Coming up with predictions at any time is rarely easy. But 2023 was the kind of year that could make even the most seasoned prognosticator throw their hands up in the air.
Recession warning bells gave way to proclamations of a coming “soft landing,” which then morphed into fears that the economy was running “too hot.” Enthusiasm — and funding — for anything generative AI hit a pace that shocked even industry insiders. And in the year’s final months, Israel was blindsided by a devastating attack by Hamas, throwing Middle East relations into disarray.
“Humans just aren’t very good at predicting,” Freakonomics Radio host Stephen Dubner recently warned LinkedIn News. He’s got a point (and an episode about it). But we can’t help ourselves. And that’s okay, as long as we are clear on why we’re making predictions in the first place: At their best, predictions help us expand our sense of what’s possible. They may not come true, but they can help us see the world through new eyes.
Every December, LinkedIn editors ask our community of Top Voices and experts to share the Big Ideas they believe will define the year ahead. The result is 34 ideas that reflect on where we’ll go from here — at work, at home and beyond.
This is by no means a complete list, and we invite you to join us! What Big Ideas do you think will emerge in 2024?
1. Living to age 100 will become a lot less rare
What are the odds of living to age 100 or more? A few decades ago, such longevity seemed more like a fable than a reality. Tales of yogurt-eating Methusulahs in remote mountain huts turned out to be hoaxes built on imagined birth years. By the United Nations’ estimate, the entire world had just 27,000 true centenarians in 1970.
Now, the global centenarian count tops 500,000 and could be headed as high as 3.5 million in 2050, the UN calculates. The most recent U.S. tally sits at 96,000 for 2022, but get ready for a six-figure total (perhaps 104,000) when 2023 data is released next June, says Nadine Oullette, a longevity expert at the University of Montreal.
As human lifespans keep stretching, brace for shock waves in a wide range of areas. Pension plans and Social Security could feel financial strains associated with very long-lived beneficiaries. Long-term care facilities (and their funders) may need to start planning for really long-term care.
Geriatrics is likely to become a much more exciting medical discipline, as researchers keep pressing to identify the genes and habits that help centenarians live so long. Thomas Perls, director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University, says labs such as his may be only three or four years away from pinpointing the reasons why centenarians are so good at avoiding or minimizing the devastating impacts of Alzheimer’s disease.
Worldwide, UN data shows the centenarian count increasing about six to eight times as fast as the overall global population. (Japan, France and South Korea are notable hubs.) That growth largely reflects modern medicine’s advances versus stroke, heart disease and diabetes – which no longer cause so many deaths at younger ages.
Does this surge of centenarians redefine what we know about the outer edges of the human lifespan? Dr. Perls thinks not. Mortality catches up with centenarians quite rapidly, with many of them having life expectancies of just a year or two after age 100. — George Anders
2. …but we’ll take the focus off living long and shift to living well
As more people live into their 90s and beyond, we’re seeing a divide open up: Those with means are investing millions of dollars in elective healthcare, dietary supplements and elite retirement communities, while the path to a good life is narrowing for the rest.
For one, while many older generations had pensions, today’s professionals are struggling to contribute to 401ks that won’t necessarily be able to cover the expenses involved in aging. Social security won’t be the answer, if it’s around at all. Many will be working until they physically cannot.
Americans are also getting sicker sooner and more often. McKinsey reports that the U.S. disease burden will continue to get heavier as more people struggle with lifestyle-related diseases and the consequences of getting older. Younger populations are facing significant risks of substance use disorder and mental health challenges. To top it off, Americans also continue to report high numbers of loneliness, which Harvard researchers say, takes a toll not just on physical health but mental health too.
To counter this trend, physicians like Mark Hyman emphasize that people would do well to focus on the things that can improve their lives without significant financial cost: better nutrition, exercise, stress management, and sleep. This investment can extend to overall well-being by prioritizing strong social ties and cultivating a sense of purpose. — Leah Smart
3. Wanted: a 35% CFO
First the gig economy came to taxi and food delivery drivers. Now consultants and software engineers are working freelance. Could C-suite executives be next?
A slowdown in VC funding in recent years has meant startups have to work with less cash and longer runways. Often, startups need C-suite expertise earlier to manage cash burn, says Michelle Kvello, a self-described “dinosaur” fractional CFO based in Sydney.
Kvello believes the model can take off in 2024: More executives are willing to work fractionally, and there is a growing need among startups for managing financial risks.
“It allows them access to senior resources without over-indexing too early,” Kvello says. Hired on-demand, fractional executives can divide their time across several companies or work on event-driven projects. For example, a chief risk officer could be brought in to win a license from the regulators; or a chief technology officer to help build the platform and scale.
While the model sounds good on paper, offering startups an experienced executive for a fraction of the cost, it can come with real challenges, says executive recruiter Dexter Cousins.
“Startups present complex problems that must be solved under intense pressure. Multiple clients equals multiple problems,” he says. — Misa Han and Marty McCarthy
4. Powering the AI boom will become as important as regulating it
The popularity of generative artificial intelligence wasn’t the only thing to surge in 2023. Its energy use did, too, as people and businesses around the world rapidly began to experiment with the technology. To meet this demand, generative AI models will need to become larger and more sophisticated — and training these models will require immense computational and data processing power.
