During and after the Covid-19 pandemic, everyone started talking about the new normal. Researchers, the media and the corporate world stated that the ‘new normal’ was the new norm. It meant masks, social distancing, remote working, changes in social behaviour and digitalisation.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a significant, frightening event that brought about extraordinary worldwide transformations. The Covid-19 pandemic introduced unparalleled transformation early on and affected all facets of human existence. The ‘new normal’ included dependence on digital technology, substantial changes to global supply chains and shifts in perceptions of work, life, health and wellbeing.
By 2024, scholars and commentators began to observe that the world was becoming more unstable and less predictable. A world that is becoming permanently unstable could no longer be described by the term ‘new normal’, which referred to a single new event
A new paradigm of ‘no normal’ slowly emerged due to frequent shocks and persistent disruptions. The world is no longer going through a single, large-scale upheaval; instead, the global economy is facing a complex set of structural shifts that go beyond growth models and traditional policy instruments.
Earlier growth was driven by globalisation and predictability, but the ‘no normal’ global landscape is now shaped by an intricate combination of artificial intelligence, frontier technologies and geopolitical factors that have reshaped global demand and investment patterns.
Despite economic wealth, the world will experience an increase in global debt. Climate change, climate pressures and climate science continue to impact people, planet and profit. The demographic shifts pose major challenges and opportunities for economies, with some countries facing an aging population and others a growing youth population. This will further exacerbate the existing income and wealth inequalities across the global economy.
Most of the present literature perceives AI as a productivity tool and job displacer, geopolitics as a power game and debt as a macro constraint, but in reality, the intersection of these forces will create few actors who can actually afford to subsidise AI infrastructure through state spending, cheap credit, tax breaks and loose debt constraints; this in turn would lock in geopolitical influences for decades.
Another intersection is a world where climate shocks, such as droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas, will increase climate migration both within countries and across borders. Digital borders govern movement based on AI-driven risk scores, migrant “desirability” rankings and climate-credit passports. By 2035, the ability to move, study, work, or escape climate-damaged regions could depend less on your paper passport and more on opaque data profiles that combine health, education, carbon footprint and financial history.
By 2035, many heavily indebted countries may not be able to afford their own large scale AI and data systems, so they will have to rent foreign platforms that run everything from digital IDs to credit scoring and visa processing and access to jobs, finance, or migration will be mediated by AI systems that are educated, owned and governed by a few fiscal and technological superpowers.
In the new global paradigm, ‘no normal’, comprehending the future as a single outcome is inconsequential; the context demands the ability to read between the intersections of various forces.
Artificial intelligence and frontier technologies do not act in isolation; they accelerate geopolitical competition and surveillance over data, standards and governance. The geopolitical fragmentation and ensuing wars are not only redirecting trade routes but also reorienting international trade and redefining global power dynamics. The demographic shifts of young and aging populations will begin to alter production, consumption, savings and migration patterns.
We must develop an integrated lens that continually considers how technology, geopolitics, demography, climate and finance interact in a given decision to navigate and make sense of this period of upheaval.
The challenge for academics, leaders and citizens is to become learners of interconnection, mapping feedback loops, stress-testing presumptions and maintaining intellectual agility as we move, rather than looking for stability towards 2035 and beyond.
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