It has been five years since Mary Meeker released a BOND report on technology. I had frequently used her reports over the years in both my Masters and doctorate technology courses, and had previously blogged about several of her Internet status reports, first in 2012, then in 2017, and finally in 2018.
In that last 2018 blog post, I highlighted key trends and their implications for higher education and e-learning. While smartphone and internet user growth had slowed, time spent online continued to increase, especially on mobile devices. This shift suggested to me (back in 2018) a need for higher education to adapt e-learning course designs to be more smartphone-compatible.
I also discussed the rise of voice-controlled products like Amazon Echo and their potential impact on e-learning activities. I touched on the growing influence of tech companies in the U.S. economy and the acceleration of e-commerce growth, and how these trends might affect course design, recruitment, and marketing in higher education.
I believed that the increasing speed of technological disruption and its potential impact on employment would require us to prepare students for on-demand and internet-related jobs. The importance of artificial intelligence in enterprise spending and its potential to augment learning facilitation is also mentioned.
Finally, I considered the implications of these trends for higher education, including the need for improved customer service, the potential obsolescence of traditional semester systems, and the importance of frequent skill updates in a gig economy.
Five years is a LONG time.
As I looked through this much shorter Meeker report, several things jumped out at me.
She noted that it took ChatGPT just 5 days (Wow!!!) to secure 1 million users versus the 74 days it took Apple to reach that number with the iPhone. The graph below showed that ChatGPT reached 100 million in just a few weeks.
Remember when Netflix was the “new thing?”
My earlier posts reviewed her findings on internet trends. In focusing this report on education, Meeker made five key points:
- Internet Offerings Have Materially Altered Learning / Education Over the Past Quarter-Century…AI Will Do the Same, but Faster & Bigger
- Higher Education in America…Macro Tradeoffs Increasing
- Technology-Driven Changes May Shift Winners & Losers in Higher Education…
Securing Lanes of Excellence Will be Key - AI May Make This the Best Time Ever to be a Self-Motivated Student…
Both a Challenge & an Opportunity for Teachers & Universities to Match - It’s a Crucial Time for Universities Both to Reaffirm American Values & to Revitalize Their Own Missions
In many ways, this is an optimistic review and reaffirmed points Salman Khan and Ethan Mollick made in their books, which I blogged about previously. In my “new” status as “retired,” I can look back on a quarter century of being bullish about online learning, so I find it mind blowing to consider how GenAI will upend learning…but faster and bigger!
Her report stresses the importance of universities determining their competitive advantages and creating relevant, best-in-class programs. It also highlights the need for universities to adapt to a more meritocratic, skills-based world while maintaining the core values that make American universities attractive to both domestic and international students.
I recommend those of us in higher education review it … and I would love to hear your thoughts!
{Graphics: BOND, DALL-E}