My Predictions for 2026, 6, The Wild Cards (Low probability, Colossal Impact)

  1. Major cyber attack crippling infrastructure across Europe, Asia, The Americas.
  2. Breakthrough in fusion or room-temperature superconductivity.
  3. Pandemic part 2.
  4. Discovery of definitive evidence of life beyond Planet Earth.

My Predictions for 2026, 5, Food

  1. Lab-grown meat will be easily commercially available but not mainstream.
  2. Coffee and chocolate will continue to become significantly more expensive as a result of weather pattern shifts.
  3. English wines will continue to win awards.
  4. Food delivery will be the standard expectation rather than luxury/convenience.
  5. Evidence will continue to accumulate that highly processed food damages health; this will be the big battle of the next decade: to get the facts and expose those with vested interests. Think the 50s/60s/70s and beyond tobacco battle.

My Predictions for 2026, 4, Health

  1. GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic family) will continue to transform obesity treatment but the consequences (such as the impact on facial appearance) will become more apparent.
  2. Mental health treatment will continue to be inadequate for the soaring demand.
  3. Long COVID will still be affecting millions but will have fallen out of public consciousness. Nobody wants to talk about covid.
  4. Healthcare systems in many countries will be in visible crisis.
  5. Despite all the talk no country is any better prepared for the next pandemic.

My Predictions for 2026, 3, Culture & Media

  1. Streaming will consolidate further with fewer more expensive services.
  2. AI-generated content will be everywhere (music, books, art, video) causing both creativity challenges and copyright chaos.
  3. The nostalgia cycle will reach the 2010s.
  4. Podcasts will finally peak as the market becomes saturated.
  5. Live experiences (concerts, theatre, sports) will command even higher premiums as “authentic” alternatives to digital.

My Predictions for 2026, 2, Work & Economy

  1. The four-day work week will become the new norm, accelerated by the adoption of AI.
  2. AI will not have “taken all the jobs” but will have significantly changed and threatened many professions such as radiologists, legal, coders, customer service…..
  3. The ‘smart kids on the block’ will see expertise in jobs which use hands such as bakery, plumbing and landscape gardening and couple that with artisan aspects and outstanding customer service.
  4. Governments will have to start addressing once theoretical ideas such as ‘universal wage’.
  5. Gig economy regulations will tighten significantly.

My Predictions for 2026, 1, Technology & AI

  1. AI will be increasingly embedded invisibly in tools we use daily.
  2. The “AI hype cycle” will have crashed and some companies will have failed spectacularly; from the debris will be survivors who will be doing valuable work.
  3. Deepfakes will cause a major political or financial scandal that forces real regulation although I have no idea how the latter will be done.

Tomorrow, Work and Economy.