The fastest-growing company in America may no longer be a company at all. One person, powered by AI, is becoming a formidable economic force. How AI, automation, and shrinking overhead are turning solo operators into full-fledged businesses By Futurist Thomas Frey A...
Why the most important question isn’t whether AI can create — it’s understanding what it actually creates Something remarkable happened in early 2026. A massive study pitting the latest AI systems against more than 100,000 human participants on...
By Futurist Thomas Frey For most of human history, when we imagined a robot, we imagined something that looked like us. Two legs. Two arms. A head. Eyes at the top. The humanoid form — familiar, symmetrical, vaguely reassuring — dominated science fiction for a century...
By Futurist Thomas Frey and Futurist Teresa Grobecker Something important happened recently that the technology industry would be wise not to dismiss. Eric Schmidt, one of the most credentialed voices in the history of modern technology, stood before an audience and...
An ultra-modern humanoid robot stood motionless beneath the cold glow of the city skyline, its polished titanium frame reflecting streams of neon light. With unsettling precision, it raised a compact energy weapon toward an unseen target, not with anger or emotion,...
By Futurist Thomas Frey and Futurist Teresa Grobecker The geopolitics of AI infrastructure has left smaller nations with no seat at the table. A constellation of orbital edge computers may be the first genuinely neutral ground they have ever had. Every conversation...
By Futurist Thomas Frey and Futurist Teresa Grobecker For two centuries, the developing world fed the machine with its land, its labor, and its people. The next economy runs on something different — and this time, the feedback loop runs in reverse. Here is a...
The Age of the Hyperscale Monolith Is Ending — and the Next Internet May Be Hiding on the Side of Your House By Futurist Thomas Frey The Power Wall Has Arrived For thirty years, the internet’s physical infrastructure followed a single organizing principle:...
Why the Most Radical Solution to the AI Energy Crisis Is Already at Sea By Futurist Thomas Frey The Ocean Has Been Waiting for This Conversation There is a moment in every infrastructure crisis when the most obvious solution turns out to be the one nobody was willing...
By Futurist Thomas Frey Every few years, a cluster of technologies arrives that makes you stop and ask whether the people building them are solving real problems or simply demonstrating that the problems can be solved. The twelve innovations I want to walk through...
Spatial computing isn’t a better screen. It’s the end of the screen — and the beginning of something we don’t have good language for yet. By Futurist Thomas Frey Every generation of computing has been defined by where the computer lived. The...
In 1864, nations set rules before catastrophe. Robotics needs the same—clear, enforceable lines between care and harm, defined before the consequences force it. … The world didn’t wait for weapons manufacturers to self-regulate warfare. It built a treaty....
Two robots, same tech—one cares, one confronts. When they share origins, the industry faces a paradox it hasn’t yet acknowledged or resolved. … Trust in robots will not be built incrementally. But it can be destroyed in a single afternoon. By Futurist Thomas...
The real test of AI isn’t conversation—it’s care. Until a robot can handle fragile, human moments, it hasn’t earned our trust. … The real measure of a robot has never been what it can do in a warehouse. It’s whether you’d trust it alone with the...
We built powerful robots without shared rules. Asimov imagined safeguards— industry delivered terms of service. One incident could expose a framework that doesn’t exist. … Why the most physically intimate technology in human history has no ethical spine — and...
The simplest chemistry may win: iron, water, air. Rust becomes energy storage— scaling fast enough to reshape the grid and power the next era By Futurist Thomas Frey The most important battery innovation of the decade isn’t made of lithium, cobalt, or any of the...
A solar airship at 52,000 feet, flying for days without fuel- quietly redefining persistent observation and reshaping how we watch the world. By Futurist Thomas Frey Somewhere above the coast of Brazil last week, a 270-foot solar-powered airship was floating in the...
When Altman warns of a world-shaking cyberattack, it’s not hype—it’s a signal. The capability curve is outrunning preparedness, and the gap is widening fast. By Futurist Thomas Frey Sam Altman doesn’t rattle easily. The man has spent years at the center of the...
10,000 species vanish yearly—mostly unnoticed. While extinction accelerates, the real mission isn’t revival—it’s preservation before what’s left disappears beyond recovery. By Futurist Thomas Frey Here’s a number that deserves more attention than it gets. Up to...
A $2B company with no product, no revenue—just a goal: predict biology before it evolves. The next frontier isn’t editing life, it’s forecasting it. By Futurist Thomas Frey In September 2025, two SEC filings showed up quietly in a database that tracks new company...
