Basic level discussions around the Internet of Things tend to focus predominantly on connecting sensors and devices. At a more advanced level, they start to map out a bigger architecture that sees data processed at the edge and analysed in the cloud, where it will be subjected to machine learning and transformed into information that is fed back to automated actions in the system. The Internet of Behaviours (IoB) concept goes further.

Last year, Gartner identified IoB as one of a handful of emerging technology trends. It defines IoB as a combination of multiple technologies capturing and connecting the ‘digital dust of people’s daily lives to associated behavioural events, such as cash purchases or device usage’. Put simply, IoBs bring together data from a variety of sources, run it through an AI desirability assessment, which produces a result that seeks to change human behaviour if it doesn’t align to what is deemed acceptable.