The Timeline of Next in the Decade to Come, the World Will Be a Much Different Place, with Some Surprising New Additions

The Timeline of Next In the decade to come, the world will be a much different place, with some surprising new additions. Call it “the perpetually new normal” — always changing in reaction to whatever came just before. To prepare for what’s ahead, we must consider not just the changes we see now but also the new realities these changes will spawn further out into the future. How will working “ The world is before you, and you need not take from home recast the restaurant industry? Real estate? Transportation? The design it or leave it as it was when you came in.” of cities? How will a year of homeschooling reshape the feelings of this generation and the JAMES BALDWIN, NOVELIST, POET, ACTIVIST next about red-throated capitalism? To formulate answers to these and many larger, more existential questions, we need to think broadly, deeply and linearly and begin building hypotheses about our future. This timeline is one way to do that. In the midst of the global pandemic, we brought together a group of thought leaders from Cognizant and our partners to extrapolate a vision of the world of tomorrow. In this exercise, we explore the impact of “now” on the future of education, work, economies and life itself. Page forward and glimpse both what’s next and when’s next. We cite cutting- edge research, invoke hard lessons from the past and envision a reality in which new solutions to big problems will thrive. While each essay is intriguing on its own, when seen together they convey a visually moving and accurate pictorial of how our world is continuously morphing and progressing over time. By thinking ahead and visualizing what’s in store, we’re looking forward — literally and metaphorically — to what comes next in our personal and professional lives. 3 / Timeline of Next Index 6 20 30 36 54 Living Working Learning Economies About the authors [ A ‘meet cute’ with technology. ] [ The office will never be the same. ] [ Education is now about breaking the rules. ] [ Time for marketplace makeovers. ] 8 HAL, Samantha and the 22 Virtual Sales Call: Real Results 32 ‘ Dear Noah, Welcome to the 38 Surrender to the Rhythm Anthropomorphic Sound of University of Google’ the Future 24 Living at Work 42 Intergenerational War 34 You Say You Want a Revolution? 10 Exploding the Nuclear Family 26 A Heads-Up on the New Office Class Dismissed 44 Capitalism 2.0 12 It’s All in the Mind 28 15-Minute Spaces 48 Not Pie in the Sky 14 Escaping the Matrix 16 Patient, Heal Thyself — Digitally 18 Machines of Loving Grace “ Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Through the Looking Glass LEWIS CARROLL, NOVELIST 5 / Timeline of Next Living Working Learning Economies “ Living well is the best revenge. If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” Home is where the heart is, where the couch The Sense of Humor is, where — the screen is? As many of us have clocked more time MAX EASTMAN, writer, poet, activist at home in the past year-plus than ever before in our lives, we’ve also grown more reliant on our devices. In the coming years, our lives will be defined by what we say to our devices — and what they say back. Our health will be determined by the data we transmit to our caretakers and the guidance streamed back to our apps and virtual assistants. In our dotage, we’ll be grateful for the unflagging support of robots that tend to our every physical and psychological need. As at-home life intensifies, we’ll look beyond the concept of the family unit, to pods, tribes and kinships. Most importantly, we’ll take stock of our newly intimate relationship with our devices and take steps to right imbalances. Our collective psyche depends on it. 7 / Timeline of Next: Living Soon, the voices won’t be just in our heads – they’ll surround us in every piece of tech we use. HAL, Samantha and the Anthropomorphic Sound of the Future There’s a scene in the 2013 In a click or two, Apple and What the future sounds like Or you’ll talk to a George As HAL, the seemingly omniscient sci-fi romantic comedyHer Amazon and Google (and every A world of Samanthas and Siris (Clooney) in the morning and a supercomputer from the sci-fi thriller that captures where artificial other tech vendor worth its salt) and Alexas (and every other old- Nicole (Kidman) in the evening — 2001: A Space Odyssey warned us intelligence-powered virtual will have Samantha-like capabilities fashioned Victorian name you celebrities will, of course, monetize when his cognition differed from his assistants (VA) are heading. Set embedded as their UX, and care to resurrect from the pages of their velvet tones with digital rights human companion: “I’m sorry, Dave. just over the horizon in futuristic digits will be well on their way Dickens and Hardy — “Hey, Charity management deals. