimize their carbon footprint and operational costs, enhance productivity, and improve customer service.
As the technology landscape continues to evolve, and more vendors experiment with digital twin offerings, we will see this technology becoming more commonplace in every sector.
