If last year’s Brexit vote and U.S. presidential election outcome taught us anything – it’s that nobody can predict the future and we must brace ourselves for the unexpected.

This rings particularly true for organisations, who now face a new and pressing challenge – the impact of digital technologies and hyper-connectivity that are bringing about some unpredicted and unintended consequences—the latter being one of the eight Fjord Trends for 2017.

Hyperconsumer-centricity and technology feed off each other as businesses seek to give customers what they want using digital. Both are admirable in their intent. But the same can’t always be said when it comes to their side effects.

Houston we have a problem

You only need to look at some of the fallout of organisations becoming more consumer-centric by harnessing available digital technologies.

We’ve borne witness to recent debates about Airbnb’s alleged impact on local rental markets, the impact of fake news stories on the U.S. presidential election and social media’s role in Kim Kardashian’s $5m jewellery robbery, all of which highlighted the risks associated with the unintended consequences of consumer-centricity.

In the UK, we saw Uber dragged through the employment tribunal, which found the company must pay its drivers a national living wage and holiday pay – a ruling with profound implications for the ‘gig economy’, in which temporary positions and short-term engagements are common.

Microsoft’s ‘millennial’ chatbot Tay, which shortly after its creation began promoting extreme views on Twitter was a perfect example of possible unintended consequences of AI. Even Pokémon Go with its novel augmented reality abilities, was not without unintended consequences when armed robbers used it to lure players into a trap in Missouri.

Privacy and security concerns are also now ubiquitous, an example of this being Yahoo’s massive data breach which made cyber security headlines.

Are large scale data breaches the new normal?

What goes up must come down

For everything that is created something else must be destroyed, changed or depleted. And such ramifications can be insurmountable.

Many organisations are facing unintended consequences simply because of their failure to consider the implications of business decisions they make. It’s no longer a two-dimensional impact on consumers or employee experience, but on society as a whole.

That’s not to downplay or ignore the positives that digital services can offer, which include treating medical conditions using VR and tackling crime. The key challenge here is for organisations to acknowledge and act on their digital social responsibility.

Fact finding through sci-fi

In 2017, Fjord predicts that consumers and media will challenge the organisations that impact their lives even more, forcing digital ethics up corporate and legislative agendas. As a result, new structures will be put in place to help managed unintended consequences.

We’ve already seen the U.S. government publish its plan for Artificial Intelligence’s future with key guideline principles that echo Asimov’s Laws: AI should augment reality, not replace it, AI should be ethical and everyone should have equal opportunity to develop AI systems.

Meanwhile here in Europe, MEPs have called for the adoption of comprehensive rules for how humans will interact with artificial intelligence and robots, including robots’ legal status and if a ‘kill switch’ is required.

Let's all try to avoid this shall we?

To tackle the unknown outcomes of their investment in digital and hyper-connectivity, organisations must ask themselves some pivotal questions: Can you strike a balance between the need for convenience and the safeguarding of privacy?

What happens when our data is part of ‘the system’ and how can we opt out? Can we even opt out? Or more to the point… who governs consumer centricity?

The longer these questions go answered, the more pressure governments will feel to address the ethical, legal and social impact of new technologies and encourage organisations to comply.

We’re already seeing growing concerns that use of personalisation algorithms is reducing public debate. Nobody saw this coming ten years ago in social media’s infancy, yet it is another unintended consequence that could lead to greater doubt around automation and demand for organisational response.

Test the waters before diving in

The fact is it can be hard to develop a set of fixed ethical rules to prevent all possible misuse and keeping pace with the speed of technological advancement is second to impossible. But before diving head first into the digitally-powered, consumer-centric pool, organisations need to test the waters and keep monitoring for unintended consequences.

They need to consider the social experience and impact they’re delivering, while ensuring people are put at the heart of everything they do. Then comes the importance of design.

The people we design for are different, and designing automation for diversity by a diverse creative team will result in a wider range of input and perspectives. It’s about making automation inclusive.

Against the backdrop of so many unintended consequences hitting the media headlines in 2016, this year sets the stage for organisations to take pre-emptive actions when giving customers what they want.

It’s about looking beyond the wider implementation of thinking that started with user experience by evolving to deliver that more ethical and social experience.