⏩ Water from the air, zero-emissions driving, extreme prosthetics, celebrity deepfakes, AI copilots and more...
Future Normal: Fast Forward #38
The quest for sustainable, guilt-free lifestyles. Widespread health and wellbeing. Greater convenience. Using tech to unleash our creative impulses. In many ways, the trends shaping our future are profoundly obvious. But the detail can be hard to see. How will we actually achieve these grand desires?
After reading this week’s links, you will have a clearer picture of how consumer behavior and industries are shifting.
More importantly, after reading these stories, you should have a number of insights that provoke you to ask, “how will we respond to these shifts? What new opportunities do they present for our organization?”
What if … we could make clean water out of thin air? The fantastically named AirOWater is an Indian startup that turns ambient humidity into drinking water. One of its first customers is a Marriott hotel in Dubai, which has now eliminated single-use plastic bottles and reduced its emissions. We desperately need these compounding wins if we are to shift towards sustainable systems. They are not the only ones – in The Future Normal we profile Solar Foods, a Finnish startup creating a protein powder from the air.
What if … you could clean the air as you drive? This student-built concept car features upholstery made from the residue released during pineapple production, uses recycled black carbon from worn tires EV’s coating and tires, and, most intriguingly, actually captures CO2 as you drive in order to reduce its lifetime emissions. Does this set the bar that mainstream manufacturers will soon have to match?
What if … you could walk twice as fast? I’m going to stick my neck out and say these ‘moonwalking shoes’ will end up more Segway than e-scooter. However the underlying trend – towards accelerating how we move around our cities via electric-powered micromobility ‘vehicles’ (in all shapes and sizes) – will be the key to unlocking the 15-minute cities of the future.
What if … metabolic health was as front-of-mind as physical health? Halle Berry joined Pendulum, a company which produces probiotics focused on helping people maintain a healthy gut microbiome. This is the next frontier for health and wellness, and we explore continuous glucose monitoring further in The Future Normal (pre-order here).
What if … people embraced extreme prosthetics? The combination of 3D printing, a more widespread hacker mentality, and the quest for personal expression is leading to greater diversity in prosthetics. Which other purely functional items could be transformed by vibrant, empowered and creative online communities?
What if … unhealthy food was made healthy? White bread isn’t good for you, today. Yet researchers have shown that using fava bean flour can make it more nutritious and reduce its emissions. For all the excitement over shiny new biotech food innovations, this is a reminder that lower-tech alternatives can also make the future of food win-win, more functional with lower impact.
What if … more sustainable alternatives cost the same as ‘real’ items? We know that the ‘green premium’ is a big hurdle that stops many switching. Thanks to a bird flu-inspired price spike Just Egg’s mung bean-based liquid egg substitute hit price parity with eggs. This will soon be the future normal for many other products as the climate crisis increases the costs of traditional animal agriculture and the cost of ‘alternative’ production methods falls.
What if … creators were only limited by their own imagination? ABBA’s digital avatar show. Whitney’s holograms. Now David Guetta has said he ‘sampled’ Eminem. Or at least an AI-created deepfake of his voice. More malicious: a ‘synthetic’ (i.e. deepfaked) Joe Rogan touted testosterone supplements. Media and entertainment is about to get wild, one reason we dive into how ‘Certified Media’ will increase trust in The Future Normal.
What if… every job had an AI-powered copilot? Github’s Copilot popularized the term, but soon every worker will leverage AI assistants to increase efficiency and augment creativity. For example, there’s an Excel copilot, one for designers, and for travelers, to name a few. And now for trend watchers ;)
Finally, if you want a more thoughtful view of what the current AI, then the New Yorker's ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web is one long-read that’s well worth your time.
The innovations and ideas featured here are just a small slice of the trends featured in my upcoming book – The Future Normal: How We Will Live, Work & Thrive In The Coming Decade.
You can pre-order your copy now
(Pre-orders are hugely appreciated as they all count as the first week's sales and so really help us launch with a bang).
If you're going to be at SXSW then we'd love to see you at our featured keynote, or the more informal Non-Obvious 7-minute meetup.
Alternatively, DM me if you'd like to discuss another event, either in Austin or elsewhere.
Thanks for reading,
Just pre-ordered, thanks! Anne