The Futurists

Can a company use AI to be capable of infinite adaptability?  Brian Solis and Dave Wright believe that right approach to deploying AI in large enterprises is a two-model process, first to find efficiency and create savings, and second, to invest those savings into accelerated innovation. In their new book Infinite, Brian and Dave cite successful case studies to show AI can help business leaders accomplish things that were never previously possible.  Rob Tercek interviewed Dave and Brian to extract the key points for listeners of The Futurists podcast.

To understand the future, it’s best to begin by studying the past. Jeff Jarvis returns to the Futurists to share a lively summary of the long arc of mass media, and he unpacks several valuable lessons for our present moment. Jeff’s new book Hot Type provides a compelling account of the long struggle to mechanize typesetting, one invention at a time, including the many failures that led to other mechanical breakthroughs. The invention of the Linotype machine made print cheap, and thereafter society consumed far more printed works, paving a path for modern mass marketing and mass consumption. Rob Tercek and Jeff discuss the direct parallel between the economic impact of mass media 100 years ago and the current advent of AI and the commoditization of human cognition. Topics include Jevon’s paradox, human-mechanical hybrids, unanticipated change versus technological determinism, a dozen parallels to our contemporary media economy, the importance of advertising and the attention economy, the advent of subscription sales of literature, a new definition of literacy.

This week on the futurists host Brett King sits down with Dr Julia Michelin to discuss the future of healthcare and how AI, gene-therapy, robotics, neural interfaces, cybernetics, 3D bio printing and other bio-tech is going to transform human society and culture.

In November 2025, the global techno-economy shifted subtly, then dramatically, as AI agents became viable additions to the workforce. Mark Pesce has documented these changes, what he refers to as “The Watershed”,  in a remarkable series of articles at https://thewatershed.markpesce.com/.  Pesce joins the Futurists to explain his perspective about how companies and work have changed forever. Pesce and Rob Tercek discuss the future of jobs for humans working alongside AI agents, and what happens when an  AI with compounding capability begins to set its own goals. Topics:  relative super intelligence versus AGI; The Bitter Lesson and what remains durable work for humans; private insurance markets as the mechanism for pricing AI risk, why governments will evade that measurement, and the dissolving boundaries that used to define corporations.

This week on The Futurists we are joined by David Wood from the London Futurists, Rohit Telwar CEO of Fast Future, Andrew Grill the Actionable Futurist, and Dr. Julia Michelin, CEO/Founder and author of The Future of Dentistry. It’s an all star cast as we delve into the forecasts for tomorrow with the impact of AI and longevity treatments being a key focus. We discuss collaborative intelligence, gene therapy, nanobots and AGI. It’s a great discussion in the heart of London.