Navigating The Future 10 Global
We’re approaching the mid-point of a decade in which we’ve already seen significant global transformation. War, pandemic, economic turbulence, and shifts in political power both within nations and at the international level mean the world is quite different than it was at the start of 2020.
These major trends will continue to reshape society, and we can only expect the pace of change to increase. For many, environmental concerns are clearly at the top of the agenda, and the need to mitigate the impact of climate emergency will bring profound change. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
At the same time, powerful and often frightening new technologies that we’re told have the potential to bring significant benefits to society, as well as cause unprecedented harm, will be a catalyst for further transformations.
With this in mind, here’s a rundown of what I believe will be the most significant global trends in 2024. These are issues that will impact the lives of everyone on the planet, and how they play out will have profound implications for the second half of the decade and beyond. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
The Rise Of Intelligent Machines
In 2024, artificial intelligence (AI) is a part of everyday life and virtually no industry or aspect of our lives is untouched by it. While it’s undoubtedly driving innovation and creating efficiencies in fields as diverse as healthcare, space travel and ecological conservation, it’s also causing a fair amount of fear and uncertainty. The threat to jobs is real – although it will undoubtedly create new opportunities, just as it creates redundancies. There are also concerns that handing over control of our lives to algorithms can exacerbate divisions and inequality in society. In truth, no one knows where the AI revolution will take us as a society or as a species, but our actions in 2024 will be critical to setting us on a path that leads to a happy outcome.
Climate Change Increasingly A Political Issue
If we follow the science, it’s clear that the urgency of averting the catastrophic effects of climate change is rapidly escalating as we enter 2024. Often, we are counting on technology to play a critical role, and innovations like clean energy and carbon capture will be part of the solution. However, the willingness of individuals and organizations to take responsibility, as well as the way that the political and economic trends mentioned here play out, will probably be even more critical. How much pain people will be willing to take on in order to reduce their environmental footprint will become an increasingly contentious issue in politics. 2024 represents a critical opportunity to find out whether the will exists to make changes and tough decisions needed to avoid some very nasty shocks in the near future. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
Elections Will Determine The Course Of Democracy In The Second Half Of The Decade
Elections bring the opportunity for change, and 2024 will see leadership contests in a number of countries where a swing in the balance of power could have profound global implications. Citizens in the US, European Union, India, UK and Russia will be among those taking to the ballots (with varying degrees of opposition to incumbent powers.) In many of these nations, there is growing polarization between progressive and conservative, or nationalist and internationalist parties and voters. Victory is likely to embolden the winners – whatever side of the divide they occupy – to believe they have a remit to enact further social change. Whichever way the cookie crumbles, this is likely to impact the course of every other trend on this list in 2024 and throughout the second half of the decade.
Turbulent Times For Economies
A continuing slowdown in global economic growth is predicted for 2024, threatening widespread knock-on effects on many aspects of society. Hard economic times typically result in governments choosing to reduce spending on public services and utilities, job cuts, a reduction in living standards and a growth in civil unrest. Slow growth also threatens national and international efforts to hit carbon net zero targets, which could have severe consequences. The possibility of a recession in the USA, a slowdown in China’s growth, and the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Israel are all factors. At the same time, growth in emerging countries, including Brazil, India, Mexico and Turkey, will lead us into an era where we will witness drastic changes in the overall balance of global economic power.
The Evolution Of Work
Changes to the way we work will continue to have an impact on many aspects of our lives and society. Although some companies are implementing back-to-office policies, remote and hybrid working remain at far higher levels than they were before the pandemic. This has the effect of improving global mobility, with workers no longer tied down to living in areas close to employment centers. However, it can also lead to increased social isolation and social cohesion. Managing this change will be an important challenge for organizations and individuals in 2024.
