7 Bold AI Predictions for 2035

With the rapid AI storm taking over the world, I can't help but wonder: What world will our children live in? How can we prepare them for it?

These are some of the big questions that have been lingering in the back of my mind for the past 2 years while I've been in the thick of it, watching AI reshape our world from the inside.

I can hear it already—some may say it's overblown, that it's a bubble because we haven't seen very meaningful changes yet. Well, breathing it day and night for the past two years, I can confidently say that the world 10 years from now will be vastly different. The technological foundations of that new world are being shaped right now, brick by brick, and the end result will be a world we won't recognize.

And I'm not even talking about the classic challenges humanity is already facing: overconsumption, global warming, and the power struggles of the world's biggest nations.

Change is inevitable, and the changes upon us are systemic at a scale rarely seen before in history.

Drawing a line from here to there, we can imagine some likely trends and specific developments. However, it's impossible to grasp the full extent of these combined changes and figure out how we'll manage our lives with such an enormous amount of transformation coming at us all at once.

While I don't yet have all the answers on how to prepare our children for this new world, I do have some ideas about what we should expect. Let's explore those.

A World of AI Agents

As a prelude, let's explore how things will likely unfold on the technical side.

In two words: AI Agents.

These are autonomous AI systems leveraging generative AI models (i.e., ChatGPT-like), equipped with goals and abilities to take actions independently.

A simple example in customer service to illustrate it: An AI agent handling order cancellations. You provide the agent with the process to follow, the ability to load an order, and the ability to cancel it if allowed. Voilà—you have an AI agent. These simple AI agents are already being deployed at scale.

Now, fast forward. Imagine hundreds of these agents, improving over time rapidly and tackling more complex tasks every day. Then, picture larger, smarter agents managing these smaller, specialized AI agents…

The result? Intelligent, autonomous systems at scale that can complete tasks, decide their next moves independently, and potentially enhance their capabilities dynamically based on the task at hand. I'm not sure if this qualifies as AGI (Artificial general intelligence), but it's certainly approaching it.

At Yuma AI (YC W23) , we've been building an orchestration platform for AI agents dedicated to customer support over the past 18 months. Drawing from this experience and based on emerging trends, here are 7 bold predictions that I believe will unfold within the next decade.

1. Robots in Our Home

The sci-fi utopia is finally becoming reality. It's a trend clearly unfolding before our eyes. Building robot bodies is now becoming commoditized and will likely be mass-produced within a decade. The missing piece was putting a "logical mind" inside them, which is happening as we speak. Many companies—including Tesla with its Optimus, The Bot Company (see the last tweet from his founder about his version here), Figure, and Unitree, to name a few—are actively working on this. Tesla, Cruise, and Waymo have made fully self-driving cars a reality (just take a trip to San Francisco to see them on the road), and the same approach is now coming to everyday robots. Combined with a GPT-like model inside, you'll soon interact with these robots as naturally as you do with other humans.

Who will be doing your home chores in 10 years?

2. A Personal Tutor for Every Child

Throughout history, wealthy families have provided their children with personalized education through personal tutors. Soon, this privilege will extend to all children. They'll benefit from hyper-personalized curricula and programs throughout their educational journey, from birth to adulthood—and possibly beyond, as learning should be a lifelong pursuit.

Differentiation in education is crucial for children's success, and this approach will become the norm. Your child's AI tutor won't just write; it will speak, listen, and see, understanding everything your child produces—be it text, sound, or a physical creation. These tutors will know your child inside out: their strengths, weaknesses, and everything in between. They'll provide the perfect level of challenge to help your child succeed and grow. As these tutors stay current and maintain expert-level knowledge in every field, we can expect a significant boost in children's overall knowledge and skills within a decade.

As AI becomes more affordable and powerful, accessible from anywhere, it will act as a great equalizer, redistributing educational opportunities throughout society.

Will this transform our education system into a genuine meritocracy? And in this hyper-intelligent future, will our children still bother to converse with us "mere ignorants"?

3. Developers Will Become Obsolete

How ironic. Software engineers are putting themselves out of a job. In the short term, over the past year or so, the productivity of every engineer has increased tremendously and will continue to rapidly increase thanks to AI for the foreseeable future. Many companies have already boasted about these incredible productivity boosts, like Klarna.

Currently, a single engineer can accomplish more today than yesterday, accelerating the rapid pace of software change.

More productive software engineers = more software for the world.

