The COVID-19 pandemic has established our authority as a species that can persist and thrive through tough times. But this pandemic has also brought a swift change in our behavior, hugely impacting all life aspects. A deep relationship is established between people and technology as we rely more on digital connections for daily commercial transactions, education, healthcare, and work. This digital transformation led to the usage of more and more intelligent devices connected to the Internet. 

There is a prediction that 29.3 billion internet-connected devices will be available by 2023, contributing to the $22.48 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices market. The more connected we are to devices, the more data is created. The more credible the information is, the more the opportunity to tailor personalized experiences to individual lifestyles and habits. It also leads to more opportunities to influence human behavior and makes IoT a market with a substantial role in detecting people's behavior. 

It is not new for businesses to drive decisions based on data. However, analyzing the data from customer behavior's perspective has become crucial for companies, governments, and non-profit organizations. The Internet of Behaviors (IoB), listed as one of the trending technologies in the Gartner 2021 report, is about analyzing the data from a human psychological perspective and converting it into knowledge through behavioral science data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. 

Historically, A/B testing, SWOT analysis, and other techniques have helped companies build and market products that users want to buy. The IoB is a trend expected to take this to the next level and has all the capabilities to drive business innovation in organizations. Different types of data relevant to IoB include social media activities, IoT data, purchasing/spending habits, metadata, user location, interactions with sales/customer support, and biometric data. IoB is a concept that can be explained at a high level in two stages. The first stage is collecting data from multiple sources and understanding an individual's behavior in various situations. The second stage involves enhancing the insights gathered to drive an individual's behavior in certain situations. 

The 'Internet of Things' is straightforward - asking your digital assistant to set the temperature in your house before you get there and does not require analyzing your likes or preferences. However, the Internet of Behaviors is more about understanding the temperature preferences of a user and influencing them towards buying a product or reducing their power consumption. IoB has applications in various sectors, which would boost an organization's benefits and significantly impact the consumers. Many organizations used the IoB technology during COVID-19 to monitor health protocols like hand washing, face mask, and social distancing. The application warns the person if they do not adhere to any protocols. 

The healthcare sector has an excellent opportunity to leverage the Internet of behaviors to deliver personalized experiences. The health apps which track a user's diet, sleep patterns, heart, and sugar levels can suggest behavior modifications. IoB apps can notify users of potential health problems, remind them to take drugs, and ascertain them from performing certain activities based on the data collected through smart devices. The finance and insurance sector are other areas where IoB has enormous potential to influence people's behavior to save money and provide better safety. The IoB applications can help monitor financial behavior to inform credit scores and interest rates. The IoB systems can define behavior influencers to maintain good credit scores to get better interest rates. Similarly, tracking the driving history of consumers, apart from alerting them about the insurance premium, can influence their behavior by rewarding safe driving behaviors. 

AI plays a critical role in IoB to influence user behavior and make better decisions without interfering with the user's freedom of choice. Any attempt to influence user behavior can be sensitive as it leads to resistance and other psychological factors around trust and comfort. Explainable AI (XAI) technology can help the user to understand the AI models used to help build confidence in the system. The methods and techniques used in XAI help the users understand the AI model, what it does, and the reasons behind the decision-making, thus, giving a better perception of system operations.  

The concept of homomorphic encryption, which performs calculations on encrypted data without decrypting, can also be adapted to address privacy concerns. It assures users as the data collected is encrypted and anonymized. To minimize the debate around ethics and the usage of large-scale behavior data, organizations need to be transparent with customers' data that is being encrypted. This clarification should be the centre of everything and not buried in massive documentation under "terms & conditions". According to Gartner*, by 2023, almost 40% of people will be tracked digitally by the IoB application to influence behavior. Hence, with businesses' increasing usage of IoB, organizations must be ethical and sensitive toward user data as the coupling between behavioral science and AI matures in the coming years. 

The IoB has all the potential to become a core technological concept to build and sell what a user needs or a customer wants, leading to significant innovation in the business. However, the lack of legality and structure is a big challenge for implementing IoB into daily lives. As IoB is a massive step into the future, solving data privacy concerns should be the priority for organizations.