Artificial intelligence enables the networked objects to interact with each other in ‘M2M communication’. This increasingly covers the automated and autonomous conclusion of contracts: these can relate to the means of production, spare parts or maintenance services, for example.

In the early 90’s, Bill Gates declared that ‘[while] banking is necessary, banks are not’; little did we know that the world’s richest man’s then exaggerated statement would become a perfectly viable assertion by today, the year 2017.