Currently, about 1% to 1.5% of global electricity use is taken up by data centers, according to the International Energy Agency. In 2021 — before its popularity surged — AI already accounted for 10% to 15% of Google’s annual electricity use, while the tech giant’s data centers alone use roughly twice as much electricity as San Francisco.
Forecasts on how much global energy will go toward fueling the AI era differ wildly, but a recent study by Alex De Vries, a data scientist and Ph.D. candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, found that the energy used to power AI is comparable to the energy consumption of the Netherlands.
In 2024, watch conversations shift from how to regulate AI to how to power it in a way that doesn’t place added stress on existing energy infrastructure. Microsoft (LinkedIn’s parent company) is reportedly considering nuclear power to satisfy its AI power needs.
“To make AI more sustainable, we must invest in innovative power solutions and prioritize energy efficiency,” Craig Scroggie, CEO and managing director of data center operator NEXTDC, wrote in a post on LinkedIn. — Marty McCarthy
5. We’ll see the quiet rise of “back-door remote” jobs
Fully on-site. Three days-per-week in the office. Maybe that’s the formal requirement listed in the job listing, or in your company’s return-to-office mandate, which an increasing number of employers tried to enforce this year.
But in 2024, the number of “back-door remote” jobs will discreetly multiply. For jobs that can be done remotely, companies that are technically hybrid or in-person will quietly allow remote work for the right candidate — or high-performing employee.
“I think right now everything is pretty fluid,” says Lauren Daley, a career coach and future-of-work expert based in Gainesville, Fla. “If you see a posting and it’s very clear that there’s not a lot of flexibility, you can still talk to the recruiter and find out, really, what does this mean?”
These remote work loopholes may satisfy employees but, once word gets out, companies will have to contend with accusations of unfairness. In a workplace where RTO is the default, what or who determines who gets the privilege to work remotely?
“It starts to create a system of haves and have nots… that can breed resentment,” Daley says. She explains that if remote work is really going to work, it can’t be viewed as a perk. It has to be available consistently to everyone.
As more companies insist on in-office work, while also competing for top talent, that perspective is about to be tested. — Jessica Misener
6. ChatGPT’s hype will fade, as a new generation of tailor-made bots rises up
If 2023 was a year of big, impressive, generalized AI chatbots, 2024 will be a year of the narrow and specialized. OpenAI’s ChatGPT demonstrated that computers can have intelligent conversations with people. Now, its success will trickle into more concrete use cases. Legal bots like Harvey will assist lawyers with discovery. Bots embedded in document storage platforms will allow workers to talk with their PDFs. For entertainment, a variety of specialized characters will help people eat, workout and laugh.
Meta is betting big on the narrow by introducing 28 different special-purpose bots instead of one ChatGPT competitor. There’s Coco (for dancing), Max (for cooking), Victor (for training) and plenty more. These characters might soon speak — with voices — and take on discrete personalities. It’s a step forward from bots like ChatGPT, Alexa and Siri, whose quest to do everything makes them feel like nothing.
Open-source AI — the hottest movement in tech — will also push narrow use cases forward. Companies building with specialized, open-source models will deliver performance on par with the big bots using far fewer resources. As the technology goes, so do the applications.
Through this past year, groundbreaking bots like ChatGPT made clear science fiction’s AI dream had arrived. Next year, it’ll be everywhere in all manner of iterations. — Alex Kantrowitz, host of the Big Technology podcast and author of “Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever”
(Editor’s note: LinkedIn parent company Microsoft has a substantial investment in OpenAI.)
7. Ukraine’s fate will hinge on elections all around
Did you know that 2024 is an election year in Ukraine? Don’t ask President Volodymyr Zelensky about that. He feels it’s “utterly irresponsible to engage in topics related to an election,” because “this is a time for defense, a time for battle, upon which the fate of the state and its people depend.” Elections, he says “are not appropriate at this time.”
Beyond the understandable need for Ukrainian unity in this difficult moment, Zelensky doesn’t want to have to debate with other Ukrainians whether the war has settled into a stalemate, as his top general, Valery Zaluzhny, recently said publicly. He also doesn’t want to encourage talk in the West of de facto partition and the need for compromise with Vladimir Putin, who will face his own election next year.
And, of course, Zelensky knows the biggest election of all, in the United States, is just a year away. Putin has nothing to offer Zelensky as he waits to see if a more accommodating president enters the White House. Zelensky, meanwhile, runs the risk of losing Joe Biden, his most important ally. And that would put the onus on Europe to fill the leadership vacuum created by Washington’s absence.
2024 will be an inflection point for all three nations, and the Ukraine-Russia conflict. — Ian Bremmer, president at Eurasia Group
8. We’ll enter the age of bionic prosthetics
The science fiction of the 1970s will become the nonfiction of the 2020s with the wide-scale use of bionic prosthetics. Prosthetics have always been viewed as an almost sad replacement for lost limbs and in fact there is evidence that almost half of upper-limb prostheses have been discarded due to factors including excessive weight and poor functionality. That is about to change. Tomorrow’s prosthetics will be made of new materials including silicone and even spider silk that are lighter weight and astonishingly natural looking.
Developments at the intersection of biology, AI-powered software (anticipating and enabling movement) and hardware (including air muscles which distribute power through tubes holding highly concentrated pressurized air and ferrofluids fluids that facilitate humanlike movement) will combine to create replacement limbs that seem “bionic” with levels of agility and strength that may be well beyond that of the original limb made of old-fashioned flesh, blood, muscle and bone.