Five billion tons of plastic already surrounds us—and growing. This isn’t waste; it’s accumulation without end. The real breakthrough will be how we undo it. By Futurist Thomas Frey There is a number that should stop you cold. Five thousand million tons. That’s...
Ben Lamm (left) and George Church (right) pose in front of a woolly mammoth. By Futurist Thomas Frey When Colossal Biosciences launched in 2021, one of the first things Ben Lamm did was sit down with his team and map out all the software they would need to actually do...
Ben Lamm (right) co-founded Colossal Biosciences with Harvard geneticist George Church (center) in 2021 By Futurist Thomas Frey In April 2025, three wolf pups were born that shouldn’t exist. Their names were Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. They were healthy, they...
By Futurist Thomas Frey From a shirtless philosopher in 1943 to ChatGPT — the people, the breakthroughs, the winters, and the single idea that refused to die The Man Without a Shirt In January 2026, Marc Andreessen sat down for an 81-minute podcast conversation on the...
By Futurist Thomas Frey From data center perimeters to military forward positions, four-legged robots are reshaping what security means — and raising questions nobody has fully answered yet Man’s New Best Friend In November 2024, a photograph surfaced that...
There was a time when relevance lasted a lifetime. That time is over. For the first time in history, intelligence is no longer scarce. It is abundant. On demand. Continuously improving. Which means everything built on the assumption that intelligence was rare — every...
By Futurist Thomas Frey A decade-old list, graded in real time — plus the next ten years Back in August 2016, I sat down and published a piece called “72 Stunning Things in the Future That Will Be Common Ten Years from Now That Don’t Exist Today.” I...
By Futurist Thomas Frey Elon Musk’s newest venture isn’t just about making chips. It’s about rewriting who controls intelligence — on Earth and beyond. What Just Happened On March 21, 2026, Elon Musk walked onto a stage inside a defunct power plant...
By Futurist Thomas Frey How employers will identify, define, and develop the capabilities the future demands — before those skills even have names A Job Description Written for Someone Who Doesn’t Exist Yet It’s 2031. A mid-sized logistics company in...
The Unlost Self — Column 5 By Futurist Thomas Frey My grandfather never once talked about his legacy. He was a farmer, then a gas station owner, then a grandfather — in that order, with nothing between the categories but hard work and a few quiet years of transition....
The Unlost Self — Column 4 By Futurist Thomas Frey There is a bowl on my kitchen counter that is slightly lopsided. The rim dips a little on one side, and if you fill it too full, liquid threatens to overflow in that direction. The glaze pooled unevenly in the kiln...
The Unlost Self — Column 3 By Futurist Thomas Frey Most people have a thing. Not a vague aspiration. Not a bucket list item penciled in beside “see the Northern Lights.” A specific, private, quietly persistent thing — the novel they’ve been carrying...
The Unlost Self — Column 2 By Futurist Thomas Frey There is a robot in South Korea named Hyodol. She is about the size of a toddler, with anime eyes, rosy cheeks that glow neon red, and a cheerful voice powered by the same AI that runs ChatGPT. She lives with elderly...
The Unlost Self — Column 1 By Futurist Thomas Frey In 1947, a Polish-American sculptor named Korczak Ziolkowski drove to the Black Hills of South Dakota with $174 in his pocket and a promise he had no business making. A Lakota elder named Chief Henry Standing Bear had...
The real crisis isn’t automation—it’s that society can’t even agree on the problem, let alone the solution. When the economy moves faster than the social contract, someone has to ask the hard questions By Futurist Thomas Frey Nobody Agrees on the Problem, Let Alone...
The future of work doesn’t arrive with drama—just a quiet Tuesday meeting and fourteen minutes that end a 21-year career. By Futurist Thomas Frey The Email Nobody Wants The email arrived on a Tuesday, which Harold Jensen would later say was the cruelest timing...
Autonomous cars and drones are redrawing the map— airlines now compete with every technology that moves people door to door. By Futurist Thomas Frey The Assumption Nobody Questions When you need to travel 500 miles, you assume you’ll fly. It’s faster,...
Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC By Futurist Thomas Frey The Information That Never Dies Here’s a truth that sounds impossible: when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BCE, that event created physical changes that still exist today. Light...
The journey begins—technology fades into the background as the mountains take center stage. By Futurist Thomas Frey Arrival Jake Walker watched his wife Linda’s face light up as their plane descended into Denver International Airport. Below them, the Rockies...
Seventeen, pregnant, and defiant—Julie walks away from violence and fear, choosing uncertainty over surrender. By Futurist Thomas Frey The Last Fight “You’re what?” her mother’s voice cut through the kitchen like broken glass. Julie Morgan,...
