COVID-19: Winners and Losers in Technology and Artificial Intelligence Sectors

By. Dr. Mohamed Abdulzaher .....Academic and Artificial Intelligence Journalism Pioneer 

Who are the Winners and Losers in Post-Covid-19 World?

Do you remember how many times you used Zoom meeting programme before December 2019? Also, how much did you pay per month for video on demand services and movies before December 2019? And, how many times did you use Microsoft Teams before the beginning of 2020?

Many tools and technologies which suddenly popped up during COVID-19 pandemic were being used in home streaming during the world lockdown, and the world still remains heavily dependent on those tools, even after the gradual opening for business and economic activities.

Some of the big tech companies were in the right place at the right time in full COVID-19 lockdown, while others have seen the real-world trade they rely on, shut down completely.

Consequently, Coronavirus pandemic will have many winners and losers, but it already has one clear winner: the Smart big tech. where the large digital platforms, including Alphabet and Facebook, will come out of the crisis even stronger.

Top Winners

1- Video-Conferencing Platforms

Video conferencing programmes and platforms technologies have become the fastest and safest solution to curb the spread of COVID-19 epidemic. Where schools, universities, companies, and governments have relied heavily on these technologies and tools.

For instance, the big players in Video-Conferencing such as Zoom, Google, Skype, Facebook, they are the winners .

Zoom Video Conferencing

The pandemic is also likely to accelerate digital transformations and investments in new technology as those companies that do not have this as part of their strategy are likely to suffer competitively. This is not just in terms of productivity efficiencies, but also in enterprises getting closer to their customers through insights and analytics to generate growth. We are also likely to see an acceleration in the adoption of artificial intelligence, analytics, customer behaviour services, video conferencing and distributed workflow. (Sanlam WealthSmiths Report).

The big winners and players getting affected in the market include 8×8, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Google LLC, Lifesize, Inc., LogMeIn, Inc., Microsoft Corp., RingCentral, Inc., StarLeaf Ltd., Zoho Corp. Pvt. Ltd., Zoom Video Communications, Inc., and so other. These companies are envisaging the pandemic situation as a key to increase their growth and at the same time helping people during the crisis.

The market players are offering their services for free or at minimal cost to the enterprises and government organizations. For instance, in March 2020, Zoom Video Communications, Inc., a California-based remote conferencing services company, has announced the free access to video conferencing tools for K-12 schools during COVID-19 crisis. Moreover, the company’s stock prices have increased with the last few months as the investors are as certain that the virus could possibly boost the demand for Zoom’s video conferencing products, according to Research and Markets report (April 2020).

Click here to read the full report.

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