According to Gartner Inc., smartphones will soon be able to predict a consumer’s next move, their next purchase or interpret actions based on what it knows. This insight will be performed based on an individual’s data gathered using cognizant computing — the next step in personal cloud computing.

The first services that will be performed "automatically" will generally help with various tasks — and significantly time consuming or time wasting tasks — such as time-bound events. Gradually, as confidence in the outsourcing of more menial tasks to the smartphone increases, consumers are expected to become accustomed to allowing a greater array of apps and services to take control of other aspects of their lives - this will be the era of cognizant computing.

By 2017 mobile phones will be smarter than people not because of an intrinsic intelligence, but because the cloud and the data stored in the cloud will provide them with the computational ability to make sense of the information they have so they appear smart.

To reach a complete personal cloud experience, cognizant computing consists of four stages: Sync Me; See Me; Know Me; Be Me Sync Me and See Me are currently taking place, while Know Me and Be Me are still to occur.

There are two aspects of how cognizant computing will impact the market. It will have an impact on hardware vendors and on the other services and business models.

Hardware vendors will continue to face the challenge of hardware commoditisation as ecosystem owners will focus on shifting consumers’ focus away from the hardware and onto their services and brands. With the move into a cognizant computing world, the battle to own the consumer will intensify as vendors will try and control the data in the cloud, and through that the relationship with the users. Hardware vendors will unlikely be credited with the good, but surely be blamed about the ugly when the device fails to deliver. The device will be seen as dumb rather than the malfunctioning of the real brain: the cloud.

Over the next two to five years, cognizant computing will become one the strongest market forces affecting the entire ecosystems and value chains across IT. Monetization will flow from the increased knowledge of the consumer and the fine-tuning of offers that can now be achieved, and are increasingly perceived as personal and highly relevant — which should lead to an increase in spend. The mobile commerce opportunities are vast as the smartphone is empowered to make purchases via the consumer’s mobile wallet or credit card, all via their mobile phone.

While Gartner said privacy will be an issue for some consumers, for many it will only be an issue if they do not get enough in return for their personal data. Consumers tend to give up a lot for convenience. The benefit of certain apps might instigate behaviors that were unthinkable yesterday.