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” With Los Angeles, the film chronicles the to becoming superfluous in a more precise algorithmic thinking, Picksniff — order my usual pizza, And then, in a further click or three, lonely life of techno-nerd Theodore digital age. will you?”) may seem unsettling at VAs that can countermand are not Twombly, who makes a living VAs will truly read our minds — too far away. With a smile or a scowl, Clearly, it will take enormous first, but by mid-decade, they will not only finishing our sentences but writing personal letters for people be as normal as ATMs, contactless or a countenance that augments unable to effectively express algorithmic smarts to imbue VAs also proactively anticipating our their purpose and conveys with anthropomorphic fidelity. But payments and in-car head-up every need, want and desire themselves. displays. understanding that transcends the that’s the arms race of 2020-2025. (hopefully, within reason), even spoken word, e.g., in an entirely Twombly acquires a new AI In another click or two, Samantha overruling us, where necessary — anthropomorphic way, their voices operating system designed to act (or Charity) will change on-the- or at least where human intelligence will fill our minds, and our future. as his VA. Depressed and reeling fly depending on our mood, falls short of the mark. Alan Alper is Vice President of from the breakup of his marriage, circumstance and, of course, need. Twombly immediately falls head Cognizant’s Global Thought Leadership Women could opt for male voices, Programs over heels for his VA, Samantha. if desired. Men could keep their “I can’t believe I am having a female VAs with the lilting intonation conversation with my computer,” that rises at the close of each he reveals to Samantha during statement that Siri made famous. their initial rendezvous. To which she responds: “You’re not, you’re talking to me.” 9 / Timeline of Next: Living Exploding the Nuclear Family Perhaps it does take a village after all. For 160 years, from the mid-1800s Fast-forward to 2020, and in the With an eerie foreshadowing, David This was great for the economy: Who’s in your tribe? At heart, the family unit will always until about 2011, the average midst of another storm, the number Brooks wrote an article in the March Every new household purchased In the near future, an abundance adapt to economic and social number of people in the average of kids moving back in with their 2020 edition of The Atlantic called, its own furniture, appliances, pots of new family configurations will change. But no family is an island, American and European household parents or parents moving in “The Nuclear Family Was A Mistake.” and pans, and a car (or two, and become mainstream — from familiar and it does perhaps take a village steadily shrunk, whittled down by with their kids went off the charts. In it, he noted that our modern eventually four or five) to motor into variations like the multigenerational after all to raise new generations industrialization, falling birth rates Among the most tangible things domestic arrangements have “no the city center. The explosion of households common in Asia ready and able to withstand the and a cultural shift toward autonomy the coronavirus revealed was how shock absorbers” when something households helped create a more and Africa, to new types of existential shocks of the future. and individualism. In the wake of the fragile family support systems were goes wrong. Of course, in 2020 dynamic and mobile society — even forged households built on what It’s not enough for households to Great Financial Recession, however, for so many people in the day-to- something did go terribly wrong. as critical, invisible and unpaid labor anthropologist Marshall Sahlins cobble together an ecosystem of on- the trend began reversing, with day juggling of work, parenting, play within the household limited career demand, borrowed or outsourced The dysfunction of families calls “kinships,” groupings formed household size growing 50% faster and learning. With the on-again/ opportunities for many women. around shared culture rather than support — we need a pack we can than overall population growth. The off-again nature of schooling,more The concept of the self-reliant, rely on. The pandemic gives us the But now, that invisible labor is very biology. The pandemic-inspired economically insecure (the young, than one billion children globally fell detached nuclear family is, of course, opportunity to redefine what that visible indeed. The choice between concept of “bubbles” created by the unemployed or underemployed, behind their expected development a relatively modern invention, really looks like.

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