Soon enough, however, we will have sufficiently advanced AI models and agents that "simple coders" won't be needed anymore. AI will be able to write infinitely better code at a much faster rate. Then, an AI will decide what to build and will direct other AI coder agents to do the work. AI can already iterate on design; they will soon review code and suggest changes, which will then be reviewed by other AI agents. Within a decade, the code iteration loop will close and humans won't be needed in it anymore—the pace of change will be too fast for us mere humans anyway.

The old saying "software is eating the world" will reach its zenith, and the velocity of change will continue to increase. You'll wish for software to exist before bed, and the next day it will be there, waiting for you, bug-free.

If software becomes instant and cheap, what software will you ask for before bed?

4. Brands Will Have a Single AI Voice

As a brand, the universe you build is unique, as is the relationship you cultivate with your customers. It must feel special at every touchpoint. Currently, managing this at scale is nearly impossible due to numerous moving pieces and information loss. That's about to change.

Brands will deploy a single AI-powered communication channel with their customers. This centralized system will be information-rich, enabling both push and pull interactions. It will offer hyper-personalized, 24/7 customer service with an exceptionally high degree of satisfaction.

This communication channel will be present at every possible touchpoint between a brand and its customers: ads, personalized videos, email, SMS, WhatsApp, voice, and more.

This level of qualitative interaction will become the norm, and customers will come to expect it in every interaction, whatever brand it might be.

Is the era of awfully awful conversations with dumb chatbots finally coming to an end? (At Yuma, we are saying yes, of course!)

5. A Personal Assistant for Everyone

Building on the tutor example, we should expect the average person to leverage far more personalized AI services at scale. One of the most obvious upcoming services will be the "personal assistant."

Top brands like Amazon are already offering their own, but we'll likely see these assistants adopted everywhere, across brands and industries. These AI-driven agents, as mentioned earlier, will handle queries like "Organize a trip to Bali for next June" or "File my taxes". Those requests might sound far-fetched right now but will likely be within reach a decade from now.

Who will own these AI agents? Will they be controlled by tech giants like Google, or will they become commoditized and ubiquitous?

While that remains to be seen, what are the first tasks that you would delegate to your AI personal assistant?

6. Company Employee Count Will Shrink

While I don't foresee a brutal change, a clear trend will emerge.

Productivity across all industries will increase sharply, mirroring recent developments for software engineers, designers, and writers. As individuals become capable of accomplishing much more and menial tasks are automated, companies will grow more efficient—achieving more with fewer people.

Declining headcounts, coupled with more efficient, AI-driven knowledge management, will accelerate this trend, simplifying company structures.

The personal productivity gains mentioned earlier will likely be adopted first in the workplace. Startups, more than ever, will drive this change, ready to compete against larger players. Companies with just 1-10 employees might rival large corporations even more frequently than they do today.

Where do you see AI emerging in your company right now? Do you think one of your coworkers will be an AI someday?

7. AI Instant Content: Text, Audio, and Video

AI models capable of creating photorealistic images, videos, and sounds are already here. Though the technology is in its infancy, it won't be long before it becomes mainstream, offering 100% personalized content on demand. Streaming platforms like Netflix will likely offer "one-prompt" generated content—imagine being the hero of your own story, but for every piece of media, text, movies and all. Of course, this tailor-made content will be even more addictive than what we have today.

One significant risk, beyond addiction, will be the quality of information in our digital sphere. The sheer volume of generated data and its high quality will make AI-generated content indistinguishable from reality, leaving the information space highly compromised and vulnerable. We've seen glimpses of this during past elections, but it seems we've only scratched the surface. This next level of content generation will constantly blur the line between truth and fiction.

What book have you always dreamed of reading? What epic fiction movie will your imagination come up with?

What do we make of all that?

This short list raises more questions than answers, unfortunately. Some of these predictions might even contradict each other. One thing is certain: we're witnessing a new industrial revolution on steroids, happening in the blink of an eye, during our lifetime. We're very much part of it. Of course, countless roles and jobs will be impacted, and 10 years isn't a long time to repurpose oneself.

There's absolutely no point in fighting this or trying to swim upstream. What I've described above is 100% happening—if not in 10 years, give it 20 or 30, but the path is set. We should embrace it because, even though some scenarios might seem dark, so many good things will also come out of it.

Of course, I'm worried in the face of this uncertainty. I question every day how to best prepare my children for this new world. What will be left for them to do? What kind of life or career will they live? What purpose will we have if many things are taken away from us? How can we prepare them for it?

Readers, do you have any insights or clues to share to help us prepare? Which of these predictions do you think is most likely, and why? Which one do you think is totally nuts? What should we be most concerned about?

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