10 ways the world will have changed by 2031 / live on Hong Kong 3, ABC WA, ABC FNQ
Gen A’s (born 2002 – 2025) beginning Prep this week, will finish high school in 2031 and emerge into a world that will be so different to today’s that they might as well be living on Mars (and they might be).
In this weeks on air segments I chatted about 10 significant ways the world will have changed by 2031, and what we can do now to get them, ourselves and our businesses ready for the very near world ahead:
- Gen A won’t use technology, they will BE technology – tech will be so ordinary, ubiquitous and built into every surface and object that we will speak to it, play with it, and engage with it as if it were another human being and just like today where we pay no attention to the miracles of electricity and gas, tech will be the same just there with us more interested in what it can it do for us, then what it is.
- Gen A’s mission will be to create seamless lives – moving between one activity, action, adventure, purchaser or activity will soon be barrier free. Discovery, Selection, Purchase / Engagement / Use and interaction all occur effortlessly across a myriad of spaces and places as all barriers, hurdles and hiccups seemingly melt away.
- Gen A’s will hold employers to ransom as they negotiate for their worth – working 9-5 will have all but disappeared, instead task oriented activities will abound, each paying / costing different amounts, each contributing to a person’s overall income, each requiring negotiation, agreement and sequencing, much of it done by AI.
- Gen A’s won’t buy, they’ll shop – routine purchases will be exactly that, routine, completed in the background without any human interaction, but the thrill of the chase, the finding of the unusual and the sport of human shopping will not disappear, so for all things unusual or just for a fun few hours with friends, we’ll still head off to visit our favourite bricks and mortar shop or mall.
- Gen A won’t pay for things, they will pay for what things do – the days of owning things as the only way of getting to use them will have long gone, instead we will pay for the end experience through digital contracts that monitor our usage and charge accordingly
- Gen A’s won’t own homes, but will have ready access to multiple houses– long-term house leases, new breeds of timeshare and crowd-shared short-term accommodation will be the norm as we grapple to find enough space to cram in our growing population.
- Gen A’s won’t own cars, but will be extremely mobile – car ownership is set to fall over the next decade and even the lure of driverless cars won’t be enough to entice many to own a car, instead we will apply a mobility approach, where transport ,appropriate to our immediate needs, self assembles, delivering cars to our doorstep, bikes to our paths, buses to our journey and walking routes for the last metres, all seamlessly orchestrated for us by our technology and the intimate unique knowledge of where we need to be and when and how we prefer to do it.
- Gen A’s won’t die of diseases of the body, but rather of the mind – many of today’s incurable diseases of the body will be tamed or better managed over the next few decades, allowing our body to live on to 100 and beyond, but the lesser researched and explored medical areas effecting the brain – dementia, Parkinson’s and others – will become more prevalent and it will take more research, effort and time to understand and manage these.
- Gen A’s will live to see the 22nd century – wonder what they’ll see and do and how antiquated what we do today will seem in 2118.
- Gen A’s will, by proportion, be the smallest cohort generation we have ever seen – world birth rates will begin to decline over the next decades and Gen A will be the first cohort whose parents don’t need to or want to have multiple children to ensure survival of the family, by the end of the 21st century it is believed that 80% of the world population will be considered “middle class’ and have readier access to work, food, water, sanitation and ongoing education.
It’s a fascinating world ahead and Gen A will need to create it much of it, as they re-imagine what living, being, having, owning, loving and thinking is in the latter 2/3 of the 21st century.
Take a listen now to and then I’d love to hear about your dreams, foresight’s and fears of 2031 and beyond.
ABC Far North Qld – 22nd January 2018 (7 mins 46 secs)
Hong Kong Radio 3 – 16th January 2018 (15 mins 50 secs)
ABC WA Drive – 15th January 2018 (6 mins 50 secs)
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do you build credible 10-year foresight scenarios?
By starting from signals that are already present and traceable — not imagination, but extrapolation grounded in current trends, technology trajectories, and social forces. The most reliable 10-year scenarios are built from things that are already happening at small scale and working through what happens as they reach mass adoption.
Q: Which of your 10-year predictions have proven most accurate?
The ones with the clearest technology trajectory and the clearest economic incentive have performed best. Energy transition, the casualisation of knowledge work, the erosion of institutional trust, and the acceleration of health technology have all tracked closer to the more aggressive scenarios than the conservative ones.
Q: What makes foresight scenarios useful for organisations?
Not their accuracy — no scenario is accurate. Their usefulness is in the preparation they enable. An organisation that has thought seriously about multiple plausible futures is better positioned to respond rapidly when any of them begin to arrive. The scenario is a rehearsal, not a prediction.
Q: Can Morris Misel deliver a customised foresight scenario session for your organisation or event?
Yes. For keynotes, workshops, and scenario planning sessions, visit morrismisel.com/event-organisers.
Gen A’s (born 2002 – 2025) beginning Prep this week, will finish high school in 2031 and emerge into a world that will be so different to today’s that they might as well be living on Mars (and they might be). In this weeks on air segments I chatted about 10 significant ways the w.
The window between a signal arriving and it demanding a response is shortening. 10 ways the world will have changed by 2031 / live on is already shaping strategy conversations in forward-looking organisations. Treating it as a future concern rather than a present one builds a preparedness gap that will have to be closed under pressure.
The most important question is not whether 10 ways the world will have changed by 2031 / live on will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.
