The Future of AI-Driven Strategic Foresight: Insights from Experts
Our team of futurists took the stage as guest speakers at a Foresight Europe Network event, where the foresight community gathered to explore the future of strategic foresight in an increasingly AI-driven world. Here are the highlights.
FUTURE PROOF – BLOG BY FUTURES PLATFORM
What happens when artificial intelligence becomes a collaborator in exploring the future? Can it make strategic foresight more adaptive and impactful, helping decision-makers navigate an increasingly uncertain world? These were the central questions during the demo hour session hosted by the Foresight Europe Network (FEN) on October 31, 2024.
The event spotlighted Futures Platform’s AI Futurist, a generative AI chatbot purpose-built for strategic foresight. Through hands-on demonstrations and lively discussions, participants collectively explored how AI could enhance foresight methodologies and decision-making over the next decade.
Key Disruptors in AI-Driven Foresight
During the session, our team of futurists presented a foresight radar, developed in collaboration with AI Futurist, to explore the evolving landscape of AI-driven foresight.
The foresight radar on the future of AI-driven strategic foresight and voting results from the session
Participants engaged in a collaborative exercise, voting on and discussing the most critical forces shaping the future of AI in foresight by 2034. The results revealed a shared vision of both challenges and opportunities. Here are the key takeaways:
1. The Crisis of Trust: Safeguarding Foresight in the Era of Misinformation
If strategic foresight is about bringing clarity to uncertainty, AI introduces a potential paradox: the very tools that help us process complex information could also undermine trust.
During the session, participants overwhelmingly highlighted the growing risk of AI-generated misinformation, bias, and data poisoning as the top disruptors. As AI systems churn out ever-larger volumes of content, the ability to discern reliable insights from unreliable noise becomes critical.
Quantum computing, one of the session’s most-voted disruptors, exemplifies this tension. Its ability to process massive datasets at unprecedented speeds offers immense potential for entirely new applications in the field. Yet, the sheer scale of quantum-derived insights could also overwhelm foresight frameworks, compounding the issue of trust.
The results reflect a growing recognition that trust is foundational to the discipline of strategic foresight. Without transparency and reliability, foresight tools risk undermining the very decisions they aim to support.
Takeaway: Building trust in AI-driven foresight will require transparent methodologies, rigorous validation processes, and tools specifically designed to ensure the reliability and quality of AI tools’ inputs.
2. AI as a Creative Collaborator and Partner
AI’s ability to augment creative and research processes emerged as another key disruptor. Voting results revealed a growing belief that AI will transition from a supporting tool to a genuine partner in decision-making, with future trends such as AI co-workers and sovereign AI systems identified as key disruptors.
However, the consensus was clear: Humans remain irreplaceable in foresight work. As ‘sensemakers’ and ‘future navigators’, foresight practitioners bring essential skills that AI lacks, such as interpreting ambiguity, weighing ethical and cultural considerations, and imagining futures unbound by historical data.
Participants also raised concerns about the risk of AI narrowing foresight’s scope. Left unchecked, AI might produce only the most predictable futures, reducing foresight work to an echo chamber of what’s already within sight. To be a true partner, AI tools must go beyond mere prediction. They must be designed to challenge assumptions and empower practitioners to explore the improbable and unconventional.
Takeaway: AI excels at processing data, but it lacks the contextual and emotional insights necessary for interpreting uncertainty. Humans will continue to provide critical thinking, creativity, and emotional intelligence—skills essential for making future-focused decisions in nuanced and ethically grounded ways.
3. Global Challenges Driving Demand for Strategic Foresight
Participants identified climate change, resource conflicts, and leadership crises as the most pressing global challenges driving the need for foresight. These issues highlight a growing demand for insights that address long-term, systemic risks.
AI has a pivotal role to play here. From mapping the impacts of resource scarcity to modelling global climate scenarios, AI tools can help organisations and governments craft adaptive strategies for a turbulent future. However, participants emphasised that AI-driven foresight must remain collaborative and inclusive to ensure diverse voices and perspectives are incorporated into decision-making processes.
There was also optimism about AI’s potential to democratise foresight. As a teaching tool, AI can help newcomers learn foundational concepts and apply foresight skills in their fields, making the discipline more accessible at a time when it’s needed most. Participants also saw AI as a "mirror," capable of reflecting on foresight practices to refine methodologies and drive innovation.
Takeaway: AI can supercharge strategic foresight efforts to address global challenges, but success depends on inclusivity, accessibility, and collaboration.
Towards the Future of AI-Driven Strategic Foresight
Based on the session results and discussion, it became clear that AI holds immense potential to transform the field of strategic foresight—potential that is still not fully understood. The future lies in a balanced approach that combines AI’s analytical power with human intuition, creativity, and ethical judgment.
Tools like AI Futurist represent the beginning of this journey. By fostering collaboration within the foresight field and across disciplines, we can work together to ensure AI-driven foresight lives up to its promise: empowering decision-makers to build a more inclusive, sustainable, and prepared world.
Curious to dive deeper into these insights?
Watch the full session to see a live demo of Futures Platform’s AI Futurist and gain valuable perspectives from the foresight community on the future of AI and strategic foresight.
To stay ahead, organisations must widen their lens, exploring not just their own industry but what’s happening on the edges.