“Adapt or perish,” I told myself as I read about Amazon’s new plan to deliver packages inside your home.
You’ve probably heard of this new program, called Amazon Key, which allows delivery drivers to walk into your home and securely place packages in your kitchen, hallway, living room… wherever.
It recently went live in 37 US cities. Simply buy Amazon’s $120 internet-connected security camera called the Amazon Cloud Cam and a smart lock (together they cost at least $250), download the Amazon Key app, and you will be ready for this option.
Recently, I had to talk to Amazon about a package that never made it to my doorstep; Whether it was stolen by someone who really needed a banana holder for their kitchen counter or something happened in transit, I’ll never know. The service representative was great at refunding my money, but he wanted to make sure I never had to worry about stolen packages again.
So I’m considering this option. (If you’re like me and unsure if you should trust strangers, no matter how well vetted, in your home, you’ll understand why it takes me so long to decide.)
As I began to think about this big change in our delivery system options, the HG Wells quote I mentioned earlier flashed through my mind: Adapt or perish.
There are so many innovative “smart” designs hitting the market these days that it’s hard to keep up. The Internet of Things (IoT) trend is clearly happening, and in big, paradigm-shifting ways.
We are already adapting neighborhoods with the “design of the future” in mind. Since October, there have been at least three big smart city announcements:
- Bill Gates just invested $80 million to build a smart city in Arizona. This high-tech development will be built outside of Phoenix and, as CNN reports, will feature “high-speed networks, autonomous vehicles, high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies, and autonomous logistics centers.”
- In October, Alphabet Inc.’s urban innovation organization Sidewalk Labs committed $50 million for a similar smart city in Toronto. The company’s motto is “reimagining cities from the Internet,” and this city is a perfect example. The cost of the project is likely to exceed $1 billion, with a focus on self-driving car lanes, public Wi-Fi hubs, and other modern advances.
- And earlier this week, Cisco announced that it plans to invest $1 billion to develop smart cities around the world, which will use its Cisco Kinetic of Cities IoT platform.
Clearly, it’s not just our delivery systems that are getting upgraded. Our entire path of life is changing as smart money flows into building a world that previously only resided in science fiction stories.
We may not want to adapt with every smart innovation that hits the market, but we still need to adapt our investment strategies if we want to stay ahead.
So follow the smart money if you haven’t already. Start researching the building blocks of these smart cities and see which companies are preparing for explosive growth.