It’s impossible to predict the future. That reality has been reiterated time and again by planners wrestling with decisions about how to position their business for a successful future. Back in 2019, Jason M. Girzadas, CEO at Deloitte US, while stressing the impossibility of predicting the future, nevertheless noted, “Today’s leaders can help shape it by understanding the long trajectories that connect it to the past — trajectories we continue to ride."[1] More recently, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) analysts, Nikolaus Lang, Alan Iny, Ulrich Pidun, Melissa Christensen, Jeffrey Sprong, and Adam Job, echoed Girzadas’ sentiments They wrote, “It’s impossible to predict the future. But it is possible to identify what’s probable and to discount what’s highly unlikely.”[2]

For years, I’ve touted the benefits of scenario planning and “what-if” thinking. Scenario planning has been a long-time business staple. Journalist Anjli Raval explains, “For decades, scenario planning has helped organizations map out a range of futures based on variables including economic shifts, technological leaps and regulatory changes.”[2] She adds, “Scenario planning was never about predicting the future — it’s about training for it.” Scenario planning requires business leaders to ask some very difficult “what if?” questions. And, as Raval notes, “Asking ‘what if?’ has clear benefits.”

BCG’s Beyond Tomorrow Scenarios

Lang and his BCG colleagues have developed four plausible futures for business leaders to consider as they plan for the future. They raise the possibility that artificial intelligence and quantum computing could “create a future dramatically different from the present — one that is almost beyond imagination.” However, they believe the world will change more in line with historical norms. They explain, “Although economic leaps and technological breakthroughs are expected, the path to 2050 is likely to still be recognizable and not far beyond historical norms. For leaders, planning for these plausible futures offers a better use of resources and is where our four scenarios focus.” Each scenario emphasizes a different path driven primarily by an emerging powerful megatrend. Those scenarios are:

• Artificial Intelligence Abundance Scenario. In this scenario, the rise of AI technologies reshapes work and leisure and leads to globally enforced regulatory standards. The BCG analysts explain, “Labor productivity growth in high-income countries is at 5.7% — exceptional compared with the 2% of today and sufficient to support an aging population with an enlarged social safety net. Average working hours per year have fallen in this scenario from 2,100 to 1,600. This 25% drop is due to the automation of many tasks, enabling workers to reduce their working hours while still enjoying high quality of life. These relatively small changes result in a very different relationship between work and identity in this scenario. Ultimately, they transform the society we know today.”

• Battling Blocs Scenario. In this scenario, global cooperation is replaced by global competition as a driving factor. In this future, explain BCG analysts, “A tense stalemate exists between economically decoupled blocs, comprising major nations and others in their spheres of influence. In this scenario, governments’ average defense spending has increased substantially, from 2.4% today to 7%. Although significant, this is not far beyond Cold War spending, which peaked at 6.2%. In fact, individual countries have at times spent far more. In 1952, during the Korean War, US defense spending was at 12%.” This scenario clearly finds its roots in today’s geopolitical chaos.

• Climate Coalition Scenario. Although climate change is a decades-old trend, not an emerging one, past failures of governments and businesses to mitigate its effects drives this scenario. In this scenario, explain the BCG analysts, a series of extreme weather shocks prompt nations to form multilateral agreements on carbon standards, striking a new balance between resilience and economic growth. They write, “Although fossil fuels continue to be part of the energy mix in this scenario, technologies like carbon capture and storage reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The share of unabated fossil fuels has fallen from 81% today to 35%. Multilateral efforts to decarbonize the economy have succeeded in stabilizing global temperatures at 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels, compared with 1.3°C in the present. And while structural headwinds from an aging population and other factors remain, the focus on decarbonization and resilience is supporting slow but steady GDP growth of 2.5% per year on average.” Frankly, I don’t think this scenario goes far enough. The world is likely to blow through the posited 1.8°C temperature rise and stabilize at a higher temperature. Climate adaptation is likely to play as large a role in future decisions as efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is very likely that this scenario will combine with one or more elements from the other scenarios in any potential future.

• Digital Darwinism Scenario. This scenario is very different than the other three in that “governments and institutions are in retreat.” BCG analysts explain, “In their place, corporations dominate a low-regulation, rapidly warming world where the divide between rich and poor is high, and humans spend most of their work and leisure time in virtual reality platforms with AI companions. In this scenario, global GDP grows at 4% per year on average from 2025 to 2050 — resulting in a near tripling of GDP. But this prosperity is not shared evenly: the AI boom means that compute-rich regions extract rents and resources from weaker economies, while the richest 1% of the population hold nearly half of global wealth. That’s a rise from approximately one-third today, and a share not seen since the industrial societies of the early 1900s.” The underpinnings of this scenario can be seen in today’s K-shaped economy.