This, in turn, will unlock a new use case for implants – elective surgery to get a mechanical upgrade for people growing older who want to stay active or a professional athlete who is looking for an edge. Prosthetics will shift from being associated with disability to being seen as a tool to expand human capacity. — Alec Ross, author of “The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People – and the Fight for Our Future”
9. Coming to clinical trials: AI-powered “synthetic patients”
Rigorous clinical trials are crucial for evaluating new treatments but they have room for improvement. Recruiting patients is always a challenge, especially when trials have narrow health condition criteria. Historically, trials also underrepresent marginalized racial and ethnic groups. These gaps can lead to treatments and therapeutics that may not be effective for everyone.
In the future, we’ll see generative AI transform clinical trials by creating “synthetic patients.” Researchers will still recruit people for the treatment being studied, but the control arm — participants who receive a placebo or the current standard of care — will not be human. They will be virtual representations of humans, generated by an algorithm that has sifted through the medical records of a broad and diverse patient population.
As revolutionary as this seems, it is not as far off as you might think. Researchers have already created “historical” control arms for clinical trials, using records of patients not directly involved in the study.
And that may not be all. Researchers have begun exploring whether synthetic patients could be used for both arms of a trial. Using AI, they are testing computer models that simulate how a drug or treatment might interact with human biology in a treatment group. Penn State researchers tested out this approach last year with promising results: Their fully simulated trial of two Alzheimer’s disease drugs delivered outcomes that closely aligned with prior traditional clinical trials.
By ensuring more inclusive representation and eliminating barriers, AI could unlock a world of faster drug approvals, reduced trial costs, and crucially, therapies that benefit all. — Lloyd Minor, dean of Stanford School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at Stanford University
10. Fertility gimmicks will fade, and nations will get real about population decline
Wealthier nations have a population problem, and they won’t be able to solve it with money alone.
Concerns around climate change, the rising cost of living and shifting career priorities have put a damper on fertility rates, setting off a “demographic winter” across developed economies. This year, China joined the ranks of nations experiencing population decline, a first after 60 years of growth.
To prop up their populations — and secure their economies — governments from Japan to Italy, South Korea and Hungary have tried everything from offering parents “baby bonus” payments, tax incentives and interest-free loans. These policies have barely made a dent.
Critics argue these incentives are falling flat because they fail to address what’s really keeping people from having children: If you aren’t affluent, it’s extremely hard to make a decent living and start a family, and there are few signs it’s going to get much easier.
What might actually help? Social welfare programs that provide a safety net for working parents and generous parental leave policies are a start.
“We need to get to a place where as many women as possible don’t feel like it has to be one or the other for them (career or baby),” Sunroom Co-Founder Michelle Battersby writes on LinkedIn.
Some nations are getting the message. Australia is expanding its parental leave policy to 26 weeks of shared leave beginning July 2026. And by 2025, UK-based parents of children over nine months will be entitled 30 hours a week of free childcare. — Natalie MacDonald
11. We’ll finally turn the corner on teacher pay in 2024
Underpaid, overworked and often unable to keep pace with inflation. For most of the United States’ 3.5 million public school teachers (grades K-12), that’s been a harsh reality the past decade.
But in 2023, states such as Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee and Utah approved notable increases in teachers’ pay. These actions affected starting salaries, annual increases the next few years – or both. Similar bills were introduced in nearly a half-dozen other state legislatures, too, only to see those early efforts peter out.
In the six years before the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, teachers’ inflation-adjusted pay rose a total of about 3%, according to the National Education Association, amid a strong overall U.S. economy. But those slim gains — and more — have vanished. In the face of inflation and pandemic-related pressures on state budgets, teachers’ pay had fallen nearly 9% from that earlier peak by the 2022-23 school year, to an inflation-adjusted average of just $53,391 a year.
Optimists see signs that this past year’s legislative support for higher teacher pay can extend further in 2024. Earlier this year, state legislators in Arizona, Connecticut and Maine united across party lines to support higher teacher pay, but the necessary bills either didn’t reach a full floor vote or (in Maine’s case) were approved but not funded.
Texas will be a state to watch closely. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has said he would like to boost public-school teachers’ pay, as long as legislators also approve a school voucher program that would support parents wanting to send their children to private schools. Democrats and the teachers’ unions have been opposed to that idea so far. Whether they can find a compromise is anyone’s guess. — George Anders
12. We’ll flock to climate havens, only to realize there is no such thing
Housing inventory. Mortgage rates. And climate anxiety? As dystopian as it might sound, climate-intensified disasters are becoming so frequent and catastrophic that they are now shaping migration and real estate trends.
The Midwest, specifically, is emerging as a hub for climate migration — people relocating to places that offer greater protection from the effects of climate change. To give just one example, hundreds of people have flocked to Duluth, Minnesota, enticed in part by the city’s natural safeguard from sea-level rise. And yet, we learned this year that the Midwest is still vulnerable to climate impacts, most notably to the blanket of climate-amplified wildfire smoke that drifted over from eastern Canada.
As we enter 2024 facing more intense wildfires, catastrophic hurricanes, widespread flooding and the promise of scorching temperatures from El Niño, more of us may realize that the concept of a climate sanctuary is obsolete.
