Future Trends

Nearly 100 years, the famous economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030 we would all be working just 15 hours a week. If only, right? What went wrong? There is an answer, but you're probably not going to like it. We need to change the whole system to ensure...

Elections are messy, noisy and can overwhelm voters with too much information and too many choices. In the future, it could make sense for us to rely on our personal AI assistants - algorithms trained on our preferences, understanding our worldviews and able to mimic...

Don't get too excited by the title - it's not quite what you think. In the future, it is possible that companies will not supply us with email addresses, but we will rather bring our own (just like we buy our own cars, phones and have your own personal cellphone...

Imagine logging into your web browser and there's just nothing: no websites anywhere. You check your internet connection, and that seems fine. Your phone seems to be working. Except most of the apps are showing error messages, and there are just no websites. This is...

The near future of so-called autonomous humanoid robots is not quite what we imagine. Come with me to 2029, when a dark side of the robotic world becomes reality. The robots we will deploy in care homes and kindergartens - those humanoid robots who look after our...

It's sometime in the future, and the next version of your favourite smartphone has just been released. Once again, the marketing hype is astounding, but the reality is disappointing. What did they say: it's a few millimetres smaller (or bigger), and slightly lighter,...

Imagine what the world would look like if we all had the data about our genetic makeup, and we could see the many multiple ways our genetics shape who we are and what we are capable of. Imagine that gender wasn't the issue it is today as we think of the...

Sometime in the future, we will develop the technologies to allow us to create copies of humans. But that's probably a long time in the future. More practically, we should be able to copy the way that people think, and digitise their personas, styles, knowledge and...

It's September 2082, and we mark the 50th anniversary of the official start of what has become The Great 50-Year Global Drought. Cities have been emptied, country borders changed, wars fought and entire economies gutted... and there seems to be no end in sight. This...

Sports News Headlines for 4 September 2039: Jet Pack Drone Racing League Suspended Just ahead of the first African Olympic Games in 2040, the latest Olympic sport of Jet Pack Drone Racing has been dealt a blow as two more deaths results in the suspension of the...

More of a hope than a prediction, this episode of ThrowForward Thursday has a rant warning attached, as we imagine a future where companies have stopped outsourcing their supplier management to procurement services that make it incredibly difficult to sign contracts,...

Breaking news in 2037: the thawing of Arctic ice releases a 40,000-year-old virus that doctors have never seen before. Another unintended consequence of global warming, and a reminder that our world is changing dramatically right now. How would your business respond...

'Bionic' means Humans and Technology not just working with each other but augmenting and even integrating to supercharge our outputs. There are three obvious ways this could happen: Robotic exoskeletons and human/robot hybrids Software and applications augmenting...

Imagine a world where a government bans energy drinks if they are proven to be bad for public health, and people are abusing their impact and causing damage to themselves and others. This is not a prediction, just a scenario. The question for you and your company is...

This is the start of Season 5 of ThrowForward Thursday. Welcome to 2029, where a weekly 15 second recording of your voice is used to diagnose a whole range of diseases and give early warnings of health problems in your body. This idea is based on the reality of recent...

The Tomorrow Today Podcast - a new podcast launched by the TomorrowToday team, focusing on mapping the future of business. The podcast builds on years of research about the future of work, providing insights on themes like leadership, organisational design, strategic...

As we look to the future, the role of data in shaping our world is undeniable. For businesses, embracing this data-driven revolution is not just an option; it’s a necessity to thrive in an ever-evolving digital landscape. Why is data so crucial? Because it informs...

Come with me to the future, where we realise that Artificial General Intelligence is not just an improvement on Generative AI but something different, developed on a different path. GenAI / LLMs are brilliant. They're amazing tools, taking the sum of human knowledge...

Imagine a world where the boring parts of learning - the dumping data into our brains - is all done easily using neural transfers, augmentation and technology assistants. What's left is for the human brain to do what it does best: creative thinking, problem-solving,...

Ageing musicians still touring, and ageing fans still wanting to go to their concerts, might prefer an afternoon start time rather than waiting until 9pm or later for the main event. It's not just Festivals that should schedule afternoon concerts - maybe every band...