Welcome. My name is Martin Kuppinger, I'm principal Analyst at KuppingerCole, and I'm here with Asanka of WSO2. And today we want to talk about a topic that is named “Digital Double”. And it relates to success in digital services, to digital identities and identity management, to consent and quite a number of other subjects. Asanka, do you want to introduce yourself first?
Sure, Martin. So, I’m Asanka Abeysinghe, Chief Technology Evangelist at WSO2. So, I am telling the WSO2 story while giving strategic consulting to our key customers and I’ve in the industry for a while and with WSO2 for more than 15 years. So that's a quick introduction about me.
Okay, great. So you came up with this term of digital double, quite a while ago. So what do you mean by digital double?
Yeah, so actually it was 2016. I came up with this concept as part of a keynote that I had to give. So the concept came by looking at how the digital ecosystem works and how the digital applications are building. Then I identified there should be a way to represent people, things and places inside the digital universe. And I was watching this movie called Tron: Legacy, and then it had a nice way of representing physical stuff in the digital world. Then I thought, this is a nice concept and we can apply it in the software systems as well. And I came up with the term called digital double. And there are some other parallels after that, but that was the key reason on defining the term.
So I can easily imagine digital doubles. So I'm Martin Kuppinger, here as a physical person, and then when I'm working somewhere in a digital world, I have a digital double. The interesting question or one of the interesting questions to me would be, will I have one or maybe multiple digital doubles? So I think someone providing digital services that they want to see, so to speak, my digital double. For me, it may be that I say, I have, so to speak, a split digital personality where I have more than one digital double.
Exactly. I think in an ideal world, it has to be a one digital double, but I don't think we are at that level because most of these digital ecosystems are not connected and then not transferred in the digital double. I think in the future it will happen, Martin. Because the evolution happening inside the identity space, especially with the identity fabric, identity mesh, those kind of concepts can take a single digital double in different systems. So yeah, I think it's a future goal from every identity provider as well as people who's building these digital applications.
I think also maybe decentralized identities can help a lot in making this work where I say, I have my wallet, where I have all these proofs I need around my digital double. And I have, and I think this is a very important point, I can control which of this information, which parts of my digital double are exposed to whom, because I think privacy and consent management are very important aspects.
Exactly. I think that's the key thing, because sometimes when explaining the concept, this question is coming then, Do I have to expose everything? The answer is no. Depending on the service provider and depending on the digital experiences that you are getting, you can decide what you’re planning to share with that particular vendor or service provider. So I think you highlighted about the content management. So that is playing a big role in controlling as well as how you feel comfortable on your digital double operating inside these digital systems.
So from the perspective, let's assume we are not yet there with the one digital double that we can use across a lot of digital services. But I'm a company and I'm working on my digital services, my strategy. Why should I embrace this concept of digital double? What is the value that comes for a digital service?
Yeah, I think the first thing is the representation of the physical stuff is there in the digital ecosystem. And then the thing is now early days in digital experiences, we got a limited number of responses and then a limited number of services. But things are getting evolved and even the digital double is dealing with machine learning and then AI models and taking decisions on behalf of us. So that's where it's really cool. And as example, like even when we take a nap or when we are sleeping, our digital double might be active inside these digital assistants and taking decisions on behalf of us. So that way the service providers can give a better service for the end users by consuming the attributes and things associated with each and every digital double. But so that is how I see that benefit.
So over time, you say it's not just a set of data, but it's data and sort of activities that the digital double can do. So really act on behalf of me and making decisions, hopefully decisions I also would take as a human. So that is your intention with the digital double.
Exactly. Exactly. And then as a human, we can control based on which type of decisions that my digital double can take. But letting the digital double to freely take these decisions inside the ecosystem will provide a lot of benefit as a digital consumer. So that's how I envision this.
So when talking about digital consumers, I think the common way today to work with sort of digital consumers, from a technology perspective, there are things like Consumer Identity Management and then behind that maybe a Customer Data Platform where I keep a lot of data on the customer. So how does this fit to technology such as consumer identity management?
Yeah, I think CIAM, or Consumer Identity and Access Management has a synergy with the digital double, even when I’m defining what is digital double, it's a fusion of identity and personality. So when you connect those two, the Customer Identity and Access Management can play two roles. One is getting the attributes required to fulfill the digital double because you get that information from the CIAM systems as well as explores the digital double capabilities as an API through the CIAM system. So that way when people build applications, they can consume these attributes and give a more geosensitive, personalized, predictive and real time experience for the end users.
