25 Trends for 2025

Futurist Jim Carroll

25 Trends for 2025
Bill Gates once made the And as always, most people
observation that “most people weren’t really thinking about the
tend to overestimate the rate of future back in 2005, and weren’t
change that will occur on a 2 year thinking about how different 2015
basis, and underestimate the rate might be. After all, thinking about
of change that will occur over 10 the future is not the job of most
years.” people. The result is that most
So try this for an exercise – cast predictions about the future are
your mind back to 2005. Back often treated as ridiculous,
then, Facebook was mostly used comical, or viewed as being based
by college kids; Google Maps was too much on science fiction.
relatively new; Twitter would not But what if you cast your mind
even come into existence until 2 forward 10 years from 2015 to
years later (and when it arrived in 2025? Here are just a few of the
2007, most people didn’t even trends you should be thinking of.
understand what it was for!). In
2005, most people weren’t really
“Some people see a
talking about autonomous vehicles trend, and see a threat.
or drone technology; the concept Innovators see the same
trend, and see an
of the Hero GoPro was still a few opportunity.”
years in the future; it was 2 years
Jim Carroll
before the arrival of the Amazon
Kindle.
Cash will have all
but disappeared
We already have a generation that has been weaned on PayPal,
online transactions and the Web. With the arrival of ApplePay and
other initiatives that transform mobile devices into credit cards, the
trend towards the decline of the use of cash will only accelerate.

We’ll see the trend pick up speed as we drop payment technology

into our cars, bicycles, clothing and everything else around us. Every
device around us becomes transaction-enabled!

It’s clear that by 2025, if cash is not pretty well gone, it’s clearly well
on its way out.
Africa will have ceased to be
a rural continent
Worldwide, there is a massive migration of urban populations to
cities; the majority of the world’s population will live in less than 30
mega-cities by 2025.

With that trend comes fascinating challenges with water, waste

treatment, energy and other infrastructure. We can expect
accelerating R&D in each of these fields as global society steps up
to the challenge presented by ‘hyper-urbanization’ and the birth of
entire new lines of business involving “mega-city infrastructure
support services.”
Much of the world has ‘gone up’
One consequence of mass urbanization is that you only have so
much space to place people and the infrastructure that goes with it.
Two solutions: dig down, or build up.

We’ll see more of the latter as various groups figure out how to
capitalize on new, innovative thinking with ‘skyscraper’ technology.

Consider it in the context of vertical farming — we will see the

emergence of a new profession of ‘vertical farming
infrastructure managers.’

Big, tall buildings involving innovative new ideas will be one of the
business growth stories in the years before 2025.
A dichotomy of life-expectancy
is the new normal
Rapid advances in medical science in the western hemisphere, the
impact of lifestyle changes, and new forms of a “super-health” diet will
lead to global celebration of the birthday of the first human to live to the
age of 140.

Yet at the same time, society might be grappling with a decline in life
expectancy in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. By 2015, there were
many early warning signs that countries in these regions were
succumbing to the diet and sedentary lifestyle of Western society.
Micro nationals
dominate global markets
The most successful, disruptive business organizations will consist of a
small nucleus of people, focused on goals, ideas, innovation and
strategy. They’ll instantly decide to enter a new market, engineer a new
product, or transform a concept into a radical new business model.

They’ll do so by having mastered the skill of going out and assembling

the right skills at the right time, for the right purpose, at the most
optimal cost. They will have obliterated the slumbering, slow-moving
multinational organizational structure that seemed to serve its purpose
so well up to the early part of the 21st century. Think BIG. Be small!
A constant stream
of bioconnectivity
data redefines
healthcare
By 2025, most people in the developed
world will have 3 or 4 bio-connectivity
medical devices linked to them on a
24/7 basis. This will include small chips
buried under the skin that constantly
monitor medical vital signs such as heart
rate, blood pressure, temperature, and
glucose and oxygenation levels.

The data stream will be fed into a

massive, anonymous health care grid
that will constantly analyze the data for
patterns, variances and trends.

The medical industry will be able to

monitor, in real time, the outbreak of
disease and flu, and predict the
emergence of potentially, previously
unidentified global or regional health
risks.
The fastest growing profession: the
personal health concierge
At the same time that the bio-connectivity data-flood is fed into the
health-grid, it will be sent to the personal health coach – or concierge —
of individual patients.