“No place is an island immune from climate risk,” says Parag Khanna, founder and CEO of Climate Alpha. “Even places that are relatively less risky must invest in adaptation, either to fortify against rising climate risks or to absorb the growing population and investment they will receive.” — Jessica Misener
13. We’ll generate power from the comfort of our own…balconies
My own little power plant at home: what may sound like a wild dream from a bygone era could soon become the norm in Germany. By generating electricity from sunlight via balcony power plants, tenants can produce their own climate-friendly energy.
Compared to large solar panel roof systems, the balcony power plant is easy for the layman to set up and dismantle when moving, and it’s relatively inexpensive (starting at around 500 to 700 Euro). With the potential of covering some 10% to 20% of household electricity needs, residents can also limit their exposure to rising energy prices.
The benefits are particularly ripe for those working from home, says Hamburg-based HR consultant Daniela Schubert, who believes employers may even offer perks that support balcony power: “It is no longer necessarily the telephone bill that is lucrative, but from 2024, for example, a balcony solar system,” they write on LinkedIn.
Some 230,000 balcony power plants are in operation in Germany, with further plans to ease barriers to entry — such as increasing the current 600-watt output limit to 800 watts, and eliminating registration requirements for smaller devices.
While a balcony boom is well underway in Germany, could the trend spread? The UK and much of continental Europe already allow plug-and-play solar devices. The U.S. may need more time, say experts, citing a lack of ample sunlight in some regions, pushback from utility companies and safety concerns. — Benjamin Freund
14. FOBO (fear of being obsolete) will force employers to the bargaining table
From Hollywood writers to Starbucks baristas, nurses to factory workers — nearly half a million workers participated in mass walk-outs throughout the U.S. in 2023, in what became known as “Hot Strike Summer.” But the U.S. wasn’t alone in its summer of strikes: picket lines cropped up in the UK, Canada, Iceland and across Europe.
“Times have changed and the model [employers] developed and exploited during an earlier time is no longer relevant in 2023,” argues former White House Secretary of Labor Seth Harris in a LinkedIn post.
One underlying theme connecting all these protests: The fear of being obsolete (FOBO), as the evolution of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) underscore insecurities over the future of human labor.
No matter how much money is poured into AI — one Goldman Sachs report forecasts a $200 billion global investment by 2025 — evolution can’t outpace workers’ discontent. Employers will have no choice but to abate workers’ FOBO, with a particular focus on up-skilling, if they want to avoid a fresh wave of strikes in 2024.
“Businesses must embrace agility and resilience,” Bayes Business School professor Sabine VanderLinden writes on LinkedIn. “The future of work isn’t just about technological advances, though. It’s also about creating a culture that values versatility, inclusivity, mental well-being and innovative thinking.”
“At the same time, individuals must develop skills that can’t be automated – creativity, complex problem-solving and emotional intelligence are all part of this.” says VanderLinden. — Lucas Carvalho
15. 2024 will be the year private equity gets reined in
The private equity party will come to a close in the new year. For the last few decades, during the era of ultra-low interest rates, private equity became less about improving businesses — its original premise — and more about financial engineering. A 2018 analysis from Verdad Capital’s Dan Rasmussen made it clear that PE deals are more about saddling companies with debt than introducing anything resembling strategic wisdom.
With interest rates rising, the easy returns will fade away and pension funds and other investors in private equity funds will make for the exits.
Amid growing recognition of private equity’s excesses, regulators are stepping in. The FTC has become more aggressive about suing private equity firms for allegedly creating monopolies. And the SEC is instituting new rules about private equity disclosure for investors.
To truly rein in private equity, regulators will need to go even further. In their ongoing battle to bring big banks to heel, regulators ended up pushing more capital to the less regulated “shadow banking” system. The extension of credit by non-banks, mainly private equity firms, grew from nothing at the time of the financial crisis to a $1.5 trillion market. “This is great news for hedge funds, private equity, private credit, Apollo, Blackstone,” JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon said in a speech this summer. “They’re dancing in the streets.”
The bad societal outcome hasn’t yet led to radical change. But a bad deal that shocks the financial system? That might be enough to change everything. — Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean, co-authors of “The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind”
16. Gen Z and their employers will face off in a ‘Great Negotiation’
Tensions between young workers and their bosses could come to a head in 2024 — and everyone will lose if the coming “Great Negotiation” doesn’t end with healthy compromise, warns demographics expert Bradley Schurman.
Companies will need to rethink their concept of employee loyalty now that a nine-to-five job on its own no longer offers the kind of economic promise it once did. We’re likely to see more Gen Zers working multiple jobs as they struggle to gain the kind of economic security that came more readily to previous generations. And with “inequities building up over time,” the American dream will slip even further out of reach for more young workers, Schurman says. According to generational expert Jamie Belinne, the “basic level of life” to which young workers aspire costs more than most entry-level salaries, which she describes as “a new condition for our economy.”
The mismatch between employees’ economic realities and employers’ expectations is evident in the recent gains made by organized labor, which Gen Z has been leading the charge on. Schurman expects organization efforts to gain strength in the coming year. “We’re at the precipice of a significant union or labor movement again,” he says. “The market conditions are just right.”