So my digital double would be sharing sort of information about my preferences that helps then, or my current context, it helps then the service provider to personalize the experience of that. Makes sense, still the point is, if you don't have a digital double, I think this is also something which you can do as someone creating digital services to a certain extent with a consumer identity solution today.
Yeah, so that's where’s the synergy coming, like how the Customer Identity and Access Management system will use these attributes inside this system and how each represent a person. So that's where the digital double concept will help CIAM providers and then make those two connections about the personalization data as well as identity related data. And then like, it's not about only the history, right? Like we can identify what exactly I did before as well as based on some of the attributes using the digital double, we can predict some of the actions I will take in the future and try to guide me. As an example, if I'm using a digital banking system and if I'm trying to open an account for my kid based on various activities, the bank can provide me what is the best option and what is the correct type of account that I should open and based on the kids age and then the activities he or she is doing, like when needs getting into the college and when these are assigned for a specific academic course, how the bank can help me and guide me to kind of have the financial stability of him or her. So like that, a lot of things can be associated when it can use the individual digital double. And in my example now it connects these two digital doubles, myself and the kids as well. So that is how the CIAM providers can take it to the next level and let the application developers enable to build these experiences by using a clear CIAM API by accessing their digital double.
Yeah. So basically there are so to speak two levels. The one would be, I create as a digital service developer, so to speak, a digital double for my purpose. And then there would be the next generation where there's a sort of a public or a flexible to use digital double for many different digital service providers. What does it require? So what are the things you see which need to be done by the industry? Because there are many technologies coming together, What does it need for the industry to make this work? Is it that you need a standards body, is it that you just need someone who does it and everyone accepts it? So how do you see this become reality at scale?
Yeah, I think that’s where the CIAM and providers can play a bigger role here because already they are handling the identity and access management side of these digital assets. So if the CIAM provider can take it to the next level and get all this personalization data and create a proper digital double and manage, maintain and then provide access, then the application development teams can start using it. So I think that is the key point here. So how we can take CIAM to the next level and then get these concepts implemented as well as provide necessary access for the application developers.
But it will surely need some industry collaboration and some standards so that whatever this digital double can be used flexibly. As I said, I think decentralized identities can play, I believe, a wider role in that. When we look a bit further into future. So we hear a lot about the metaverse, whatever it will be, probably will be not the metaverse, but there will be different types of metaverses. We hear a lot about Web3 as the technology that also could power the metaverse. But I think that in this context of the metaverse, such a digital double model becomes, I would say, mandatory even. Because for me it would mean in this metaverse or the metaverses, my digital double would be the one who acts there, who is there, who represents me, who works on my behalf or acts on my behalf.
Yeah, exactly. So that's what's really happening. Metaverse is taking it to the next level and then that's where like, even if you look at the Web 3.0, there are a lot of debates and discussions about the identity, the decentralized identity and there are standards coming there as well. One standard is DIDs like how you can define these digital doubles in a proper structured way and it is getting, I think Web 3.0 published particular specifications that is kind of a starting point and I think when the Web 3.0 get improved as well as getting more and more usable so these standards will get as well as then everybody can stick to that standard and have a unique way of defining these things. But one thing I would like to highlight, we can have one way of defining the digital double standard, but then again, there should be flexibility for each and every digital service provider to add, remove attributes because it's totally depending on what domain and then what type of a service that they are providing for the end users as well.
So I think, you know, from my perspective, it's a one (Martin) to many relationship, so many service providers. And the interesting question surely will be which attributes are on my side and which attributes are kept sort of at the provider side? And maybe we have even a three tier model there, because I see that, for instance, we will see some industry metaverses or more regional metaverses, so different types of metaverses and then we could sometimes have a situation where some attributes are owned by a certain service provider, some are part of a certain metaverse, many of these probably are kept by me.
Yes. I think that, again, that is changing as well, Martin. Because at the moment it’s a geocentric model that we have, the provider owns all the attributes and it is changing to a more heliocentric model that the individual or the owner of the digital double will own all the attributes in the future. But I think we are not yet there. We are getting there. So in an ideal world I think that's what should be happening. But as you said, it will have this kind of a hybrid model for a while. The owner will own some of the attributes, as well as providers will own some set of attributes that will be getting to that level.
It's a highly fascinating topic, and I think it relates to really down to earth things, How do you improve user experience for digital services? But it also relates to the upcoming big themes like Web3, Metaverse, decentralized identity, Asanka, thank you very much for providing all that insight into this idea you brought up already seven years ago. I believe it was a very enlightening talk and something which is very worth to think about. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Martin. It was a pleasure and good conversation with you.
Thank you. Bye.
