The 10 Trends That Will Define and Shape Our Future (Part 1)

Welcome to Trends in Society

Since I was a kid, I've always been interested in new things. Innovation, novelty, change — they are, by definition, the polar opposite of boring. Newness is fresh and different. It can be exciting, as well as signal impending danger, risk, and uncertainty.

Trends in Society is a new publication about newness and the future — about what's happening in our world, what's changing, why the change is happening, and where is this all going.

As a practitioner, researcher, and historian of change and innovation, I have a pretty decent track record. I saw social media, mobile computing, and crypto (particularly programmable currencies like Ethereum) in their infancy and knew what was around the corner. Along with my PHOTON colleagues, I correctly predicted solar energy would explode in the mid-2000's and begin replacing traditional energy sources. And long before brat summer, I saw 20 year old Charli XCX play a 40-person show at a bar and immediately told a friend: "major alt-pop star potential."

For a years I've been saying climate change and climate risk will continue to worsen for anyone who's willing to act and listen. And I see what's ahead with the breakneck adoption and commercialization of AI.

So why Trends in Society and why now?

One of the unfortunate aspects of modern society — largely due to the explosion of digital content, cultivation of social identity, and a steady decline in attention spans — is that "niche" and "specialist" do well as hooks, and tend to define thinkers, creators, and people generally. Joe is an NBA YouTuber. Jill is a tech blogger. James writes health books. These people might have complex, varied hobbies, interests, and personal lives, but their audience or community mainly knows and engages them via their established "lane" or line of work.

While I understand the benefits of personal branding and specialization, I like to apply more of a Walt Whitman lens: people contain multitudes. It's ok — if not admirable — to have contradictions, be interested in lots of different things, and not let a single adjective or your day job define you. There are major differences between chasing curiosity and succumbing to distraction.

Because I'm personally interested in a lot of non-work things — which I assume rings true for you as well (presumably that's why you're here), I see Trends in Society as a way to spark dialogue, community, and action about things that might fall outside our socially-suggested swim lanes. The world is a dynamic and fascinating place — let's open our eyes, ears, and senses to all it has to offer us.

Second — and I promise I'm about to wrap this up soon and get to the trends — there are some real big changes on the horizon. Ones too big to ignore or not be talking about.

So with that said, here are the ten trends I see defining our future. In subsequent Trends in Society pieces, we'll do deeper dives into individual trends, relationships between them, and other fascinating insights and stories we uncover.

Commence the editorial drumroll… 🥁

Trend #1: The Impact of AI on Society

Whether you like it or not, this is one of the major stories of our time. As I've remarked before:

AI is outrageously good at some things today, and terrible at other things. Like a Moore's Law, it will improve over time, with greater impacts on the economy and workforce in coming years. This is effectively "Industrial Revolution 2.0"

AI is here, it's different than any technology we've seen before, and it will fundamentally change society within years. There will be very good and very bad sides to this, and the net balance of impacts will depend significantly on how AI is governed. In other words, who's presiding over the laws in places like the United States and China, who's governing the Big 5 model developers — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and DeepSeek — and how will the open-source community govern itself?

AI is already structurally remodeling the job market — I'll be going much more in depth on this soon — and this is just the beginning.

Trend #2: A New Geopolitical World Order

For most of the last 100 years, global geopolitics has been thoroughly predictable. The post-World War II coalition within the The Group of Eight (G8) has presided over economic growth, the globalization of trade, and international diplomacy with limited interruption, turbulence, or conflicts — particularly among major economic or military powers.

Putin rolling tanks into eastern Ukraine in 2022 was a shock to the system. The Israel-Hamas conflict going white-hot in 2023 a second. Both conflicts are humanitarian disasters, with collective casualties approaching a million people.

Then in 2024, America went to the polls and re-elected you-know-who. Six months later, we now find ourselves living in a world of increased trade protectionism (tariffs), heightened geopolitical tensions (e.g., US-China relations), and a decline in multilateral cooperation. This uncertainty is now impacting everything from global supply chains and investment flows, to international stability and government's fiscal priorities.

Trend #3: Nature is Breaking Down

2023 was the warmest year on Earth in the past 100,000, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service[^1]. That is, until 2024 ended up even warmer.

This is, unfortunately, the new normal, and it's entirely possible almost every year going forward will be warmer than the previous. A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) affirms this:

"Global climate predictions show temperatures are expected to continue at or near record levels in the next five years, increasing climate risks and impacts on societies, economies and sustainable development"

Going forward, climate scientists anticipate more record-breaking temperatures, contributing to dangerous storms, droughts, wildfires and floods. These heightened risks will be accompanied by trillions of dollars in economic risk and damage. Parts of the world will become unlivable, assets will become uninsurable, and we can only hope turning the tide on global greenhouse gas emissions isn't insurmountable.

But importantly, these impacts to our natural world extend far beyond economics and real estate choices. There are major public health implications, some of which we're just beginning to understand.

For example, most don't realize how closely linked our modern medicine supply is to nature. More than ten percent of the drugs considered basic and essential by the World Health Organization — including aspirin, codeine, hydrobromide, and morphine — are exclusively fungi- or plant-derived. Estimates suggest close to half of all FDA-approved pharmaceutical drugs in the last 40 years are linked to natural compounds, molecules, or their derivatives[^2],[^3]. The recent blockbuster class of anti-obesity GLP-1 drugs, including Ozempic, are derived from the Exendin-4 peptide found in gila monster saliva.

What do we expect to happen when those ecosystems collapse and cease to exist?

Trend #4: Sports Mirror Society

I've long felt that if you want to understand society, look towards the arts. Artists, who collectively channel emotional awareness, sensitivity, and vision, tend to have an innate understanding of culture, social context, and trends.

While I still hold that view, I now believe sports serves as the best, present snapshot of society today. For one, flagship sports might be the only guaranteed, mass-market attention left in media. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) reported that around 5 billion people, or 84% of the potential global audience, followed the Olympic Games Paris 2024, a staggering concentration of attention in an era of endless podcasts, social content, and streaming options. 120 million tuned into Super Bowl LVIII, more than 6x the audience of the Oscars or the U.S. Presidential debate.

I have quite a few thoughts and observations on why that is and what we can learn from it, so stay tuned.

Part 2 breaks down trends five through ten, and then we'll kick things off in earnest.

Until then, it's like they say, the only constant is change.

References