Futures Intelligence: From Anticipating the Future to Co-Creating It

Over the past few decades, our ability to understand the future has improved dramatically. Today, we have access to megatrends, scenario planning, horizon scanning, and increasingly sophisticated forms of analysis that help us anticipate what may lie ahead.

A recent whitepaper on Futures Intelligence published by Futures Platform captures this development well. It describes how organisations are becoming better at analysing change, exploring alternative futures, and making decisions under uncertainty.

This is important progress. But as I read it, I found myself returning to a question that has followed me for three decades:

Are we passive observers of the future—or active participants in shaping it?

A Longstanding Curiosity About the Future

My own journey into this field did not start with strategy frameworks or foresight tools.

It started during my university years, when I attended a seminar on demographic change. The topic—an ageing population—may have sounded dry, but the speaker invited us into a future world that felt both unfamiliar and inevitable. What struck me most was not the data itself, but the realisation that these larger forces were already unfolding—quietly shaping the world we were about to step into.

Looking back, that moment sparked something.

It made me, as a 20-year-old, realise that we are part of larger forces that shape our world, and that we can know about the future far ahead of what I thought was possible at the time. It also helped me realise that businesses are embedded in a broader context shaped by forces far beyond industry-level competition—forces that traditional tools like Porter’s Five Forces only partially capture.

In an article I later wrote for INSEAD Knowledge (in 2015), I described this as the need for organisations to engage in “futuring”—a systematic process of thinking about and preparing for the future. I also pointed to the importance of megatrends as long-term forces shaping markets, societies, and human behaviour. At that time, I wanted to share a simple insight: it is easier to ride the wave than to go against it. I, however, still saw it as something “outside of us”, happening in an outside context.

The Rise of Futures Intelligence

The Futures Intelligence whitepaper by Futures Platform seems to build on the same mental model. The future is mainly something available for study and reflection, happening outside of us.

It does, however, highlight an important challenge that many organisations face today: not a lack of insight, but a lack of integration. Insights are generated across functions—strategy, innovation, risk, market intelligence—but often remain fragmented. They inform discussions, but do not consistently translate into direction.

This resonates strongly with what I have seen in practice. We live in a time where insight accumulates faster than it can be meaningfully interpreted. Reports are read. Trends are acknowledged. Scenarios are explored. But when decisions need to be made, clarity often remains elusive. Futures Intelligence proposes to bridge this gap by strengthening sense-making—by bringing different perspectives together into a coherent, decision-relevant understanding.

This is both useful and necessary. And yet, it leaves something important unspoken.

The Hidden Assumption

Much of the futures and foresight field—including Futures Intelligence—seems to rest on an implicit assumption: that the future is something that unfolds independently of us—and that our task is to understand and respond to it.

In this view, we analyse trends, explore scenarios, and prepare for different possible outcomes. We become better at navigating uncertainty. But we remain, in essence, reactive.

What if the Future Is Not Only Something That Happens to Us…

In my latest book, Better Business Better Future (2022), I cited Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, who in their book The Future We Choose (2020) wrote: “The future is unwritten. It will be shaped by who we choose to be now.”

This is not just a reflection. It is a call to action. Because businesses—and business leaders—are not neutral actors.

Through the decisions we make—what we invest in, what we prioritise, what we build, what we scale—we actively influence:

• markets
• ecosystems
• technologies
• consumer behaviour
• and societal trajectories

We do not simply respond to megatrends. We help co-create them.

Already in my earlier work, I have argued that organisations need to not only adapt to megatrends, but also discover relevant opportunities to get actively engaged in ongoing change—and that everyone has a role to play in co-creating the best possible future. This perspective feels even more relevant today. And it also invites us to reconsider something fundamental: what if the future is not only something we analyse and prepare for—but something we are already participating in bringing into existence?

From Adaptation to Co-Creation

What we are witnessing is a shift. From an adaptive stance: What is happening, and how do we respond? To a generative stance: What is emerging, and how do we consciously participate in shaping it?

This does not mean that we control the future. We do not. The future emerges through the interaction between structural forces—technological, ecological, societal, human agency—and more. But within that unfolding, we have influence. And with influence comes responsibility.

Being Pulled by the Future That Wants to Emerge

This is where the work of Otto Scharmer at MIT and the Presencing Institute adds an important dimension.

Rather than seeing the future as something to be predicted, Scharmer invites us into a different relationship with it—one where we learn to sense and connect with what he calls “the future that wants to emerge.”

In this view, leadership is not only about analysing trends and reacting to change. It is about developing the capacity to:

• listen deeply to emerging possibilities
• let go of outdated assumptions and identities
• and act from a place of presence, where new futures can begin to take shape

He suggests that, at times, we are not only pushing change forward—we are also being pulled by emerging futures. Futures that are not yet fully visible, but can be sensed through attention, dialogue, and a deeper connection to the systems we are part of.

Many leaders recognise this, even if they don’t always have the language for it. A sense that something is shifting. That the old ways no longer hold. That new possibilities are beginning to form—before they are fully understood.

Futures Intelligence Revisited

Seen through this lens, Futures Intelligence becomes something more than a capability for interpreting change. It becomes a foundation for intentional participation.

When we understand megatrends, explore uncertainties, detect emerging signals, and imagine alternative futures, we are not only better equipped to respond. We are better equipped to choose. Not just what we believe will happen. But what we want to be part of shaping.

From Insight to Intention

And this is where something essential needs to be added. Between insight and decision, there is not only a need for better sense-making. There is a need for intentionality.

• What future do we want to contribute to?
• What do we stand for over time?
• What are we willing to prioritise—even under pressure?

Without this, even the best insights remain underutilised. With it, insight becomes direction—and direction becomes impact.

Not Victims of Circumstance – but Co-Creators of the Future

It is easy, in times of complexity and uncertainty, to feel that the future is something beyond our control. That we are carried by forces too large to influence. But this is only partly true. We are absolutely not fully in control. But we are not powerless either. We are participants. And as participants, we are not victims of circumstance. Instead, we are co-creators of what unfolds. With conscious intention, that becomes much more interesting.

A Final Reflection

So the question is not whether we need better futures intelligence. We do. But we also need to ask… are we using that intelligence to adapt to the future… or to consciously participate in shaping it?

Because in the end, the future will not only be determined by what we see. It will also be shaped by how we choose to show up—and what we choose to create.

A reflection for you

• What megatrends are shaping your business and business ecosystem today?
• And how is your organisation intentionally co-creating what comes next – beyond your immediate business?

In my next blog post, I will expand on the insightful quote that I started with: “The future is unwritten. It will be shaped by who we choose to be now.” Hope to see you again soon!

Elisabet Lagerstedt

Elisabet Lagerstedt is the founder and director of Future Navigators. As a trusted advisor, consultant, and Executive Coach, she helps business leaders navigate beyond business as usual to build Better Business and co-create a better future - through insight, strategy, innovation, and transformation. Elisabet is also the author of Better Business, Better Future (2022) and Navigera in i Framtiden (2018).