Who won’t be disrupted?

Disruption has become the driving concept of the technology revolution. Before it’s over, it’s likely to touch virtually every corner of our lives.

The core technologies that made up Web 2.0 — Facebook, Wikipedia, the iPhone for instance — are all now nearly a decade or more old. At the same time, the rate of increase in labor productivity — a critical component of economic growth — has faltered, leading thinkers from PayPal founder Peter Thiel to Federal Reserve economists to wonder if perhaps the tech revolution has already passed us by. But to hear Bernd Schmitt tell it, the revolution hasn’t even begun.

“When I use the word revolution,” Schmitt says, “I mean something every bit as transformative as past revolutions — as the agricultural revolution, or the industrial revolution.”

Up to this point, the technological revolution has been driven by digitization — or, in the words of Nicholas Negroponte, the conversion of atoms to bits. That trend will continue, but the true revolution, as Schmitt sees it, comes when those bits start to return to the world of atoms. Schmitt sees five key drivers of this transformation: advances in 3D printing, the Internet of Things, robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), virtual reality, and human enhancement. Innovations in each of these areas hold the potential to upend not only large swathes of the economy but also our very understanding of ourselves.

Companies — and workers — in manufacturing industries may be the first to experience major changes. 3D printing could completely transform manufacturing as acquiring new objects becomes as simple as queuing up the next episode on Netflix. Already, companies have begun offering simple services to upload product designs and have them printed and delivered. One day in the not too distant future we may be able to simply print out many commonly used objects at home.

That change could have a devastating impact on many of today’s corporate behemoths, as comparative advantage shifts from supply chains and physical capital to code and information. It may further place manufacturers of smart objects — objects capable of communicating and being controlled over the internet, like Google’s Nest thermostat — at a distinct advantage. The information previously trapped in our products may become companies’ most important source of value, replacing the components and craftsmanship themselves.

Likewise, where 3D printing and smart objects will undermine traditional manufacturing, AI could have a similar effect on white collar industries. “Today’s knowledge workers,” Schmitt says, “basically just sit and make decisions. But supercomputers can process far more information far more quickly than a human can, and they aren’t subject to the many biases that can plague human decision-makers either.”

Advances in robotics are further making the efficient, untiring workers of science fiction a reality. Safer, smarter, and increasingly adept at processing sensory information, robots are already being tested around the world as assistants in elder care. “When you begin to react to a machine as if it were a person,” Schmitt says, “you have to begin to question the difference.”

“When we are all theoretically modifiable, enhanceable, improvable, who will get access to these enhancements? What will that mean for those who can’t?”

As robots become more like us, we’re set to become more like them. New devices like the Oculus Rift headset barely scratch the surface of what virtual reality technology could accomplish. At its further extent, VR could allow our appearances and experiences to become as transferable as a text message.

Advances in healthcare and bionics may further allow us to transform, amplify and even replace our bodies with machines. Present applications in prosthetics are only a harbinger of much more dramatic, voluntary modifications to our bodies. At stake is our very definition of ourselves.

As objects and our bodies themselves become more interconnected, privacy is likely to become a greater concern for many. Yet Schmitt sees an even bigger issue in the other hot-button topic of our time — inequality. “When we are all theoretically modifiable, enhanceable, improvable, who will get access to these enhancements? What will that mean for those who can’t?” Indeed, if only a portion of what Schmitt predicts comes true, it could still mean a total transformation of the global economy and of humanity itself.

“What kinds of companies will create value in the future? What kinds of value will they create? What kinds of people will be necessary to produce it? These,” Schmitt says, “are the real questions.”

Bernd Schmitt is the Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business in the Marketing Division and Faculty Director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership. His research focuses on creative strategy, branding, and customer experience management.