2025 - Amplifying and Taking Action

Holidays possess an ineffable magic. I love that moment when I can sense the transition from everyday conversations to long-format, deeper and more intimate discussions with friends and family. These conversations often act as a catalyst for reflection, where the hustle of everyday life gives way to meandering dialogues, profound in their topics and scope.

This year, it was not unsurprising that holiday conversations were tinged with an undercurrent of apprehension, overshadowed by a shared narrative of unease, and a universal sense of uncertainty. 2024 had thrown a lot at us, and by year-end, the sense of exhaustion was evident everywhere. Even my most optimistic friends shared their feelings of being thrown around by constant change and a sense they were bobbing along in a fast-flowing river filled with unseen obstacles.

Geopolitical tumoil, climate instability, social polarisation, and the burgeoning dominance of artificial intelligence emerged as recurring themes. We also spoke of food and water security, the fragility of employment and housing, and even the unsettling transformations of once-revered figures like Elon, whose name now carries the weight of existential dread in our collective consciousness.

In my youth, singular names like ‘Elon’ were solely in the domain of musicians like Prince, Madonna, and Sting. These cultural icons influenced and shaped societal discourse through art and music, not power or money. Now, names such as Trump, Bezos, Altman and Zuck wield influence with far graver implications, of power, control and growth at any cost.?

These tech giants are no longer retail brands or software providers who give us the tools to carry out our everyday tasks. These are companies with market caps of over a trillion-dollar (greater than the GDP of many countries) and pay less tax than many homegrown businesses that play by the rules of honest business.?

My own behaviours and influence of technology products is evident in many ways, including Apple who has me in an unbreakable perpetual buying loop or my multiple subscriptions to software I hardly use.?Or how software providers draw me back through persuasive marketing tactics and convey the sense I am somehow missing out.

My conversations over the holidays varied little by the issues of most concern. Common to all interactions was the influence of the tech giants on consumerism, economics, the environment and the future of work and job security.

One particular area of focus was on how the tech giants have everything to gain and nothing to lose in the race of AI. The winner-take-all all has been seen many times before in the dominance of entire business verticals where a single brand can own an entire ecosystem and control parts of the global economy. While 2025 and beyond will undoubtedly see the next level of data grabbing to feed data-hungry large language models (LLMs) along with new ways for tech monopolies to buy, shape and build influence, the long-standing players will certainly diversify to include new entrants, including xAI, Nvidia, OpenAI, SpaceX, Temu, Waymo, and whichever energy company manages to crack the nuclear fusion solution at scale first.

Once, there was a time when governments could provide the guardrails against unbridled corporate power or influence, but my holiday conversations now suggest that this view is no longer firmly held. The realities of who is now wagging the tail focused our conversations on how big money now moves far more than the stockmarket.

So, over the past few weeks, as we all said goodbye to the first quarter of the 21st Century, I am conscious of how little we know about the road ahead. Yet amidst these weighty reflections, a glimmer of hope emerged. The very act of voicing our fears is a powerful reminder that we are not alone in our uncertainties. There is power in shared vulnerability and in acknowledging our collective stakes in the future. This realisation kindles the possibility of unity, a sense that even in the face of immense challenges, we can find strength in each other.

I am confident the conversations I have had over the recent weeks are no different than many being held by others in cities and towns around the world. In many ways, our collective caution about the future is a uniting force that creates a sense of togetherness and a movement of change.

I am choosing to step into 2025 through a commitment to embracing hope, not as na?ve optimist but in a deliberate act of courage. The year ahead invites us to transform our anxieties into action, to engage in the hard conversations that matter and to amplify voices that might otherwise go unheard. It is a call to cultivate curiosity, to seek understanding over division, and to imagine a world where the weight of our shared concerns is met with the buoyancy of collective resolve.

Let us dare to dream audaciously, to build bridges where there are chasms, and to find beauty in the very act of striving. In the end, it is not the shadows of uncertainty that define us but the light we choose to carry forward.