The concierge will have in-depth medical knowledge, generated on a

just-in-time basis, and will be located in one of the new, Asian/African
mega-cities. They’ll work with the patients traditional family doctor to
help guide the patient through both routine and complex health care
decisions, activities and motivations.
Plants will ‘talk’ to us
And by doing so, they will help to continue to
drive a furious rate of innovation in the
agricultural sector.

Through the same type of small-chip

technology embedded in humans, plants will be
able to analyze themselves and “report in” if
they need a nitrogen boost or a drink of water.

Farmers will have instant, predictive analytical

dashboards that allow them to continually
monitor the health, growth rate, and maturity of
massive areas of cropland with a single view. At
the same time, most cattle and other farm
animals will have their own Internet address,
and also be part of a large connected
monitoring grid.
The concept of TV
as a ‘physical device’
has disappeared
By 2025, it will seem to be a quaint idea
that many of us had physical devices
known as ‘televisions’ – we might see a
few in museums.

Instead, most of us will carry around a

variety of small ‘beaming’ technologies,
embedded in our watches, mobile devices,
glasses, car dashboards, clothing and just
about everything else.

The technology will let us instantly place a

high-definition video and audio stream
anywhere, at any time, on demand.

And the changes will be sweeping –

YouTube, by this point, was a video
delivery system that was something from
the “olden days.”
Re-generative energy technology is
everywhere: it’s transformative,
storable, re-usable
Most energy use is no longer based on a ‘one-time’ use; instead,
most of the energy consumption in the world comes from re-
generative devices.

We will have seen a gradual but steady decline in the use of carbon
and other such energy sources which can only be used once, and
then disappears.

There will be lots of bicycles with hydraulics that store energy while
going downhill; homes that create energy from static generated from
people walking on a new type of intelligent floor covering; lights that
use special reflectors to re-send the beam back to an in-bulb mirror
that makes just a little bit more energy.

Every photon counts!

Poll-democracy
takes flight
The mobile generation, weaned
on the technology of text messaging
and social networks, finally
convinces a few brave countries to
consider the idea of real time
citizen-voting.

Wary at first, these brave new

democratic pioneers will discover
that this new form of massively
participatory democracy changes
everything. Not only in terms of the
ideas that are proposed to solve
some of the biggest challenges
faced by the country, but also
accelerating the speed by which
solutions are accepted and
implemented.
Paper really is something
‘from the olden days’
It disappeared in about 2019, in most traditional forms, as most media
organizations gave up on the idea of a business model from the 20th
century that was ecologically unsound, physically impracticable and
ridiculously expensive. The one bright spot? Getting a paper book via a
drone from Amazon became really, really boring.

The other bright spot? Opportunities for other paper use within
intelligent packaging, hygiene markets, 3D printing and other
opportunities grew at an accelerated pace.
Grown up! The first 12-generation
family is part of earth society
In 2015, the most number of generations that were alive in a single
family was seven.

But in 2025, due to longevity, advances with health care and lifestyle
changes, society saw the first great-great-great-greet-great-great-
great-great-great-grandparent. Try and do the math. It will boggle your
mind.

Try and make a little kid say it, and new words like “grandmaseven”
were invented.
Crowd thinking has
replaced most forms
of peer research
Most long established medical and science
journals have transitioned and have
accepted “instant crowd thinking” as the
best way to evaluate the new world of
hyper-science.

In an instant, a researcher can summon a

crowd of vetted, quality specialists who
have niche knowledge in a rapidly changing
field. The result? An acceleration in the pace
of discovery of new ideas and concepts.

The impact? Massive velocity in the

development of new technologies,
pharmaceuticals, medical devices and
forms of treatment, agricultural concepts
and methodologies.

Every industry and profession has seen a

profound shift bigger than the once amazing
macro-knowledge burst of the Manhattan
project.
Regenerative
DNA farms will
abound
Many people will have registered
their DNA with a variety of medical
companies that will guarantee to
provide a personalized body
implant on demand.

Knee replacements made of bio-

tissue that is based on your DNA.
Hip replacements customized to
your particular weight and balance
profile — based on information
from last week.

By 2025, some 30% of the typical

body mass used in surgery is
artificially grown….
The package is
the product
In 2025, the activity of eating was something entirely different,
because food packaging had become part of the process! You
instantly knew about your consumption, calories, and digestion
rate, because tiny sensors embedded in the packaging updated
your personal health database the instant you ate!