By 2032, your home robot’s personality—not performance—will decide whether it’s a tolerated appliance or trusted companion. By Futurist Thomas Frey The Feature Nobody’s Building Yet Here’s a prediction: by 2032, the personality of your home robot will...
As AI outgrows “tool” status, opacity, autonomy, and scale are tearing holes in our human-only accountability framework. By Futurist Thomas Frey The Question Nobody Wants to Answer Here’s a legal scenario that’s coming faster than anyone in power wants to...
What if AI’s energy crisis could be solved not by building more power plants, but by making computation thermodynamically reversible? By Futurist Thomas Frey We stand at a fascinating crossroads in human history. On one side, artificial intelligence promises to...
The AI Architect in Your Pocket: Designing Your Dream Home With Prompts Instead of Blueprints With an AI architect trained on millions of designs and building rules, Sarah can reshape her home in minutes by prompting instead of drafting. The Question Home Depot...
The Robot Entrepreneur’s Dream Home: How Builders Are Racing to Redesign Houses for 2040 By 2037, Jake and Emily’s suburban home was bursting at the seams—not with kids or clutter, but with five robot-run businesses that transformed their middle-class lives into...
The Rebirth of Everyday Objects: How Your Home Becomes Intelligent by 2040 By 2040, every object in your home will evolve into an intelligent, decision-making system that anticipates your needs long before you do. We’re about to witness the rebirth of every...
The Great Systems Collapse: What We’re Passing to Our Kids We’re witnessing entire social systems—education, healthcare, taxes, and more—crumble as AI exposes how outdated their underlying assumptions have become. Miriam is 26 years old, and every major system...
The AGI Intelligence Threshold: Understanding Why Changes Everything When machines can learn anything humans can learn, we cross a line we can never uncross. Here’s what artificial general intelligence actually means—and why the clock is ticking. Artificial...
The Vanishing Present: 250 Things That Will Disappear from Our Lives by 2040 We’re living amid the final generation of everyday artifacts—steering wheels, cash, and keys—soon to vanish in the age of automation and AI. We stand at a peculiar moment in...
The Future of Libraries – 2035 Upon entering, patrons are welcomed by a holographic AI receptionist ready to assist with anything they need. I wrote my first column on the future of libraries in 2004, a time when many people were predicting libraries were going...
In Search of Anomaly Zero: Why We’re Fighting Tomorrow’s Disasters with Yesterday’s Tools Anomaly Zero marks the theoretical first detectable spark of a threat, pushing early warning systems closer to the true origin point of a disaster. How Moving...
Digital Clones: The Coming Transformation that will Remake Human Identity by 2035 When your digital clone outthinks, outperforms, and outlasts you, the line between tool and identity blurs—forcing us to redefine what it means to be irreplaceably human. When AI Becomes...
The Vibe Coding Revolution From Bootcamp Pioneer to AI-Assisted Development DaVinci Coders was a three-month coding bootcamp for those who wanted to enter the programming field. In 2012, when I founded DaVinci Coders at the DaVinci Institute, we held an unwavering...
How Movies Changed After COVID A Radical Change in Production, Distribution, and Storytelling COVID didn’t just disrupt Hollywood—it rewrote the script, transforming how films are made, shared, and experienced in a permanently altered cinematic landscape.. Much like I...
The History of the Office: From Medieval Scriptoriums to Today’s Hybrid Hubs A Journey Through Centuries of Workplace Transformation Medieval monks used medieval scriptoriums comprised of a desk, chair, and storage shelves, very similar to today’s basic office...
The Museum of Future Inventions: A Journey Through the Technologies of Tomorrow Step into the Museum of Future Inventions—where imagination meets innovation, and the technologies shaping tomorrow are brought vividly to life. Imagine walking through the doors of a...
The Stablecoin Revolution: 12 Predictions That Will Transform Money Forever On July 21, 2014, two blockchain pioneers—Dan Larimer and Charles Hoskinson—launched BitUSD on the BitShares network, creating the world’s first stablecoin. Their ambitious experiment...
The Neumann Engine: How Cities Can Thrive and Grow in the Age of AI A revolutionary approach to urban revitalization that creates prosperity from within. Technology is dismantling outdated urban economies—yet for communities that stop chasing outsiders and start...
The Node Revolution: How Decentralized Networks Will Rewire the Internet Big Tech’s cloud monopoly is cracking—decentralized node networks are quickly becoming the new backbone of AI, finance, and global computation The Coming Disruption of Big Tech and Finance The...
The Disappearance of Pop Culture The signs of pop culture’s fragmentation are undeniable. 1. The Fading Echoes of a Monoculture In 1983, a staggering 83 million viewers—90% of U.S. households—gathered around their televisions to watch the MASH finale, a shared moment...