Other Scenario Drivers

Two other emerging trends probably deserve scenarios of their own. The first is the aging of today’s industrialized economies. Although the AI Abundance scenario touches on this trend, not all countries seem to be taking it seriously. Some politicians hope they can use economic incentives to spur an increase in their country’s birthrate. Journalist Rachel Wolfe reports, in America, that’s unlikely to work. She explains, “Americans aren’t just waiting longer to have kids and having fewer once they start — they’re less likely to have any at all. The shift means that childlessness may be emerging as the main driver of the country’s record-low birthrate.”[4] Journalists at The Economist observe, “The phenomenon is hardly unique to America. The populations of many other rich countries are growing even more slowly or shrinking. So are those of many developing countries. That of China, America’s biggest geopolitical rival, shrank in 2023 for the second year in a row. Its fertility rate has tumbled to just 1.15 children per woman. Russia’s population is smaller than it was in 1991. America’s demographic problems are much smaller than those of its peers. Yet there are reasons to worry that America will adapt to slow growth even less readily than other countries.”[5]

The other emerging trend deserving its own scenario is a north/south realignment of the world order. The south likely represents the future of world economic growth. The Battling Blocs scenario touches on this trend, but the realities of this trend deserve greater attention. Leslie Vinjamuri, President and CEO Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and Max Yoeli, a Consulting Fellow in the U.S. and the Americas Program at Chatham House, explain, “The markets and materials that these countries possess will only become more central to solving problems that the [current U.S. administration] expresses great interest in addressing, such as bolstering U.S. supply chains and securing critical minerals.”[6] As for the rest of the world, they explain, “The participation of the global South is increasingly crucial to tackling challenges … such as climate change and global health crises.” The north/south realignment is also important as the north ages. Most of the world’s population (about 85% of it) lives in the Global South.

While the Global North is growing old, the Global South remains young. Jason Hsu, founder and CIO at Rayliant Global Advisors, explains why this is important. He writes, “Famed French sociologist and philosopher Auguste Comte said that demography is destiny. Indeed, aging demographics is one of the most predictable macro challenges for humanity — the ultimate slow-motion train wreck. The world is getting older. … Over the next 20 years, aging developed markets will lean on emerging markets for their younger and more plentiful workforce, giving emerging markets newfound bargaining power.”[7]

Concluding Thoughts

None of these scenarios will develop in isolation or as described. Variables in each scenario will play a role in whatever future actually emerges. Getting the scenario correct isn’t the point. Planning would be a lot easier if the world were a more predictable place in which to conduct business. Unfortunately, the business environment is constantly changing and no single scenario can capture all of the nuances. That’s why Enterra Solutions® introduced the Enterra Dynamic Enterprise Resiliency System™ (EDERS™). The System was designed to enable enterprises to convert macroeconomic and geopolitical trends into a powerful competitive advantage. EDERS is built on Enterra’s Autonomous Decision Science Platform®, which enables organizations to autonomously analyze data, predict outcomes, and execute optimized decisions with high accuracy across complex business operations. It anticipates market shifts and recommends optimal actions and makes decisions with up to 90% accuracy, even in the most volatile economic and political environments. Enterra’s ADS Platform allows EDERS to process vast amounts of internal and external data, anticipating risk to an organization’s most critical assets, as well as those of its competitors. EDERS then systemically predicts and recommends the best actions for the organization to take to avoid or deflect risk, while exploiting market opportunity to win. Enterra® also offers Enterra Business WarGaming™, which includes Enterra Global Insights and Decision Superiority System™ (EGIDS™), which can help business leaders rapidly explore a multitude of options and scenarios.

As Lang and his BCG colleagues conclude, “Looking ahead to 2050 can seem like a distraction from near-term challenges. Although predicting the future is impossible, decisions made by leaders in the next 5 years will shape the next 25. Developing future-sensing capabilities and flexibility in the face of the wide range of possible futures is key for the next phase of strategic planning and for securing long-term competitive advantage.”

Footnotes

[1] Jason M. Girzadas, "3 Enduring Trends Inform Strategic Planning Efforts," The Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2019.

[2] Nikolaus Lang, Alan Iny, Ulrich Pidun, Melissa Christensen, Jeffrey Sprong, and Adam Job, “Beyond Tomorrow: Four Scenarios for the World of 2050,” Boston Consulting Group, 20 April 2026.

[3] Anjli Raval, “Scenario planning is getting a stress test,” Financial Times, 12 May 2025.

[4] Rachel Wolfe, “Why Americans Aren’t Having Babies,” The Wall Street Journal, 20 July 2024.

[5] Staff, “America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population,” The Economist, 18 April 2024.

[6] Leslie Vinjamuri and Max Yoeli, “America’s Last Chance With the Global South,” Foreign Affairs, 15 November 2024.

[7] Jason Hsu, “Demographic Shifts: How Aging Economies Impact Emerging Market Assets,” Rayliant Insights.