Tracey Follows

One of Forbes Top 50 Female Futurists

Topics:

AI, Cyber & Quantum Featured

Expertise:

AI, Digital Futures & Identity

“Regarding AI – we are overestimating the short term and underestimating the long term, It’s a long-term trend line where everything in this decade to do with AI will really be about communications and language.”

Tracey Follows is a globally recognized futurist, named in the Global Gurus Top 30 Futurists for 2024 and listed in the Top 50 Female Futurists in Forbes. She is the founder and CEO of Futuremade, a strategic foresight consultancy working with brands like Virgin, Amazon, Google, and Coca-Cola to navigate the mega trends shaping tomorrow.

She is a Visiting Professor in Digital Futures & Identity at Staffordshire University and a regular guest lecturer at London Business School. She is an associate fellow of the World Academy of Art & Science, and writes a column on AI innovation in Forbes.

Tracey is a trusted commentator for media outlets like the BBC, Fortune and Financial Times as her work connects technological foresight with societal impact, helping organisations navigate uncertainty and seize opportunity.

A sought-after keynote speaker, Tracey has engaged audiences at the United Nations, FT’s Global Boardroom, Cannes Lions, and Fortune’s Brainstorm AI with her stage presence and actionable insights as she advises businesses and policymakers on the global trends transforming society and technology.

Her pioneering book The Future of You: Can Your Identity Survive 21st Century Technology? explores how emerging technologies are reshaping personal identity. Its themes are expanded in her award-winning podcast, which scooped Best Technology Show at the Independent Podcast Awards 2023.

Tracey has worked extensively with Big Tech including Meta, Amazon, Snapchat and Google – including with the Advanced Technology Group in MountainView, with Google Creative Labs, and presenting the Future of YouTube alongside Matt Brittin at AdWeek. She also did Future Visions with Richard Branson.

Highlights:

Global Recognition: Top 50 Female Futurists in Forbes, Global Gurus: World’s Top 30 Futurists 2024
CEO of Futuremade: Guiding global brands and governments on emerging trends
Award-Winning Communicator: Best Technology Podcast Award, captivating keynote speaker
Author of The Future of You: A groundbreaking exploration of technology and identity
Tracey is a high-impact speaker who truly does see trends in society & technology years before anyone else. She has spoken twice for FT events I’ve produced, most recently at the 2021 FT-TNW tech conference, where she delivered the closing keynote”.

In the future, how many identities will you have? How many do you want? Digital technology is causing us to think differently about who we are and who we could become, but with the right knowledge we can turn this incredible capacity to our advantage. ‘Who am I?’ is one of the most fundamental questions of all. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to answer as technology enables us to negotiate and create many different versions of ourselves. In our digital, data-driven world, Facebook gets a say in verifying who we are, science can alter our biology, and advances in AI are revolutionizing not only how we interact online but with the physical world around us. Understanding and defining ourselves is becoming confusing but, as this fascinating book argues, it is possible to embrace this new era of transformation while preserving our autonomy. In The Future of You, Professional futurist Tracey Follows shows how our personal freedoms and potential will be transformed over the coming decades. From health passports, bio-hacking and relationships with machines to mind clones, digital voting and virtual legacies beyond the grave, we need to understand these vital issues today so that we might design the future of our identity tomorrow.

‘This fascinating book explores the way that emerging technologies such as AI might affect the nature of personal identity and personhood. It paints an intriguing, thought-provoking, and occasionally disturbing picture.’
Michael Wooldridge, author of The Road to Conscious