With the emergence of blockchain and AI, the digital landscape is starting to change in front of our eyes. Established Web2 business models are starting to get disrupted by Web3 ideas. The emergence of generative AI opens up a lot of business opportunities that were totally
unimaginable before.

Let’s identify the business models poised for disruption in the coming years. Rather than examining each specific model, I want to concentrate on innovative business structures that can transform multiple sectors.

Business models poised for disruption

It has always been clear that blockchain has a huge potential to disrupt traditional business models in finance and beyond. We have experienced different attempts to apply blockchain tech to various business sectors, from logistics to loyalty programs and real estate.

These attempts have been varied in nature; some focused on integrating blockchain into the business infrastructure itself, creating business-specific enterprise blockchains, while others concentrated on bringing more Web3-like business models and tools, such as tokenisation or NFTs, to real-world business.

The enterprise blockchain trend, championed by major corporations like IBM with its Hyperledger blockchain, seems to have lost some momentum. Originally, the idea was to implement closed (permissioned) blockchains in businesses requiring coordination between different units, automated business logic execution, and enhanced transparency.

Also Read: Understanding the role of fintech, blockchain in transitioning to net zero

While this approach has seen moderate success in financial applications, such as interbank settlement networks, its future might hinge on the adoption of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

However, the trend is currently being overshadowed by the use of open blockchain tools and techniques, such as tokenisation, in traditional business models. This shift is quite telling, as the core principle of blockchain technology is openness—an aspect that holds significant potential for improvement.

Areas for disruption: Finance, marketing, and social networking

One of the major areas for disruption is, of course, traditional finance. There’s a tangible improvement when we put finance applications on a blockchain footing. A lot of inefficiencies in traditional finance get immediately eliminated when underpinned by blockchain. The execution of traditional finance business logic, as seen in trade finance, can be fully automated through blockchain smart contracts.

Blockchain also creates financial markets that are available 24×7, which significantly improves on traditional platforms. For the new generation of millennials, it is probably totally unclear why they cannot trade Tesla stock on Sundays (but can trade any crypto token any time they wish).

It is inevitable for finance to move to blockchain rails; it is just a natural development fueled by the obvious improvements that blockchain brings to finance, which will be unfolding in the next decade.

Tokenisation can also be a great marketing tool for businesses. NFTs have already been used by major businesses to engage customers. Triggered by the obvious success of meme coins (tradable crypto assets associated with popular memes), we will see similar instruments being used in traditional business marketing and customer acquisition.

Loyalty reward programs can be tokenised, and token airdrops can be used to onboard new customers. It is important to note that open blockchain tools, which are publicly available, are required for this. No blockchain integration into business structures themselves is needed; rather, traditional Web2 businesses start to absorb Web3 ideas and instruments into their operations.

Also Read: Mastering the art of fundraising: Winning strategies to engage investors

Another major area for disruption is social networking. Web2 has been successful in onboarding billions of users into major social networks, but now their inefficiencies and drawbacks are becoming more apparent. Being a very traditional centralised structure, they can be heavily abused when moderation algorithms fail to deal with bot activity efficiently.

This, in turn, leads to tighter centralised control over the posted content and censorship. Social network users do not pay to use it since they are essentially the product; their private data, shared with the network, is used for targeted advertising and resold without explicit consent from the user. Emerging Web3 social networks allow explicit control of all the data shared by the user, which can be monetised by the users themselves.

We should also mention the (in)famous Metaverse narrative, which is also closely connected to blockchain. Although its successful adoption may be more distant, an immersive andall-encompassing digital experience is something that the digital world is converging towards. Despite its early setbacks, we will definitely see a revival of interest in the Metaverse, fueled by progress in hardware and AI.

Final thoughts

The disruption brought about by AI will be massive, and it is really hard to estimate its scale yet. It really depends on how fast we will be able to achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), whose potential role in human progress can probably only be compared to the invention of the wheel.

Large Language Models and generative AI will be disruptive in changing roles in the digital world; most mundane tasks will be handled by LLMs, which can free up a lot of human resources to deal with the tasks that AI can’t handle yet.

Despite the current rather authoritarian trends in the world, which are also partially enabled by IT technology, we can see that the ideas of openness that blockchain brought about are finding their way into the business world, and this trend will be growing.

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