Most other packaging became intelligent; tiny bio-sensors were

embedded in all kinds of packaging. This led to opportunities for
real time monitoring of the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals, among
other fascinating new concepts that came with ‘smart packaging.’
What we did for heart health in
the 20th century, we did for brain
health in 2025
Cholesterol, heart disease and blood pressure became phrases
from a bygone era as global scientists attacked the challenge of an
aging population. Alzheimers, dementia, muscle shutdown and
other diseases that came with an aging brain took over the agenda.
The global health community threw themselves at the challenge,
and came up with numerous innovative ideas involving therapy,
gene-specific drugs, exercise and other methods of achieving one
of the greatest health transformations of the early 21st century.
Most industries
went upside
down
Entire industries will be flipped on
their back by some pretty big
trends.

Genomic medicine will lead us into a

world in which we will easily
understand what health conditions
we are at risk for. Moving from a
system in which we fix you after you
are sick, to one in which we know
what you are likely to become sick
with will turn the global medical
industry “upside-down.”

Other global industries will under go

similar transformations.
The concept of an
education degree has
come to an end
“Just-in-time knowledge factories” will
dominate the educational landscape.
University degrees disappear; tenure will go
out the window. The concept of a resume will
be gone; you simply beam your personal-
knowledge-genome to interested skills
partners.

The rule of the economy will become just-in-

time knowledge: it will be your ability to get the
right knowledge, at the right time, for the right
purpose, that will accelerate you into any
opportunity.
The electrical grid of
the early 21st century
is gone
Micro-grids will dominate energy supply and
use.

The “Napster” and “PirateBay” generation

have grown up, bought homes, installed
backyard solar and wind — and figured out
how to share the new magic they have in their
neighborhood.

They will build new, small, technologically

driven backyard micro-grids, sharing their
energy and insight, and gradually working
away from their connection to their local utility.

Consumers will be in control, and nothing will

ever be the same.
Sub-Saharan
Africa emerged as
the world’s new
China.
Fast paced advancements with
water-osmosis, de-salinization and
micro-weather control led to the
opportunity to bring a once desolate
area back into opportunity.

Efforts by the global community to

educate, enhance and enlighten a
transient population will see an
economic miracle that made the
transition of Vietnam — from the
Saigon of 1972 to the world’s
factory of 2015 — pale in
comparison.
Light has been
stopped in its tracks
Within the confines of an innovative new network router technology,
light has been slowed down from approximately 186,000 miles per
second to – literally nothing. Zero. 0. Dead stop. The impact? Network
routing technology that will allow for the instant evaluation of each
individual light photon, and instant determination of destination and
origin. The result will be an immeasurable and staggering increase in
broadband speed; so much so that “yottabit-to-the-home” becomes
the new, established buzzword for the world of telecom.
Domain names
disappeared
Instead, people will purchase
individual light spectrums (or
wavelengths) for personal and
business use.

It will no longer be necessary to

have a cumbersome bit of software
to figure out how to route yourself
to global knowledge. Instead, with
your own individual bank of light
spectrum (of which there are an
infinite number), people invite you
to visit their personal information
spaces, holographic memory
decks and visual worlds by linking
to their particular spectrum.

Light-on!
Apple is delisted
Once one of the world’s most innovative, cash-rich, highly valued
company, Apple enters a new phase in 2025 when it is delisted
from most global stock markets.

Why?

Most industry leaders never survive; there is always someone

with a better idea.

It’s the age old rule of business: incumbency is not a guarantee!

Jim Carroll shoots his age! In golf
His friends and family thrill at the moment!
Organizations today are looking for deep insight into the trends
that will affect their markets and industries. CEO’s are focused
on the need for innovation, knowing that a world of high
velocity change requires that they respond to opportunity and
challenge in an instant. They are looking for guidance on
establishing high-performance, innovation oriented teams that
are focused on achievement. That’s why they’ve turned to Jim
Carroll.

Keynote Speaker Jim Carroll

Futurist, Trends & Innovation Expert
United States 214.473.4850
Canada: 905.855.2950
UK / Europe: +44. 020 3239 5462
Hong Kong & Asia Pacific +852. 8176.4852
Email [email protected] Web www.jimcarroll.com