Memorial Gardens – Creating Living Sanctuaries of Remembrance and Community Simply walking through the front entrance will have a way of transporting you to another dimension. The concept of Memorial Gardens began with a simple insight back in 2005. While...
The Future of Education with AI Agents: How Conversational Agents Will Replace Classrooms “Learning for learning’s sake” is over—if you didn’t build it, it doesn’t count. Introduction: The Death of “Learning for Learning’s Sake” The foundation of modern...
Twelve Financial Superpowers We Haven’t Invented Yet the Untapped Potential of Blockchain Beyond traditional banks lies a borderless financial future—programmable, permissionless, and unimaginable to traditional systems. Beyond the Bank For over a century, traditional...
The Future of Manufacturing: A 2040 Outlook The questions below don’t just illuminate where manufacturing is headed, they expose the seismic shifts coming for society, the workforce, and the planet itself. A Glimpse Into 2040: Six Questions That Will Define the Future...
The Intellectual Olympiad – A Provocative Proposal for Transforming Higher Education The Intellectual Olympiad is designed to be a competitive approach to reinventing education. Introduction: Challenging Educational Orthodoxy What if the most outdated...
Super Democracy 2: The Radical Rebirth of Governance in the U.S. Super Citizen diligently studying the issues before his next vote. Introduction: A Broken System Overwhelmed by Complexity NOTE: Last year, I introduced the concept of Super Democracy through a brief...
The Canyon Ferry Disaster – How a Single Event Can Reshape a Nation Built in 1954, the Canyon Ferry Dam has stood as an engineering marvel, powering over 100,000 homes. Modern civilization is built on precision, innovation, and control—but when one failure...
Print Me a Cure: The Coming Revolution of 3D-printed Polypills 3D pill printer finishing one precisely formulated polypill to replace all other pills you take in a day. The Vision of Tomorrow’s Medicine Back in 2012, I wrote about the idea of 3D pill printers,...
The Opposite of War is Not Peace It would seem we’re creating a more fragile world that feels closer to “not-war” than true peace. Introduction: Revisiting the Nature of War in 2024 In 2008, I explored the shifting nature of war and peace, predicting that battles...
The Turing Test for Humanoid Robots: Changing an Infant’s Dirty Diaper The Turing Test for humanoid robots will challenge the limits of robotics and AI. Introduction: A Helping Hand for a Frazzled Mom It was 2:00 AM, and Sarah hadn’t slept more than three hours...
Skipping College: The New Playbook for Successful Careers Without College The floundering roots of our college ecosystem are being exposed. It has become increasingly evident that many young people are questioning the long-held belief that a traditional four-year...
Reimagining Recreation: A Blueprint for the Municipal Tournament Center In an age where technology often isolates individuals, the development of a Municipal Tournament Center represents a pivotal step toward re-engaging and reconnecting people with their communities....
The Evolution of Robots: The Blurring Lines Between People and Machines Over the coming years, we will witness a blurring of the lines between humans and robots. In the not-too-distant future, the boundaries between human consciousness and artificial intelligence are...
Should Robots Have the Right to Defend Themselves? To what extent do robots have the right to defend both themselves and the people they’re working for? As we approach an era where humanoid robots are becoming an integral part of daily life—acting as caretakers,...
Will Robots Replace the Kids We’re Not Having? How long before robots become our new best friends? In recent years, two significant trends have been reshaping the global landscape: the rapid rise of robotics in various sectors of the economy and the declining...
Even Cantankerous Old Men Need a Buddy Bot Even a crusty old guy is no match for the infinite patience of the Buddy Bot! In a world where AI companions have become commonplace, Buddy Bots have emerged as the gold standard of digital companionship. These versatile...
Understanding the Power of Status – The Role of Status in South Korea’s Demographic Dilemma To understand the low birthrate problem in any country, it’s important to understand the influence of “status”. In South Korea, the concept of social status...
Shooting Behind the Duck: Is Your Child’s Curriculum Already Obsolete? The revelation of obsolete knowledge led me down the proverbial educational rabbit hole! Last week, I found myself in a familiar yet unexpected situation: helping my grandson with his homework. As...
Roots of the Future: How the Whole Earth Genealogy Project Could Reverse Global Population Decline The Whole Earth Genealogy Project has the potential to transform how we view ourselves, our relationships with others, and our role in the continuing story of humanity....
Silicon Whistleblowers: When Autonomous Robots Become Our Moral Compass Imagine a world where autonomous humanoid robots, bound by no loyalties and immune to human fears, become society’s ultimate truth-tellers. Throughout history, whistleblowers have played a...