If employers and employees can’t bridge this widening gap — by embracing flexibility around when and where we work, establishing renewed trust between managers and their staff, and addressing long-standing unrest over pay and other labor conditions — we will all suffer the economic consequences. “We already are [seeing this] to some degree because we can’t fill positions,” Schurman says. “We will continue to see businesses attempt to leverage technology to fill human roles, which will exacerbate things even further.” — Gianna Prudente
17. The rubber will meet the road for autonomous vehicles
For most Americans, it was once a hypothetical: given the choice, would you ride in a driverless “robotaxi” or a “regular” car helmed by a human? This past year, the theoretical turned visceral as driverless vehicles from companies like Google’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise became a highly visible presence in cities such as San Francisco and Phoenix.
But just as riders started to dip their toes into driver-free waters, a handful of alarming incidents in California prompted Cruise to slam the brakes. The state suspended the firm’s permit to operate and Cruise pulled all of its vehicles off roads across the nation.
Now, 2024 is shaping into a make or break year for driverless vehicles. Companies that were hurtling towards expansion are watching the fallout from Cruise’s issues with alarm, according to The New York Times’ Tripp Mickle. “This is the central growing pain that comes with this driverless taxi push…. These cars may result in fewer accidents but — because they’re so foreign — the margin for error at the moment is incredibly thin.”
Matthew Wansley, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, notes that although several hundred billion dollars have already poured into developing and testing driverless car technology, more needs to be done to expand safely and convince the public of its merits.
“It’s an extremely complicated problem to solve,” he says. “The public demands a significant safety improvement over human drivers. So, 2024 needs to be about the companies slowly building confidence that they can roll out this technology safely. Hopefully, the industry’s lesson is that a gradual deployment is safer.” — Andrew Murfett
17. An IPO boom will come for companies, whether they’re ready to go public or not
2023 didn’t quite bring about the equity-market revival some had been hoping for, but analysts are nonetheless expecting a surge in initial public offerings next year.
What will make 2024 the year of the IPO? Necessity — startups are running out of money. According to Discovery Capital Management, some 1,200 private companies are expected to exhaust their financial reserves by the end of next year.
Unlike in years past, however, venture capital firms aren’t rushing to the rescue of buzzy startups. It’s “wishful thinking” to expect investors in the private market “to overpay for your stock” right now, says Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital.
Jeff Grabow, U.S. venture capital leader at EY, agrees. He notes that although the number of VC-backed startups is at an all-time high, “liquidity has lagged” since 2021. Investors who’ve had millions parked in startups “need to see their capital back,” he says.
This leaves many firms with limited options beyond going public — and with the additional pressure to time their IPOs before the uncertainties of the U.S. presidential election set in.
The Federal Reserve may also play a role in the expected IPO boom. Signs that “the tightening cycle is ending” would remove “a layer of uncertainty around financing costs,” says Mark Schwartz, a managing director at EY Capital Advisors. In other words, if the Fed starts cutting rates in 2024, that’s likely to re-stimulate market activity, even for startups with lofty valuations. — Stephanie Forshee
19. One healthcare retailer will rule them all…
Retail giants like Amazon, Walgreens and CVS have been locked in an arms race to see who will win the biggest share of the healthcare pie – competing not just against each other, but traditional hospitals and clinics as well. Yet one company will leave others in the dust next year: Walmart.
It would be a come-from-behind win, but Stanford professor Robert Pearl notes that the Bentonville, Ark.-based behemoth – already the world’s largest company by revenue – is making some key moves.
A 10-year partnership with UnitedHealth Group, launched in January, has the potential to send hundreds of thousands of seniors to Walmart for preventative care. The pharmacy chain is also rumored to be in negotiations to buy ChenMed, which similarly offers primary care services to seniors in 15 states. Beyond senior care, the UnitedHealth deal will allow health plan members of all ages to get virtual care at Walmart.
“To win at healthcare, the retail giants can’t be niche players in one narrow part of the healthcare ecosystem,” says Pearl, a physician and former CEO of the Permanente Medical Group, who now hosts the Fixing Healthcare podcast. He adds: “They’ll need to think bigger, act strategically and play the long game (for at least the next decade).”
Pearl says the winner will need to offer a full suite of healthcare services to self-funded businesses, their employees and everyone else, and he argues Walmart is best poised to do it. — Beth Kutscher
20. Expect an “unretirement” wave in 2024
The workforce is likely to stay pretty crowded this coming year.
Inflation is still high, interest rates are unlikely to fall by much and most people haven’t been saving enough for their golden years. This means many of the oldest members of the workforce are feeling strapped for cash and are pushing off retirement, or reneging on it altogether.
Research shows the majority of baby boomers expect to work until they physically can’t. Meanwhile, one in five Americans who have already retired are considering returning to work, according to a recent survey. “In addition to increasing your financial stability, rejoining the workforce can be a powerful way to make social connections and find purpose,” financial planner Judith Ward explains. After all, boredom on a budget isn’t anyone’s idea of a post-career peak.
The trend could have positive impacts on the workforce. Research featured in Harvard Business Review finds that teams that span generations have differing but complementary abilities and skills that can lead to more productive collaboration and stronger overall performance. But “this is only if team members are willing to share and learn from their differences,” researcher Megan Gerhardt notes. — Taylor Borden
21. Employers will combat job applicants’ use of AI with…more AI
While people continue to worry that generative AI will someday replace them in the workforce, employers are already encountering overly embellished resumes and other recruiting headaches created by the technology.
“Generative AI has been used to create sophisticated fake resumes, cover letters, or even video interviews, making it challenging for employers to discern genuine applications from AI-generated ones,” says Dan Schawbel, a New York Times bestselling author and the managing partner of Workplace Intelligence.
