Futurist Amy Webb: Trends are not enough

What It Covers

Futurist Amy Webb explains why she ended her nearly 20-year trend report at South by Southwest, replacing it with a convergence-based framework. She argues that tracking individual trends is insufficient — leaders must identify where multiple forces collide to create net-new market realities, using examples from post-search internet to programmable biology.

Key Questions Answered

• •Convergence vs. Trend: A convergence occurs when multiple trends collide with external forces — geopolitics, economics, regulation — producing something net-new that no single trend could generate alone. Location-based apps illustrate this: leaders fixated on badge mechanics missed the real convergence of mobile, social, and location infrastructure. Identify the structural shift, not the surface feature.
• •Post-Search Internet: Google's dominance is eroding as a convergence of AI assistants, generative tools, and shifting user behavior reshapes information retrieval. Webb's 80-year-old father-in-law abandoned Google on a Pixel phone in favor of ChatGPT. Leaders in media, advertising, and search-dependent businesses should audit how their customer acquisition models depend on search traffic.
• •Programmable Biology: Generative biology — the ability to read, write, and edit biological systems using AI — converges with agriculture, construction, energy, and medicine. This goes beyond drug development: materials, food supply chains, and climate solutions become redesignable. Leaders in physical industries should monitor synthetic biology developments as a structural disruption to their supply chains within a decade.
• •Corporate Panopticon: A decentralized surveillance convergence already exists in Western markets — not government-built like China's social credit system, but assembled from millions of corporate sensors and data systems. Consumers and employees are continuously monitored without understanding what decisions are being made from that data or what they surrender in exchange for convenience.
• •Schibsted Model: Norwegian media company Schibsted survived the internet's destruction of print advertising by anticipating the convergence of media, technology, and commerce in the 1990s. While competitors waited, Schibsted built and deployed a digital ad system first. Leaders should ask three questions: Where is the world going? Where will value be created? How do we build before competitors?