"The only thing we know for certain about Al is that we don't know exactly where we are going, but we are making great time." - Futurist Jim Carroll

My book Dancing in the Rain features a list of 30 Megatrends. Some folks asked me to expand on them, so I'm starting a new series today.
The first one, AI, obviously doesn't need a lot of explanation.

It's big.

It's fast.

It's not going away.

It's going to impact your life one way or the other.

It's going to have as profound an impact as the Internet has had, both good and bad.

People will endlessly debate about where it will take us.

Some are excited, many are terrified, many are both.

And the sophistication of what we can do continues to accelerate at a ridiculous rate.

As do the risks and the downside.

Ok, so with that out of the way, here's a bit more to think about. First, AI is not some weird futuristic concept - it's a pervasive reality that has already been rapidly transforming our world. I took the liberty of taking one of my recent AI keynotes and had it summarized by Google Gemini. I then fed this to gamma.app - and Megatrends#1 of how it summarized my work.

The first thing to think about is that from the seemingly mundane to the profoundly complex, AI is already deeply embedded in our daily lives. Take a look around your world - you have::

Wearable fitness trackers analyzing your exercise patterns
Chatbots that instantly answer your questions
Shopping sites recommending products based on your past purchases
Security cameras recognize unfamiliar faces or objects
Music apps creating personalized playlist recommendations
Email services categorize messages and filter spam

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. AI already powers everything around you, from autonomous vehicles and computer vision to natural language processing and virtual assistants. Algorithms are the unseen force behind Fitbits, Apple Health, Predictive Insurance, and just about everything else. In some industries - healthcare, for example - the 'algorithm' does a better job of interpreting critical data than humans do.

But that's not the key thing to think about - it's how quickly all of this is moving. It's the acceleration of everything having to do with AI that we need to think about. The explosion of AI into public consciousness isn't truly sudden. It's the result of several exponential trends converging:
Continuation of Moore's Law: The number of transistors on microchips doubles every two years, leading to ever-increasing processing power.
Collapsing Training Costs: The cost to train AI systems has plummeted dramatically. For example, the cost to train an AI system for image recognition dropped from $112.64 in 2017 to $4.50 in 2021. It's even less today.

It promises to change everything, and if we can adapt, learn, and responsibly innovate, THAT will determine our future in this rapidly evolving landscape.

As I said, we don't know where we are going but we sure are making great time!

#AI #Intelligence #Acceleration #Innovation #Technology #Transformation #Future #Automation #Learning #Opportunities

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/06/decoding-tomorrow-30-megatrends-1-the-only-thing-we-know-for-certain-about-al-is-that-we-dont-know-exactly-where-we-are-going-but-we-are-making-great-time/

"When the world slows down, winners speed up" - Futurist Jim Carroll

Here’s the truth: downturns don’t slow the future. They compress it.

They intensify it. They accelerate it.

When the world slows down, winners speed up. Downturns don’t delay the future—they accelerate it.

With that being the case, speed isn’t reckless. In a recession, it’s your superpower. That's because, during a downturn, it’s not just the ideas that matter, it’s how fast you move on them.

In times of uncertainty, there’s an instinct to slow down. Pause. Delay decisions. Wait for clarity.

But history—and recent experience—shows that’s exactly the wrong move. When the environment slows, the smartest companies speed up.
We just witnessed that reality on a global scale in the last few years as the pandemic took hold. If you think back to those first few months, the fact is we compressed ten years of change into just six months. Retailers became digital-first overnight. Healthcare embraced telemedicine in an instant. Manufacturers pivoted supply chains on a dime.

So what happened that allowed for this? Major trends accelerated as organizations learned something new about speed! Agility and flexibility became critical because business models shifted faster. Customers changed quickly as people became more adaptable to new interaction methods! Overall, corporate cultures that were once used to working slowly had to embrace speed - with the result that the attitude ‘it can’t be done!’ disappeared, decision-making paralysis disappeared, the slow structure was put under a microscope, old barriers to new ideas disappeared, and "get it done" became the rallying cry!

It was a fascinating time since it showed what true organizational agility looks like. Necessity didn’t just breed invention—it demanded acceleration. The rallying cry wasn’t “What if?” It was: “What’s next—and how fast can we make it real?”

That wasn't an isolated circumstance though, because history shows that speed wins in uncertainty. Research from multiple downturns tells the same story: Resilient companies move faster. They make bolder decisions. They simplify governance. They respond rapidly to cost shifts and market shocks. They act while others analyze. They reorganize for velocity and enable frontline decision-making. They accelerate when others stall.

Ask yourself:

- are we simplifying decision-making to increase speed?

- are we empowering teams to act in real-time?

- are we using volatility to break down bureaucratic barriers?

- are we rewarding speed of learning over perfection of planning?

Because one thing is certain: the winners of tomorrow are already moving faster today.

#Speed #Acceleration #Resilience #Agility #Opportunity #Future #Decisiveness #Momentum #Crisis #Velocity

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/05/decoding-tomorrow-your-daily-future-inspiration-when-the-world-slows-down-winners-speed-up/

"The future won’t wait for your zip code to catch up! " - Futurist Jim Carroll

Yesterday I noted that the future won't slow down to wait for you to make a decision.

It also has little respect for those who try to avoid the reality that they are in a global economy.

When you step back and look around the world, something becomes crystal clear: The future is not unfolding in one place. It’s emerging everywhere—in labs in Ireland, factories in Vietnam, logistics hubs in the UAE, AI startups in Seoul, and solar grids in Morocco.

But while this global acceleration is happening, too many leaders and organizations are still thinking small. They’re stuck in a local mindset—tethered to domestic market opportunities, legacy business models, obsolete products or services, or outdated assumptions about where real progress comes from.

Here’s the reality: you can’t lead in tomorrow’s economy by thinking inside yesterday’s borders. I've said it before - the future doesn’t care about your region, your history, or your comfort zone. It flows to where the momentum lives. And that momentum is increasingly global.

- AI isn't just a Silicon Valley story—it's being industrialized in China, scaled in Europe, and accelerated in the United Arab Emirates

- the energy transition isn’t a North American trend —it’s becoming the default infrastructure in Scandinavia and the Middle East

- electric vehicles aren't some radical idea with a narrow future - it's becoming the dominant platform in China, Finland, and elsewhere
- advanced manufacturing isn't stuck in Detroit—it's transforming supply chains in Vietnam, Poland, and Mexico.

Meanwhile, companies that remain locally fixated are finding themselves cut off from opportunity—missing emerging markets, lagging on innovation, and getting blindsided by competitors they never saw coming. The world used to watch what happened in one or two countries to know where things were going. Now? You have to watch everywhere - because innovation doesn’t care about geography.

This reality is accelerating in the current economic and political volatility that defies 2025 - such that while one region tries to restore past glories, the rest of the world has decided to continue moving forward. Watch the latter - not the former - to figure out where tomorrow is now unfolding. 

Here’s what that means for your strategy:

- innovation is borderless.
- local thinking limits opportunity.
- a global mindset = competitive advantage.
- the future flows to momentum, not geography.

So ask yourself: Are you making decisions based on where the world once was? Or are you aligning with where it’s already going?

Because the future isn’t local anymore.

It’s global.

And it’s moving fast.

**#Global** **#Innovation** **#Future** **#Geography** **#Momentum** **#Opportunity** **#Mindset** **#Competition** **#Acceleration**

Original post: https://jimcarroll.com/2025/04/decoding-tomorrow-your-daily-future-inspiration-the-future-wont-wait-for-your-zip-code-to-catch-up/