In 2016 we mapped 34 trends in how people would live with technology, money and data, as the starting point for a client’s innovation program. Ten years on, by our reading, 26 have arrived, four have partly arrived and three have not. One is too soft to score.
What separates the fast arrivals from the slow ones is less how good the idea was than who had to say yes before people could use it, and whether those yeses had already been given or could be required. Where they couldn’t, or where too few people wanted the change, trends stalled.
The score, ten years on
The trends covered four kinds of change. Nine of the ten technology trends have arrived, from biometric sign-in to more of life stored online, a growing trail of personal data and more sophisticated hacking. Connected and self-driving cars have only partly arrived.
Eight of the ten cultural trends have arrived, among them more varied households, flexible work, separate identities for separate audiences and growing wariness of being watched. Owning less in favor of experiences has only partly arrived, and identity as a moving target is too soft to score.
Four of the seven economic trends have arrived: money sent through apps, more of commerce online, digital marketplaces and location-based services. Alternative currencies and the sharing economy beyond ride-hailing have partly arrived. Blockchain networks across whole industries have not.
Five of the seven commercial trends have arrived, including paying with a phone, remote healthcare, security as a selling point and more data breaches. The connected home as a big revenue opportunity and people being paid for their own data have not.
What a few could switch on, or what was already agreed, came first
Biometric sign-in on phones spread as soon as the largest phone makers built it in. Signing in to websites with a face or a fingerprint took longer, because every site had to accept it, until an industry standard, passkeys, gave them one way to do it. The FIDO Alliance estimates that 5 billion passkeys are now in use worldwide.
Paying with a phone looked like a switch a few platforms flipped. It rode on yeses the payments industry had already given: contactless card standards and the terminals in shops. Americans made an average of 11 payments a month with a mobile phone in 2024, up from four in 2018, according to the Federal Reserve’s payments diary.
Where a yes can be required, a whole industry can move quickly. When Brazil’s central bank launched its instant payment system, Pix, in November 2020, every financial institution with more than 500,000 accounts had to offer it. Money sent through apps and digital marketplaces arrived the first way: a few platforms built them, and people came.
Some of these trends arrived with their costs. The trail of personal data we expected did grow, and so did the breaches of it and the rules that followed.
What a whole industry had to agree on, or few people wanted, came slowly
The slow arrivals needed many organizations to move together, with no one able to make them. Blockchain found uses inside single banks, but networks spanning a whole industry struggled. When IBM and Maersk closed their shipping platform TradeLens, Maersk said “the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved.”
The connected home was slower for a similar reason. Devices from different brands didn’t work well together until the industry agreed a common standard, Matter, in 2022, and the large revenue we expected is still hard to see.
Being paid for your own data stalled for a second reason: too few people wanted it. Businesses did turn personal data into revenue, but the market for selling your own never formed.
Timing can also come from outside. The pandemic set the pace in 2020 for flexible work, remote healthcare and paying without touching anything, faster than the trends had been moving.
What it means for reading a trend now
When a team weighs a trend, three questions help with timing: who has to say yes before customers feel it, whether those yeses are already given or can be required, and whether enough people want it. If a few platforms can switch it on, plan for it sooner than feels likely.
If a whole industry has to agree and no one can require it, plan for delay, and keep the investment as an option until the agreement is in sight.
Take AI agents that buy things for people. The capability is arriving. The yeses belong to merchants who accept a purchase no person clicked, to payment networks and banks deciding who is liable when it goes wrong, and to people trusting it with their money.
In consumer goods the yeses often belong to retailers, who decide what gets shelf space, and to the regulators who approve what a pack can claim.
That sits beside the lesson from our 2017 forecast about AI: treat the capability and its timing as the claim to test, and the companies named as examples. Our trends and foresight work gives a team both readings: what is coming, and who has to say yes before it arrives.
Common questions
Which digital-life trends forecast in 2016 came true?
Of the 34 trends we mapped in 2016, by our reading 26 have arrived, four have partly arrived, three have not and one is too soft to score. Biometric sign-in, money sent through apps, paying with a phone, digital marketplaces, remote healthcare and a growing trail of personal data have arrived. Industry-wide blockchain networks, the connected home as a big revenue opportunity and people being paid for their own data have not.
What decides how fast a technology trend arrives?
In our experience, who has to say yes before customers can use it, whether those yeses have already been given or can be required, and whether enough people want it. A change a few large platforms can switch on can spread within a few years. A change that needs a whole industry to agree, with no one able to require it, tends to arrive slowly or stall.