Expect employers to deploy AI to fight back, using techniques like reverse image search, voice analysis, behavioral analysis, and other detection tools to spot fakes. Schawbel warns that employers would be wise to consider the ethical, legal and PR risks of using this kind of tech.
But even if employers can root out deceptive applications, the damage to AI-powered recruiting may already be done, depending on how these models are trained. That’s because embellished resumes may influence AI models to rank similar applicants favorably, creating systemic bias and harming truthful applicants.
“AI algorithms are only as unbiased as the data they are trained on, and if the training data is biased, it can perpetuate existing prejudices,” says Schawbel.
In the meantime, Schawbel adds that employers and applicants should advocate for transparency with the use of AI during the hiring process. — Andrew Seaman
22. The ‘sleep economy’ will awaken
As professionals make their way back to the office and employers revert to their pre-pandemic operating models, expect a rude awakening: The shift in work styles may lead to the same psychological strain and sleep struggles so many experienced when the pandemic first hit.
A growing cohort of companies are powering a burgeoning “sleep economy” to address these challenges, offering everything from wearable devices that track the quality and quantity of your slumber to mattress covers equipped with sensors that can adjust your bed’s temperature throughout the night to give you an ideal night’s rest. The makers of Pokemon are even getting in on the action with an app that rewards users with Pokemon the more sleep they get.
Expect employers to jump on the sleep bandwagon, as business leaders increasingly recognize the emotional, physical and economic toll of pulling all-nighters to get work done. We’ll see companies subsidize the purchase of sleep tracking devices for their staff and offer access to sleep specialists as part of their wellness offerings.
The business world’s perception of sleep is changing, Thrive Global CEO Arianna Huffington, writes on LinkedIn: “When tech CEOs are bragging about how much, instead of how little, sleep they get, it’s a great sign of how times have changed. — Satoshi Ebitani and David Ko.
23. In 2024, Africans will reject China more openly than ever
Yes, China has invested massively in infrastructure across the continent. Yes, in a rare foreign trip, Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited South Africa in August for the BRICS summit, where he dined with scores of regional leaders. Yes, South Africa has hosted Chinese (and Russian) ships for joint naval exercises.
But it’s important to keep China’s influence in Africa in perspective.
The U.S. military has about 27 bases in Africa; China has just one. Moreover, there’s evidence that Africans are running out of patience with Beijing. They certainly have little to like about Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “no limits” partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose war in Ukraine has jeopardized millions of tons of food destined for Africa.
China’s investment in Africa peaked seven years ago, with loans to African countries crashing from $28 billion in 2016 to just $2 billion in 2020. Although governments love the shiny new infrastructure, they are finding the resulting debt far less appealing. And now that China is increasingly consumed with its own economic troubles, the sheen on the Chinese development model will only further wear off.
Regardless, the U.S.-Chinese competition isn’t going to be won or lost in the developing world. Across the Global South, most countries and people aren’t fixated on the superpower rivalry. They just want to chart their own course. — Stuart Reid, executive editor at Foreign Affairs and author of “The Lumumba Plot”
24. Air travelers, get ready for a bumpy ride
Climate change is making flights dangerously bumpy. In September, eight people were hospitalized after severe turbulence forced a JetBlue flight to land in Florida. A month earlier, 12 people were injured when a Delta flight ran into rough air outside Atlanta.
The culprit is often clear air turbulence, a treacherous condition that is invisible to pilots and undetectable on most current radar systems. As the earth heats up, more warm air rises from the ground to the jet stream, where it scrambles the fast currents that planes like to catch to reach destinations more quickly with less fuel.
“Clear air turbulence isn’t something that airlines can see coming, and it’s just going to continue,” says Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst who is president of the Atmosphere Research Group.
Over the past four decades, this type of turbulence has increased by up to 55 percent in some regions around the world, according to research from the University of Reading. In a follow-up study, the same researchers predicted clear-air turbulence in some areas could triple in the next three to six decades.
Airlines will get better at predicting this turbulence as various technologies like sensors, satellites and data modeling powered by artificial intelligence come to market. But many of those technologies are several years out. For now, we’ll all do well to heed the airlines’ warnings to keep our seatbelts fastened at all times. — Jessi Hempel
25. The end is near for disposable coffee cups
First, they targeted the straws. Now, the cups?
In 2024, expect a growing chorus of governments and cafes to introduce surcharges for disposable cups to combat environmental harm and waste.
Billions of cups are thrown away each year and few are truly recyclable. Ireland is contemplating a “latte levy” – a €0.20 charge per single-use cup. The government wants to eliminate the source of waste as much as possible, and ultimately ban the cups.
“We want to encourage people to prevent [this waste] by enjoying their on-the-go drink in a reusable cup, or better yet, to take five minutes out of their day to sit down and enjoy their drink at their favorite café,” says a spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications.
The Netherlands and parts of Australia are moving for an all-out ban on single-use and plastic cups respectively, while in the U.S. Starbucks will give customers who bring reusable cups for drive-thru orders a discount from the end of this year.
