The technology space has long been the most exciting and watched industry for a number of years now. Innovations in the sector have radically changed the way we live. In many cases, it has created completely new industries and services. From the pervasive impact of social media to autonomous vehicles, tech is rapidly driving change throughout the world. This leads us to what tech we can expect to see dominate the headlines in 2018.

With other exciting sectors such as self-driving cars and virtual reality already gaining mainstream appeal, which new trends are about to make it big in 2018? As we reach the halfway point in the industry’s first quarter, check out our list of 3 of the hottest technology trends of 2018 below:

1. Voice Recognition Technology

We were first properly introduced to voice command recognition when Amazon released Alexa back in November 2014. Subsequently, Alexa made her way into the company’s Echo and Echo Dot devices. The tech allowing millions of customers to shop with only their voice.

Google also has voice command integrated into its search engine, and the company also recently released its own Google Home range of smart speakers. With so many virtual assistants being released, the battle for your front room is only just hotting up in 20018.

Several other tech companies have since released their own iterations making voice recognition one of the hottest spaces in tech right now. Very soon everyone will be able to interact with everything from TVs and lights in the home, to shopping and playing the best casino games by their voice alone. And as we go further into 2018, expect to see more voice activated hardware being released. Meanwhile, those existing providers mentioned above will continue to fine-tune their offering.

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The consumers’ first taste of AI besides movies would have been the introduction of Big Data a few years ago. Computing power has got better, and chips smaller. As a result, we’re now able to build machines that can crunch gigabytes of information in seconds. That ability is now being harnessed to provide more customised products and services in a variety of industries.

Whether it’s Google’s search engine, your shopping experience at Amazon, or Netflix’s recommendations, AI is about to go even more mainstream. Artificial Intelligence will bring predictive recommendations and data aggregation to the consumer more and more in 2018.

3. Internet of Things (IoT)

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to connected devices, particularly in the home, aimed at making our lives even easier. From remote camera doorbells to connected appliances we can control even while away from home. An ever increasing number of internet connected products are becoming available.

To outline how hot this space is, regard Amazon’s purchase of Maker Ring, a company whose IoT products are designed to improve home security. According to Reuters, the deal values Ring at 1 Billion dollars. That is an amazing figure for a company that inauspiciously began life by being rejected on a business show.

Amazon itself already has its own smart lock and camera system called Amazon Key, in addition to its Echo range as its IoT Devices. Consequently as other tech companies gear up for connected device production, 2018 is likely to see the Internet of things finally go mainstream.

The technology trends listed above look set to take 2018 by storm given the feverish activity seen in their respective sectors recently. However, that is not to discount other significant trends that have been hotting up nicely since 2017. That illustrious list includes autonomous cars, drones, as well as virtual and augmented reality. There are also other hot tech trends such as flying cars and delivery drones. However, realistically those won’t be deployed at scale in 2018.

However, whichever way you look at it, techheads will definitely be waiting to see what 2018 holds in terms of tech gadgets and trends to come.