25 Questions to Help You Understand How AI will Affect Your Job in the Future How can AI become your friend, your buddy, and coworker in the future? As artificial intelligence continues to advance at a rapid pace, its impact on the job market is becoming an...
AI and the Future of Human DNA Will we need to build a more durable human to survive on Mars? Our Genetic Frontier Let’s begin with a scenario where, after two manned space flights to Mars, Elon Musk concludes that for humans to survive long-term on the Red...
Revolutionizing Food: How Beef-Infused Rice and Protein-Infused Vegetables Are Changing the Game South Korean scientists have developed beef-infused rice as a sustainable protein source. Step One: Beef-Infused Rice In a groundbreaking leap towards sustainable...
Defining AI Ethics for the Future The future will remain cloudy until the ethics are clear! Establishing a Universally Accepted Set of Standard Imagine a scenario where an AI-driven hiring platform is used by a multinational corporation to screen job applicants. While...
“Goldene” — The World’s Newest Super Material Goldene is not only the world’s thinnest gold leaf, it represents a huge advancement in two-dimensional materials. The New Frontier in Material Science In the ever-evolving landscape of material science, a groundbreaking...
The Coming Vacant Home Crisis in an Aging, Low Birth Rate Society Empty homes in Japan are called “akiya,” or neglected houses. Japan’s Vacant Home Crisis Japan faces an unprecedented housing crisis, not due to a shortage of homes but because of...
The Shifting Sands of a Rapidly Declining Birth Rate South Korea faces a significant demographic challenge, marked by the world’s lowest birth rate, at 0.7 children per woman, substantially below the replacement rate of 2.1, which is necessary to maintain a...
Seven Deadly Sins of the Future We are entering the future at an unprecedented rate and our ability to make good decisions will be based on these seven looming dangers. As we venture into the uncharted territories of the future, a new moral landscape emerges,...
Disrupting the System: Can Microschools Fix American Education? Understanding the power of microschools! In recent years, the United States has witnessed a significant educational shift, most notably marked by the up-and-coming phenomenon of microschools. This trend,...
Understanding How Post-COVID Startups are Different Launching a startup is never easy, but it’s become even more complicated in the post-COVID era! The post-pandemic era has catalyzed a transformative wave across the startup ecosystem, unveiling new norms, challenges,...
White Paper: Creating a SuperDemocracy – A Blockchain-Enabled Government Run by Super Citizens Operating in the command center of a SuperDemocracy! Introduction In an age marked by rapid technological advancement and shifting societal paradigms, the concept of...
The Future of Main Street USA If you’ve strolled down Main Street in any small Midwestern town lately, you might’ve noticed something a bit disheartening – more and more empty storefronts, like missing teeth in a once bright smile. These streets, once the...
12 Famous Quotes that Will Change Your Life As a futurist, I view the future not as an inevitability but as a blank slate, ripe for the imprint of our deepest hopes and desires. Many of my friends are well aware of my fixation with unearthing the perfect quote, a...
The Rise of the “New Collar” Workforce The Power of an Idea In the closing months of 2016, a novel term began to echo through the corridors of the tech industry, heralding a significant shift in the employment landscape. Coined by Ginni Rometty, IBM’s then-CEO,...
The Hitler Paradox: A Personal Conversation with Adolph Hitler and Its Far-Reaching Consequences Our understanding of history is about to be transformed! Introduction: A Brief Overview The year is 2028. We find ourselves in the midst of a technological golden age, an...
The Coming AI Job Explosion AI is making each of us exponentially more capable, which will cause us to take on exponentially bigger projects! Counter to most people’s thinking that AI will be used to kill jobs and reduce our workforce, AI will instead become the...
Eight Trends in the Evolving Universe of Generative AI in 2024 The year 2023 marked the public debut of generative AI as a technological marvel. Systems like DALL-E 2 and GPT-3 captivated audiences by producing remarkably human-like synthetic content with just a few...
Conversations with a BuddyBot In the not-so-distant future, the integration of artificial intelligence into our daily lives has evolved beyond mere task management. These AIs, often referred to as BuddyBots, are designed to cater to the emotional and relational...
The Coming Data Wars In the ever-evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, the quest for new data sources is akin to the uncharted exploration of a digital frontier, promising to redefine the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) in profound ways. As we...
Phygital Convergence – Where the Digital and Physical Worlds Converge “Phygital convergence” refers to the blending of physical (phy-) and digital (-gital) experiences to create an ecosystem where users can move seamlessly between online and offline...
