The Shifts
2025-2028>
1/ Beyond the Horizon
Redefining Youth in a Fragmented World
While global culture once seemed to offer endless possibility, many young people now find themselves navigating shrinking freedoms and rising scepticism. They are growing up in a world where trust in institutions has eroded, and where community and truth are increasingly shaped by alternative news sources and influencers rather than shared societal narratives. In this fragmented reality, identity is becoming less about self-expression and more about strength and meaning-making in uncertain systems. The conversation has moved beyond screen time and developmental delays to a broader landscape marked by authoritarianism and economic uncertainty.
Belonging, Borders, and the New Logic of Globalization
The optimism around global connectivity, once driven by social media, connectivity and mobility, is evolving into a new, much more complex global order. A different kind of cross-border alignment is emerging: new trade coalitions, diasporic cultural networks, and decentralized communities built around shared values rather than geography. We will see young people withdrawing from performative participation in open platforms, choosing instead to share in smaller, more safe circles. This rebalancing of the global-social dynamic reflects the need for safety, contact and resilience, a shift from outward broadcasting to inward anchoring.
The Future Is Co-Created, Not Guaranteed
The rising curve of technological development, particularly around AI and automation, offers promise but also raises deep questions about agency, equity, and employment. The effects of climate change are no longer abstract; they are visible and urgent. Faced with these realities, today’s youth are not just passive recipients of the future, they are becoming its co-creators. But their tools have changed: instead of relying on traditional pathways like education or stable work, they are drawing from community, creativity, and cultural capital. Their definitions of success, freedom, and progress are evolving, rooted in the courage to live authentically, to care radically, and to shape futures that remain open, even when the world feels increasingly closed.
2025-2028>
2/ Roots of Renewal
Consumer Values & Systemic Friction
The shift from value-based consumerism toward systemic transformation brings friction into focus. While the past Vision editions highlighted changes in consumption, Roots of Renewal shows a personal re-routing of values. Climate goals are delayed by political inaction and economic uncertainty. As prices rise and as nostalgia fuels resistance, transformation becomes not just a matter of policy, but of mindset and values.
Global Systems & Local Resilience
Where once the focus was on global solutions, there is now an urgency to ground sustainability in the local. The tariffs, geopolitical fragmentation, and supply chain breakdowns are exposing the vulnerabilities of long-distance systems. In this new landscape, globalization doesn’t vanish, it decentralizes. Multipolar trade, regional ecosystems, and innovation point towards an adaptive future. Localism is a social and economic strategy, creating roots that can withstand systemic shocks, as well as being an environmental reality.
From Sustainability Issues to an Economy of Care
The vision for sustainability will expand beyond carbon reduction into a broader ethic of care, care for people, place, and possibility. This shift challenges the foundational assumptions of modern economics. Rather than pursue endless growth, societies can explore sufficiency: producing and consuming enough to meet human needs without destabilizing natural systems. Real transformation can be top-down through legislation, but can also be cultivated from the ground up, through choices that reflect who we are willing to become, and how we choose to live with each other and the Earth.
2025-2028>
3/ A new kind of freedom
From Visibility to Meaning
The curated self of the algorithmic age is beginning to dissolve. In Vision 2026, we explored how social media reshaped identity, questioning the limits of autonomy when our sense of self is mediated by algorithms. In Vision 2027 that concern deepens into a broader cultural fatigue. The pursuit of meaning and joy is displacing the pursuit of visibility. Time is attention, for well-being, care, and discovery. In place of identity-as-performance, we see a rising interest in spirituality, craft, and knowledge through lived, offline experience to create resilience and connection.
From Flattened Culture to Fragmented Realities
The algorithm has not only shaped personal identities but also the shared cultural terrain. Culture has been flattened, funneled through dominant narratives, and repackaged for global consumption. Cracks are emerging as hyper-local and niche spaces and identity becomes more rooted in place, ancestry, and alternative forms of value. The challenge lies in nurturing the soul of culture, keeping it alive while resisting its dilution into content. Cultures that survive this moment will be those that choose to evolve without losing depth.
Irony & Imagination
Gen Alpha’s humour is a sign of something deeper: we are living through a time where it is hard to tell what’s real. This confusion can be a turning point. Irony doesn’t just have to create distance, it can also be used to break patterns and spark new thinking. When combined with the rise of spirituality and a growing wish to take back control, we may be heading toward a future beyond irony. A future where confusion leads to insight, and where we rebuild meaning from the chaos.
2025-2028>
4/ The power of one
From Tool to Force
AI is no longer just a tool, it is a powerful force that’s changing how we live, work, and understand the world. In Vision 2026, we imagined how this technology could help us solve problems like climate change, create smarter cities, and better understand ourselves. For Vision 2027, we see that the pace of change is much faster than in past revolutions. AI can help end scarcity, improve systems, and open new possibilities. It also raises tough questions about adaptation, jobs, privacy, fairness, and the kind of future we want to build. The choices we make now will shape how AI fits into our lives and societies.
From Career to Connection
As more tasks become automated, jobs will disappear or change. This asks us to rethink what work means and what brings value to people’s lives. People may find meaning in creativity, health, connection, and physical experiences, things machines can’t replace. New kinds of work will emerge, and education will need to shift to help people to keep learning and adapting. Instead of careers being our main identity, people will find purpose in new forms of expression, shared experiences, and the freedom to shape their own paths.
From Learning to Stacking Knowledge
In a world shaped by AI, it is not just about learning one skill, it is about combining many through the course of one's life. When creativity, empathy, and technical insight come together, powerful new ideas can form. This kind of “skill stacking” helps people stay flexible and curious as the world keeps changing. In Vision 2026 we looked at the knowledge about the human brain, while this research continues, in 2027 we see AI as an exocortex. As technology becomes an external creative partner, people will need to think across disciplines and build new kinds of knowledge that blend the technical with the human.