The Generation Gap
The gap between generations in terms of wealth and property ownership will continue to drive global and social change in 2024. According to research conducted in 2023, the median wealth of millennials (born early eighties to late nineties) is less than half that of baby boomers (born mid-fifties to mid-sixties) at the same age. This could possibly lead to reduced social mobility as well as political polarization, bringing with it the danger of disenfranchised voters being drawn to populist or extremist political parties. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
Ongoing Urbanization
By 2050, the UN projects that 66 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas – up from 56 percent in 2022. While this has the potential to drive economic growth and prosperity, it also brings other challenges, such as overcrowding, pollution and increased cost of living. Tackling the impact of this huge change in many people’s way of life will be a priority for governments and industry in the coming years. Resources will also be needed to mitigate the effects of the brain drain on those who stay behind, many of whom are already underserved by essential services like power, healthcare and online connectivity. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
Culture Wars
The term culture war refers to an ongoing polarization of society, often characterized by a left versus right or liberal versus conservative debate and largely conducted via social as well as what is increasingly called legacy media. The impact of this on society is clearly driven by the emergence of the internet as a tool that can be used to find information, including disinformation and propaganda. Much has been written in recent years about the echo chamber effect of online discourse in an ecosystem ruled by algorithms. Increasingly, we see audiences steered towards content that’s likely to confirm their biases while also inflaming feelings of injustice or inequality. Issues such as immigration, conspiracy theories and social justice stir heated feelings on both sides of the debate, but it isn’t just idle chit-chat. Divisive views spread via social media increasingly inform political policy, as can be seen from the rise of populist parties and policies around the globe, and even stoke extremist terrorism. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
Rethinking Education
Gone are the days when education was only for the young. Work is changing, so the models of learning needed to prepare for work are changing, too. The speed of technological innovation means opportunities are opening up in industries that didn’t even exist when much of today’s workforce was at school. In advanced nations, there’s a shift towards lifelong learning, partly enabled by the emergence of online and remote learning technology. Employers will increasingly recognize the importance of reskilling and upskilling valuable workers, particularly as longer lifespans and later retirement lead to an older workforce. In emerging economies, we will see a growing demand for teachers as more of the population moves out of poverty. Again, new models of delivering education will be needed to serve the citizens of crowded megacities as well as children in remote rural areas. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
Migration And Movement
Between 1970 and 2020, the number of people living in a country other than the one they were born in more than tripled. In 2024, some will be refugees fleeing war, some will be economic migrants in search of a better life, and some will be looking to escape to parts of the world where life is not yet overly disrupted by rising temperatures and sea levels. Economies will continue to benefit from an influx of mostly young, able-bodied and active workers. And fears of the strain that could be put on utilities and public services, or the impact of new arrivals on indigenous populations, will continue to fuel political division. In advanced economies, the offer of jobs, visas and education opportunities will increasingly be used to plug the skills gap and in trade negotiations with nations with emerging consumer markets. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
You can read more about future tech and business trends in my books, The Future Internet: How the Metaverse, Web 3.0, and Blockchain Will Transform Business and Society, Future Skills: The 20 Skills And Competencies Everyone Needs To Succeed In A Digital World and Business Trends in Practice, which won the 2022 Business Book of the Year award. And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter and follow me on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube for more on the future trends in business and technology.
The Biggest Technology Trends In The Next 10 Years
In 10 years, we’ll be half way through the next decade. And if the previous 10 years have been anything to go by, we can expect some radical changes. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
I’m used to writing about where technology trends are heading in the future, but I usually focus on the next one to five years. This is because my work involves helping businesses use technology and data today, and that usually means leveraging what’s available right now or just around the corner. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
But it’s also interesting to sometimes think about where it’s all heading. So here I want to try and peek a bit further into the future and come up with some ideas or predictions about how technology might change our lives on a longer timescale. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
Of course, anything can happen in 10 years. It’s very possible that unforeseeable disruptive or world-changing events might make everything I’m predicting here totally wrong. But these ideas are based on extrapolating what’s happening today in society and politics as well as technology, so they can still give us some valuable insight into what the future may hold. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
AI And Automation Are Omnipresent
Just like other era-defining inventions – fire, the internal combustion engine, electricity, the internet – the hype eventually dies down, and it becomes something we take for granted.
So, even though I have no doubt it will be integrated into everything we do by 2034, we probably won’t talk about AI as much as we do today.
Today, we rarely think about how AI is there in the background when we make Google searches, pick movies to watch on Netflix or make online banking transactions. Tomorrow, we won’t think about it as it drives our cars, keeps us healthy and helps us work more productively.
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In 10 years’ time, with the advances we’re seeing in natural language processing and speech generation, voice control could become our default method of interacting with machines. We’re already used to speaking to machines like Alexa or Siri, even though the experience can be shaky and limited. But with natural language processing taking over, by 2034, it will seem completely humdrum to have natural, flowing conversations with technology. And mature behavioral analytics will mean that our devices will be far better at understanding what we want and predicting what will make us happy.
