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The Gartner hype cycle is a graphical presentation to represent the maturity, adoption, and social application of specific technologies. The hype cycle's veracity has been largely disputed, with studies pointing to it being inconsistently true at best.
Gartner's hype cycle framework was introduced in 1995 by analyst Jackie Fenn, who had joined the firm the year before. [1] In her research reports, Fenn identified common patterns related to the maturity of emerging technologies. [2] Fenn referred to this familiar progression as a "hype cycle" and created a graph depicting its ups and downs with each distinct stage given a title, starting with Technology trigger and ending with Plateau of productivity. [3] The chart was included in a one-off research report, but it was popular with other Gartner analysts and clients and the "Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies" was soon developed into an annual report. [2]
Each hype cycle consists of five key phases of a technology's life cycle.
The term "hype cycle" and each of the associated phases are now used more broadly in the marketing of new technologies.
Hype (in the more general media sense of the term "hype" [5] ) has played a large part in the adoption of new media. Analyses of the Internet in the 1990s featured large amounts of hype, [6] [7] [8] and that created "debunking" responses. [5] A longer-term historical perspective on such cycles can be found in the research of the economist Carlota Perez. [9] Desmond Roger Laurence, in the field of clinical pharmacology, described a similar process in drug development in the seventies.[ citation needed ]
There have been numerous criticisms [10] [11] [12] [13] of the hype cycle model, prominent among which are that it is not a cycle, that the outcome does not depend on the nature of the technology itself, that it is not scientific in nature, and that it does not reflect changes over time in the speed at which technology develops. Another is that it is limited in its application, as it prioritizes economic considerations in decision-making processes. It seems to assume that a business' performance is tied to the hype cycle, whereas this may actually have more to do with the way a company devises its branding strategy.[ citation needed ] A related criticism is that the "cycle" has no real benefits to the development or marketing of new technologies and merely comments on pre-existing trends. Specific disadvantages when compared to, for example, technology readiness level are:
An analysis of Gartner Hype Cycles since 2000 [13] shows that few technologies actually travel through an identifiable hype cycle, and that in practice most of the important technologies adopted since 2000 were not identified early in their adoption cycles.
The Economist researched the hype cycle in 2024: [14]
We find, in short, that the cycle is a rarity. Tracing breakthrough technologies over time, only a small share—perhaps a fifth—move from innovation to excitement to despondency to widespread adoption. Lots of tech becomes widely used without such a rollercoaster ride. Others go from boom to bust, but do not come back. We estimate that of all the forms of tech which fall into the trough of disillusionment, six in ten do not rise again.