Back to the Futures

On AI governance designed like a traffic light when it might work better as a roundabout, and what futures-readiness actually asks of an organisation.

A summer round-off on why almost nothing we work on fits inside a quarter, and what that mismatch does to how organisations treat future generations.

Three years after ANTICIPATE launched with a name, a direction and a manifesto marked v0.5, a letter back to the futures about what it has become.

Institutions stretched thin, attention fragmented, people tired. On where the light still gets in when so much of the present feels cracked.

A month spent moving between layers - between past and present, and between the edge of change and what people experience in their everyday lives.

On the power of agency and how much remains open and shapeable, written during a Danish election month that made the point hard to miss.

When it is easy to optimise, outsource and unsubscribe, commitment starts to feel optional. On what staying in the friction makes possible.

January arrived at full speed, with geopolitical shifts and AI everywhere layered on top of personal resets. On finding ground again before moving.

From London to Dubai, a month of connecting ideas, people and tools, and returning to why we teach and practise foresight in the first place.

Ecological transition in Ecuador, urban wellbeing, megatrends for design education and democracy reimagined in the Basque Country, all in one month.

The most fundamental parts of our systems stay hidden until they fail. On fundamental rights, extremism and democracy as a living system.

Organisations rarely resist foresight out of disinterest. More often it is a reaction to how the futures challenge established ways of working.

How each of us relates to the future personally shapes the futures work we do. A month spent turning the foresight lens inward.

Four conferences in four weeks, from Copenhagen to Leipzig and Lisbon, and what they showed about holding space for real differences in perspective.

Breakthroughs rarely arrive in a flash. More often they come after a slow build-up, at the point where things feel messy, uncertain or stuck.

Insight on its own moves very little. On the courage, clarity and community that leading change asks for once the vision is in place.

Building better futures is a collective effort. On embedding foresight through Futurist-in-Residence and the growing need for social imagination.

A belated new year edition bridging two years, asking which human skills will matter most as AI takes on more of the work.

The first edition of our monthly letter, on a month of growth at ANTICIPATE and what was moving in the wider futures space that November.