Forecast made 30 July 2026 · target: 30 July 2036
Next decade
Ten-year confidence is necessarily lower. These predictions concern durable pressures—electricity, demography, climate, computation and state power—rather than naming the winner of a distant election.
The world will be more multipolar and more heavily armed
The United States will remain the strongest all-round power, China its main industrial rival, and India substantially more influential. Europe, Japan and middle powers will spend more on defense and rely less completely on Washington.
Score: broader distribution of military spending, trade settlement and diplomatic alignment than in 2026.
Drone and autonomous systems will dominate conventional battlefields
Cheap sensing, electronic warfare and mass-produced unmanned systems will matter more than small fleets of exquisite platforms. Human authorization over lethal force will remain contested and imperfect.
Wrong if: unmanned systems remain a minor share of procurement and battlefield losses.
Digital identity will expand faster than safeguards
Most people will use state or state-recognized digital credentials for services, payments or travel. Democracies will build stronger audit and appeal rights unevenly; authoritarian systems will fuse identity with surveillance.
Measure: adoption by a majority of the world population, not merely pilot programmes.
AI will raise productivity, but gains will be distributed unequally
Output per worker will accelerate in AI-intensive sectors and countries with abundant power, compute and skills. Ownership of models, chips, energy and data will concentrate wealth unless tax and competition rules change.
Wrong if: measured productivity shows no sustained acceleration in any major AI-intensive economy.
Most office jobs will be redesigned; fewer will vanish entirely
AI systems will draft, analyze, schedule, code and negotiate under human accountability. Entry paths into law, finance, media, administration and software will shrink or change, creating a political fight over training and income security.
Score: a majority of rich-country knowledge workers use task-capable agents weekly, while employment still exists in most present occupations.
Systems will exceed expert humans across most screen-based cognitive tests
This will not make them infallible, conscious, legitimate rulers or physically autonomous. Reliability, goals, access and institutional control will matter more than benchmark intelligence.
Wrong if: no generally capable system beats expert medians across coding, analysis, science and professional reasoning evaluations.
Adaptation will become a central public service
Cooling, flood defense, water reuse, fire management, resilient crops and planned retreat will become ordinary infrastructure spending. Some places will become materially harder or more expensive to insure and inhabit.
Score: adaptation spending and climate-linked relocation rise substantially in most major economies.
Low-emissions sources will supply most global electricity
Solar will be the largest source of new generation; storage and grids will be strategic industries. Nuclear will grow in some regions. Fossil fuels will persist in industry, aviation and backup power, so electricity decarbonization will outrun total-energy decarbonization.
Score: renewables plus nuclear exceed 50% of global generation before 2036.
Medicine will become more predictive and personalized, but access will lag
AI diagnostics, cheaper sequencing and targeted therapies will improve cancer and rare-disease care. The largest global health gains will still come from less glamorous delivery: vaccines, clean air, sanitation, maternal care and reliable primary medicine.
Wrong if: diagnostic and targeted-treatment outcomes do not improve materially in multiple common diseases.
Humans will return to the Moon, without a self-sustaining settlement
At least one crewed lunar landing will occur and robotic activity will expand. Cost, radiation, logistics and politics will keep permanent independent habitation out of reach.
Wrong if: no human lands by 30 July 2036—or a settlement survives without continuous Earth resupply.
Ageing and migration will reshape politics
Low fertility will intensify labor and care shortages in Europe and East Asia while Africa’s working-age population grows. Countries will compete for migrants even as migration remains electorally divisive.
Score: older median ages, rising elder-care burdens and net migration as a primary population-growth source across ageing states.
Life will be more electrified, assisted and verified
Electric transport and heating, agent-mediated services, synthetic media checks and continuous health sensing will be ordinary for affluent populations. The central divide will be less “online versus offline” than who controls the systems and who can afford reliable access.
Measure: majority adoption across several large economies, not isolated early adopters.