Page 118 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

tracing has an unequalled capacity and a quasi-essential place in
the armoury needed to combat COVID-19, while at the same time

being positioned to become an enabler of mass surveillance.

1.6.1. Accelerating the digital transformation

With the pandemic, the “digital transformation” that so many
analysts have been referring to for years, without being exactly

sure what it meant, has found its catalyst. One major effect of
confinement will be the expansion and progression of the digital
world in a decisive and often permanent manner. This is
noticeable not only in its most mundane and anecdotal aspects

(more online conversations, more streaming to entertain, more
digital content in general), but also in terms of forcing more
profound changes in how companies operate, something that is
explored in more depth in the next chapter. In April 2020, several

tech leaders observed how quickly and radically the necessities
created by the health crisis had precipitated the adoption of a wide
range of technologies. In the space of just one month, it appeared
that many companies in terms of tech take-up fast-forwarded by

several years. For the digitally savvy, this meant good things,
while, for the others, a very poor outlook (sometimes
catastrophically so). Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, observed
that social- and physical-distancing requirements created “a

remote everything”, bringing forward the adoption of a wide range
of technologies by two years, while Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO,
marvelled at the impressive leap in digital activity, forecasting a
“significant and lasting” effect on sectors as different as online

work, education, shopping, medicine and entertainment. [122]

1.6.1.1. The consumer

During the lockdowns, many consumers previously reluctant to
rely too heavily on digital applications and services were forced to

change their habits almost overnight: watching movies online
instead of going to the cinema, having meals delivered instead of
going out to restaurants, talking to friends remotely instead of

meeting them in the flesh, talking to colleagues on a screen
instead of chit-chatting at the coffee machine, exercising online

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