Physical, automated robots are also coming into their own thanks to the application of AI to problems such as mobility and stability. Will we have fully-fledged “androids” like those we grew up with in sci-fi? We might be getting close to creating robots that resemble us very closely. But I think it will be more common to see machines tailored to specific purposes, such as warehouse work, manufacturing, building and maintenance.
As well as the technology itself, the impact of that technology on society will be all around us. Does that mean a utopia where no one works and an AI workforce generates everything we need? Or a dystopia where humans are largely redundant, and wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the technologically-enabled elite? Or something in between? The only concrete prediction I can give here is that the actions and decisions taken today, as we get started with AI, will play a big part in answering that question. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
Digital Lives?
More and more of our lives are spent online, using digital services and exploring virtual worlds. As technology becomes cheaper, more ubiquitous and more immersive over the next 10 years, there’s no reason to think this trend will change. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
In fact, particularly in the eyes of the younger generations, the differentiation between the online, digital world and the offline, physical world may start to fade. The concept of the “metaverse” may have fallen somewhat out of fashion in recent years thanks to the excitement over generative AI. But make no mistake, the concept – that our digital experiences will be just as important and consequential as our offline lives – is still just as true.
Some predict that the coming years could see a revolt against this. They say that a future generation – perhaps the upcoming “generation alpha” who are all children today – might reject this wholesale, valuing time away from technology and firmly anchored in physical reality.
But as virtual reality reaches the point (predicted to be in around 2040) that it can create experiences that are indistinguishable from actual reality, and augmented reality seamlessly blends the best of both worlds, the lure of putting on a headset or picking up a screen is still likely to be strong for people of all ages in 10 years’ time.
Healthcare Is Transformed By Biotechnology
Ongoing discoveries and investment into fields like genetic engineering, personalized medicine, and stem cell research are likely to have a huge impact on the way we cure and care for people in 2034.
Advances in gene editing technologies like CRISPR-Cas9 may have made it possible to correct many genetic disorders before birth. This could reduce the prevalence of many hereditary diseases like muscular dystrophy or cystic fibrosis. It could even reduce the overall genetic predisposition to negative effects of high cholesterol or blood pressure. The societal impacts of this could be huge, including extended human lifespans.
Similarly, regenerative medicine, fueled by research into stem cells, could mean many parts of the body will be “regrown”, making the shortage of organs available for transplant patients and concerns over transplant rejection things of the past. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
In 10 years’ time, personalized medicine could be the norm – with patients expecting that healthcare providers will have access to near-complete information about their genetic identity in order to create cures and treatments specifically tailored to them.
Unavoidably, though, all of these technologies will force us to address many ethical questions. Giving parents the right to select or modify genetic traits that might be present in their children means carefully considering matters of consent and equality of access to this technology. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
Then, there are potential unforeseen consequences, such as the possibility that these treatments might cause new health complications that we haven’t predicted further down the road. And, of course, anyone willing to hand over their genetic blueprint, even to their doctor, would probably want to be pretty confident that appropriate data protection safeguards are in place. Or that their own information isn’t going to be used against them, such as denying them access to treatment or health insurance based on genetic factors. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
Considering how the world might be changed by this technology in 10 years, it’s clear that these are questions that we have to address now if we’re hoping to achieve the optimistic outlook!
Sustainability Out Of Necessity
By 2034, it seems inevitable that our lives will be impacted in some serious ways due to our failure to tackle climate change and pollution. Climate-induced migration will increase as desertification and rising sea levels disproportionately affect less developed areas. This could lead to increased pressure on resources and infrastructure in more developed, “safe” areas. Water scarcity is likely to be a growing problem due to more frequent and severe droughts and extreme weather events. This will have a knock-on impact on food production, just as rising temperatures will lead to declines in crop yields for staples like corn. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
What this means is that by 2034, climate change will have real tangible effects on everyone’s quality of life, as well as the economy. Because of this, it’s likely that – out of necessity – sustainability will be mandated to a far greater degree than it is now. Governments and international organizations could be compelled by unfolding crises to implement stricter regulations, forcing technology providers to cut carbon emissions, manage waste and transition to clean energy sources.
This means that in 10 years’ time sustainability will be “baked in” to the technology we use to a far greater extent than today. From powering data centers with renewable energy to circular manufacturing processes that re-use the majority of components to the many waste-reducing efficiencies that can be created with AI. Navigating The Future 10 Global.
This is one prediction that I really do hope I’ve got right – because if I haven’t, it will mean we’re still sticking our heads in the sand a decade from now and setting ourselves up for even more serious problems.