The levy alone might yield strong results. Ireland’s €0.22 plastic bag tax, introduced in 2002, has led to a 90% drop in their use, according to the department. But critics have labeled the measure “a blunt instrument”, warning that consumers may opt to forego their coffee orders entirely, prompting job losses within Ireland’s cafe sector. — Polly Dennison
26. At long last, U.S. real estate will see major change
I spent my first year as Redfin’s CEO proclaiming that a real estate revolution was at hand, only to discover how impervious to change the industry actually is. But now, for the first time in my 18-year career, seismic change not only seems possible but likely.
In the space of a few months this fall, the once-indomitable National Association of Realtors lost its president and now its CEO. Meanwhile, brokers have responded to plunging home sales by offering lower commissions, if not in the fee publicly offered to the buyers’ agent then in private listing agreements or commission refunds.
What’s bizarre about the competitive dynamic in this downturn is the absence of listings, which usually pile up when sales slow. With competition high between agents for customers but low between listings for buyers, more listing agents will be able to secure a second customer by representing both buyer and seller in a sale.
Those trends, coupled with pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice and the courts, have created a perfect storm for an industry in which more than a million Americans work. More U.S. home sales will involve one agent, not two. Fees will come down.
This will be good for consumers. But if brokers as a result stop sharing listings broadly, the open listing marketplace that makes housing in the U.S. so much better than anywhere else may fall apart. — Glenn Kelman, CEO at Redfin
27. Electric vehicles will power our houses, and change careers
Previous generations purchased their cars solely for transportation, but the next generation may depend on their cars to keep their lights on. Thanks to bidirectional charging, the giant electric vehicle battery sitting in the driveway could also power a home in an emergency, or even feed power back to the grid to offset utility costs.
A growing number of Americans have access to such alternative or backup power sources. EVs including Ford’s F150 Lightning are equipped with the technology, and GM is making vehicle-to-home charging a standard feature for several 2024 models. Not every customer with access to the technology understands how to use it, however.
“Education is a massive part” of scaling this feature in the new year, says Darren Palmer, Ford’s VP of global EV programs, explaining the company plans to train 5,000 dealership employees on bidirectional charging and its potential applications in 2024 — which he says will be essential for mass adoption.
As intelligent charging grows, the utilities and transportation sectors will have to work more closely, which “will allow for workers to transition across those two industries in both directions,” says Garrett Fitzgerald, a grid electrification strategist. Companies across both sectors are already planning to work together in early 2024 to scale charging services, notes Bill Crider, Ford’s head of global charging and energy services. “It’s really important from a broader industrial standpoint to be thinking about this collectively.” — Josh Carney
28. A revolution in women’s sports will take shape
In 2024, women athletes will see financial gains and be placed on a more equal footing with their male counterparts, starting with soccer and extending across sports, leagues and borders.
This year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand made clear that women’s sports has an audience to be reckoned with. Attendance records for the event were crushed and viewership soared globally. The record-breaking viewership has drawn the keen eye of sponsors. Expect bigger endorsements for star athletes.
We should also expect institutional changes, with more stringent rules on how women are treated on and off the field. The World Cup’s ‘me too’ moment, which culminated in the resignation of Spanish football federation president Luis Rubiales, sent a clear message that change is long overdue. Expect a new wave of women stepping into leadership roles as coaches and administrators. At this year’s event, just 12 out of 32 teams had a woman coach.
These changes will be further solidified at the Paris Olympics this summer. For the first time, the Summer Olympics will feature a 50/50 split of male and female athletes.
Up next: We’ll see more women serving as Olympic coaches. Women have accounted for a mere 10% of coaches over the past 10 years, according to International Olympic Committee member Nawal El Moutawakel. “We need women and young girls to see female coaches, to believe that they too can achieve positions of responsibility and influence,” she says. — Cathy Anderson
29. Mexico will emerge triumphant as corporations embrace nearshoring
Over the past few years, the way goods get from the factory floor to our shops and doorsteps has undergone a revolution. The pandemic, U.S.-China trade tensions and geopolitical uncertainty exposed the fragility of our global supply chains, pushing companies to bring production closer to home.
And one early winner from this shift to “nearshoring” is now poised to rise above the pack as a global manufacturing power player: Mexico.
Mexico’s proximity to its trade partners, its young workforce and its relatively low labor costs have attracted multinational corporations eager to reduce production costs and avoid the logistical setbacks associated with lengthy supply chains.
Foreign direct investment into Mexico surged in 2023, and in September the nation overtook China as the largest trading partner to the U.S. In 2024, Unilever will open its latest manufacturing plant in Nuevo Leon as part of a $400 million investment in the country over the next three years. Mattel, Tesla and Ford are also making moves.
To be sure, Mexico faces challenges — the strength of its rule of law, along with the capacity of its industrial parks, infrastructure, electricity and water supply, to name a few. But the recent string of trade wins could mark a watershed moment for Latin America’s second largest economy. — Viridiana Mendoza
30. Nuclear fusion will go from pipe dream to reality
Researchers across the globe have been racing to generate clean energy solutions to today’s climate crisis. One old idea is poised to gain significant momentum in 2024: Nuclear fusion.
The idea: A pair of atoms are smashed together to form a single, heavier atom, releasing a huge amount of energy akin to the reaction that powers our sun. If successful, nuclear fusion could yield a seemingly limitless supply of carbon emission-free power.
The challenge? Nuclear fusion requires massive amounts of energy, making it hard to develop a stable system that can generate more power than what’s required to produce the reaction in the first place, a concept known as “net energy gain.”
