The 10 Trends That Will Define and Shape Our Future (Part 2)

Welcome to Trends in Society

Trend #5: The Unbundling of Health

Historically, when most people had health issues or questions, they turned to their doctor. Today, we operate in a very different information space. Since 2020, we’ve seen:

• Healthcare overburdened and under strain due to COVID, resource shortages, budget cuts, and limitations of care
• A generalized public loss of confidence in traditional healthcare
• An exploding constellation of new health media (podcasts, YouTube, Tik Tok) offering "direct to consumer" advice in a much more fluid, real-time, self-serve, and largely unchecked ecosystem
• A broad, halo commercialization of private-market health products and services outside the traditional healthcare apparatus

In 2020, 71.5% of people reported having high trust in physicians and hospitals. By 2024, that number dropped to 40%, a steep — but not unsurprising — decline. Meanwhile, the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) category is steadily growing at a 24% annual CAGR, expected to reach $1.7 trillion over the next decade. This protean category includes everything from herbal remedies and botanicals to sleep aids, spa visits, and meditation retreats — making it difficult to fully define, let alone research. What it represents, broadly, however, is meaningful and growing.

While the United States serves as a particularly dysfunctional case of healthcare system inefficiency and inefficacy (whereas countries like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland all boast impressively well-run regimes), the overall trend underlines a broader set of challenges, opportunities, and considerations as more and more people seek care in an evolving, fragile, and increasingly distrustful world.

Trend #6: The New Gender Gap (and Reckoning)

By all statistical measures, women in the developed world — and particularly the United States — are thriving. Women:

• Are 6% more likely to finish high school on time
• Represent the majority of university student enrollments and graduates

• Have reached the highest workforce participation rate and lowest gender pay gap level in modern history, which should close further in Europe under the new Equal Pay Directive

By all accounts, this is good, commendable progress. Fairness and equality are basic social rights, and supporting them clearly also benefits the economy. As research from organizations like Accenture shows, companies who lead on inclusive hiring achieve, on average, 28% higher revenue, higher net income, and 30% higher profit margins.

The reverse perspective on this trend is many men are struggling, particularly young men. The traditional role of a man as the 'breadwinner' and primary household economic provider is now in decline, and backlash, resentment, and frustration are mounting.

While, on one hand, facts don't care about anyone's feelings (sorry guys), there are clear consequences to a widespread loss of male cultural identity. As a demographic category, men are spending more time alone, less engaged in the workforce, leaning towards right-wing politics, and also demonstrating markedly higher rates of substance abuse and suicide.

Women's social advances should be supported — and applauded. But, in 'zero sum' thinking, one group's gain is another's loss. As AI places more downward strain on the labor market, socioeconomic pressures will continue to mount, with no end or reversal to this trend in sight.

Trend #7: In Search of a Successful, Modern Economic Model

In 2025, the three most successful global economies — the United States, China, and Germany — are all struggling, for slightly different reasons.

While the US grapples with policy-driven stagflation, uncertainty, and a mounting debt burden, China is navigating an endemic real estate downturn, weak consumer spending, an aging population, and rising global trade protectionism. Germany meanwhile, the traditional economic engine of Europe, is rationalizing years of poor energy policy, excessive bureaucracy, and a widespread skilled labor shortage.

Together, the trio represent nearly half of all global GDP, and their respective challenges underline some of the major reasons the global economy is projected to flatline in the coming years. Inflation may also prove more persistent than expected, especially if trade tensions escalate and price expectations rise.

What does a successful economic regime in 2025 or 2026 even look like?

India, with highly favorable demographics, strong foreign direct investment (FDI), and a renewed digitalization push is one example of a standout, recent success. India will likely to pass Germany as the world's third largest economy around 2027. However, India's IT services sector — representing approximately 12% of its GDP — seems particularly vulnerable to job encroachment and automation from AI.

Other higher-growth economies like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and several nations in sub-Saharan African remain highly levered to oil prices, fossil fuels, and raw commodities. As the climate crisis worsens and electrification and renewables continue widespread deployment, how long will these economies be able to thrive without greater diversification?

Trend #8: The New Arms Race

This past week, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, the venture capital firm which has backed Facebook, AirBnB, Spotify, Stripe, and Palantir, wrote its largest investment check ever.

The recipient? Anduril, a defense and weapons manufacturer creating intelligence platforms, AI, and autonomous systems (re: robots and drones) for the military.

With AI set to spider-web across the knowledge economy, it should be no surprise to see its focus trained on another arena which has always held data intelligence as one of its highest values: war.

With active conflict in Ukraine and Gaza, mounting tensions between the China and Taiwan, and the US seemingly transitioning its role in the global defense ecosystem from stalwart, boots on the ground ally to impartial software-and-service-provider, we're starting to see a significant reshaping of geopolitical militarization — one designed for data-driven, hybrid warfare and uncertain alliances.

Trend #9: Instant Information is Everywhere

In 2025, AI LLMs (large language models) have ascended us to an apex of information availability. We can access all of humanity's digitized knowledge, know virtually any fact, or answer almost any question, in minutes if not seconds.

What's the future of education in a world where — thanks to AI, YouTube, and TikTok — anyone (and everyone) can either find or become a teacher or advice-giver? Knowledge paths can now be hyper-personalized with far more resources than any traditional academic institution could provide.

What does cross-cultural interaction, appreciation, and understanding look like in a world where AI can now instantly auto-translate across languages?

The vastness, openness, and speed of information-sharing is unlike anything we've seen before. It allows for incredible possibilities, but also immense challenges related to content accuracy, credibility, misinformation, and simply dictating a cultural pace many will struggle to keep up with.

Trend #10: Turning Towards Authenticity

In an increasingly homogenous, digital, commerce-driven, and AI-pervasive world, a growing number of people will continue to break towards IRL (in real life), micro-cultures, and relatable personalities in search of authenticity, meaning, and genuine experiences.

"Authenticity" is of course subjective — and not necessarily synonymous with objective truth-telling. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Joe Rogan are three of the most famous, media-saturating personalities in the United States. They don't always pass a thoughtful fact-check, but remain known by their followers for "telling it how it is". Other popular, trending celebrities in 2025 — Taylor Swift, Timothée Chalamet, Bad Bunny, and Selena Gomez — are also strongly associated with simply "being themselves" in the public spotlight.

Bad Bunny's unannounced NYC subway performance in February 2025 with Jimmy Fallon

One of many interesting, niche examples of this trend is Perfectly Imperfect, a crowdsourced, taste-sharing newsletter that's evolved into a vibrant online community with over 60,000 "creators," where you can find recommendations from names like Francis Ford Coppola, Olivia Rodrigo, and Ayo Edebiri interspersed alongside random, run-of-the-mill people you've never heard of.

It's flippant, looks like MySpace circa 2001, works about as well, and stands as a clear counter-reaction to algorithmic social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok. Perfectly Imperfect is now branching into live events, continuing to ride the cross-over, early internet nostalgia by providing authentic, human takes on everyday things.

All together, these ten trends will be the primary focus of Trends in Society going forward. Each week, we'll aim to do deeper research dives, questioning, and vignettes in one — or at the intersection of multiple of — these trends. We may also take interesting detours in other directions as well. Ultimately, we'll let the world unfold and dictate, and hopefully provide you with some helpful critical thinking along the way.