New Technology: The Steppingstone to the Future, Today

Today, technology can be considered an obvious topic due to how many generations, from baby boomers to Gen Z, use it on a daily basis. From the moment we wake up, our lives are immersed in technology that just 10 or five years ago was unthinkable, let alone as widespread as it is in our daily routine.

Gone are the days of the wind-up clock, replaced by a smartphone or speaker that wakes you up consistently at the appointed time. Without even having to ask, it can turn on the lights and put on the coffee. Immediately, as if taken straight out of a ;60s television series, the speaker responds: “right away,” and immediately the room lights up as the coffee brewer begins to prepare an aromatic drink.

Added to this scene are many other actions and trinkets that are so obvious, but at the same time so unimaginable just a decade ago. We can check today’s agenda in an app while listening to stimulating music and eating breakfast, schedule a transportation service to pick us up right in front of our house and take us to the office, check on today’s documents on the cloud before even getting to work, and begin to prepare the itinerary for the trip we will take next week. All this with just one click.

Just as the French illustrator Jean-Marc Côté and his contemporaries did in their In the Year 2000 postcards, we as human beings have always speculated about the mysteries of the future – another more modern example being the 1985 film Back to the Future.

Today, technology is the best tool available to us to optimize work time, cost and effort. We are capable of working with elaborate agendas in a reduced amount of time, without the necessity of being in a specific place or at a specific time to begin our labor, all thanks to the virtual reality offered to us by the internet’s digital cloud.

Every company intending to innovate understands perfectly well that there is no better alternative than what can be achieved with technology development, as it makes it possible to increase productivity without the need for excessive workloads for its employees. This, in turn, translates into greater well-being for them by having accessible schedules and reasonable working hours, all thanks to well-structured and comprehensive technology.

Due to our different achievements and advancements, a large part of the world's population is able to access benefits that would have been difficult or impossible to reach in other times. Technology, as such, has made inclusion easier for everyone. Regardless of whether you have limitations in walking, speaking or moving, your imagination and creativity are the only engines that can determine your potential. After all, today you only need to make a prompt to the computer for it to write and, with artificial intelligence, carry out actions that range from simply turning on the light in a room, to even remote surgical intervention.

At Bupa, we are firsthand witnesses to these benefits, having implemented this technology for our own personnel, where we have different talented people who have benefited from working in a friendly place that encourages their professional and personal development. All this thanks to the various benefits offered by technology, which has made it possible to close the gap in attracting talent who would never have been able to arrive otherwise.

Although technology is amazing, it is true that, along with its advances, there has been rising concern regarding artificial intelligence. This is because many of the tasks that were only possible with the help of a highly specialized professional are today more accessible thanks to these virtual assistants, which are then capable of learning by themselves, self-correcting and perfecting.

If we take advantage of everything that AI can offer to shortcut processes and reduce worktimes, we will be able to move forward more quickly and with fewer mistakes thanks to what we will soon know as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). This technology will allow us to experience, virtually, the development of very elaborate projects, such as the creation of a high-performance hydrogen combustion engine, for example. In the end, this technology will result in saving time, money and effort.

Innovation has always been a cornerstone for us, so with projects like the Bupa México App, we are taking advantage of the potential of AI to measure vital signs and offer remote medical and psychological consultations, in addition to other more traditional administrative services.

Ultimately, it is technology that has allowed our company to transcend from being an insurance company to a comprehensive health business – and the same is true for any enterprise that decides to use the benefits from innovation and technological advancements as a step to technological evolution. Let’s accept Emmet Brown's invitation: “Your future is whatever you make it, so make a great future.”