But recent breakthroughs have transformed nuclear fusion from science fiction to near-reality. This summer, U.S. scientists at the National Ignition Facility achieved “net energy gain” for the second time in eight months. And the U.S. Department of Energy announced $46 million in funding to eight American firms developing pilot nuclear fusion plants.
“It has always been the holy grail. There’s no waste. There’s no radioactivity,” says Samir Kaul of Khosla Ventures, which has made investments in two of the eight DOE grantees.
Silicon Valley has caught on, with investment in the nascent technology surging over the past 20 years. And startup Helion Energy, which has backing from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Peter Thiel and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, expects its seventh fusion prototype to start producing electricity sometime in 2024. — Tanya Dua
31. Universities will view the creator economy as a viable career path
When class is in session in 2024, building a career in the creator economy will be on the syllabus. A wave of classes on the creator economy will debut across campuses of all sizes next year that not only teach students about the business side of the influencer space but also help them hone the necessary creativity and style for those who wish to be in front of the camera.
Academia’s adoption of the creator economy will help move the industry beyond its reputation as a mere byproduct of social media’s growth. It will solidify the creator economy — which could double in size to half-a-trillion dollars by 2027 — as a legitimate career path with a variety of options. The trend bodes well for the 54% of young adults who have expressed interest in becoming a content creator, a path that aligns with Gen Z’s desire for career autonomy.
“I think there will be an increase in courses around influencer marketing and the creator economy, particularly as it relates to business and marketing,” says Lia Haberman, who teaches courses on influencer marketing and social media at UCLA.
Although these courses may not equip students with the “innate talent and charisma” that help creators skyrocket in popularity, Haberman says universities can provide formal training on essential skills — including creating a personal brand, building a media kit and partnering with sponsors — that creators have typically needed to learn on their own. — Gianna Prudente
32. Australia will rise up as a global EV power player
The global race for EV dominance is well underway, with automakers in China, the U.S. and Japan playing lead roles. But behind the scenes, one nation is emerging as a critical player in the global quest to go electric: Australia.
In recent years, EV adoption has driven up demand for lithium, a critical component for batteries. And Australia has the second largest lithium ore reserves in the world. In 2022, Australian firms handled 43% of global lithium extraction, and production hit record highs in 2023.
“The energy transition globally is Australia’s to lose,” says Robyn Denholm, the Sydney-based chair of Tesla. “We have all the ingredients in Australia to actually enable the energy transition to happen — if you look at the minerals that go into batteries. We have lithium, copper, cobalt, we have all of the casings, which are aluminum.”
Australia is planning to double down on its efforts to refine lithium and minerals locally, which will allow Australian firms to charge a premium for its resources and compete with Chinese refineries for dominance in this space.
To fully realize its potential as an EV battery power player, though, Australia has work to do: It will need to address severe labor shortages in its mining and infrastructure sectors and find cost-efficient ways to build more refineries rapidly. — Brendan Wong
33. Expect a reckoning among streaming sites — and a lot more ads
Hollywood’s big bet on streaming could be viewed as a financial failure — with one exception. Netflix has emboldened cord cutters and become a global household staple. Following years of heavy losses, it is now printing money and capable of turning a long-forgotten series such as “Suits” into a genuine global blockbuster years after it went off the air.
“[Netflix has] become like a utility bill for most households,” says Jessica Toonkel, deputy media editor at The Wall Street Journal.
The same cannot be said for most of Netflix’s rival streaming apps, which are routinely hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter. For services like Comcast’s Peacock and Paramount Plus, something has to give. Puck partner Matt Belloni envisions a transformative moment for the streaming world in 2024, whether it be a significant merger or a bundling of services that allows apps to share costs — and profits. “They’re not all going to make it,” Belloni says. “They can’t just keep chugging along. Shareholders will eventually revolt.”
As studios look for more revenue, most streamers are ramping up ad-free subscription tier prices and goading customers into downgrading to subscriptions that include advertising. This is no coincidence — as much as most viewers loathe ads, studios make more money per subscriber when they’re included in packages. — Andrew Murfett
34. We’ll move away from a ‘growth at all costs’ economy
In 2024, we’ll pay attention to how our economic decisions impact the things that let us all thrive, like community, creativity, nature and hope for the future. And we will incorporate these values in how we measure economic progress, putting GDP aside.
Economies focused on growth alone have brought us to the edge of planetary collapse while leaving many of us mired in anxiety or despair. In 2024, governments, companies and individual people will say enough is enough.
The UN, the EU, and Australia have taken steps to move “beyond GDP” as the end-all be-all metric of economic health. As the late Senator Robert Kennedy said, “GDP measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”
The OECD Better Life Index and Genuine Progress Indicator provide yardsticks that better measure what we really want our economies to deliver, putting profit in its place as a means to better health, educational attainment and economic opportunity, not as an end in and of itself.
However, it’s not as simple as just replacing GDP with better measuring sticks. What kinds of actions can we take to build an economy that values people and planet?
Governments can follow the lead of New Zealand and Canada and introduce “wellbeing budgets” that emphasize protecting the environment and ensuring human health. Businesses can embrace corporate structures like perpetual-purpose trusts, which are organized to fulfill a specific purpose such as mitigating the effects of climate change or employee profit sharing. And tech firms can reconsider the impact they have on society and design their offerings to seed common ground, rather than outrage and clicks. — Kevin O’Neil, managing director at The Rockefeller Foundation
