“In a world defined by complexity and radical uncertainty, foresight is no longer a luxury but a core duty of governance. Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we explore, model and engage with the future. Skelton and Lundblad offer a timely and practical guide to these new tools, showing how AI can make the future more intelligible, usable and actionable. This book combines conceptual clarity with concrete advice and deserves the attention of anyone serious about governing with tomorrow in mind.”
——Yannis Mastrogeorgiou, special secretary of strategic foresight, Presidency of the Greek government.

“Nicklas Berild Lundblad and David Skelton advocate a ‘future habit’, and that is exactly what politics must develop now if we want to save our democracies and our prosperity. It’s about the habit of thinking ahead to the future – before it hits us. It’s about radically different political thinking and working. Politics should prepare for the future, not chase after it.”
——Nadine Schön, co-author of New State, member of the German Parliament 2009–2025 and Deputy Chairwoman of CDU Bundestag Parliamentary Group 2014–2025

★Recommended by Scott Beaumont, former president of Google Asia Pacific; Matt Brittin, former president of Google EMEA; and Yannis Mastrogeorgiou, special secretary of strategic foresight at the Presidency of the Greek government.
★The two authors—technology policy expert Nicklas Berild Lundblad and strategic advisor David Skelton—bring uniquely hands-on backgrounds: Niklas has served as Global Policy Lead at DeepMind, Vice President of Public Policy at Stripe, and a Google executive; David successfully embedded foresight and scenario analysis techniques into Google’s public policy function.
★This book creatively integrates artificial intelligence technologies and teaches readers a repeatable process: anticipate → adapt → shape the emerging reality. The core idea is to transform “thinking about the future” from an occasional stroke of inspiration into a disciplined, transferable daily habit.
★In an extraordinary era of technological explosion, political turbulence, and social upheaval, this book offers a more generous intellectual framework, encouraging readers to shift from reactive responses to active shaping, turning long-term thinking into concrete action, and conveying the core message: “The future is not something we predict, but something we practice.”

We are living through a time of extraordinary technological advance, political turmoil and social upheaval. How can business leaders navigate these waves of disruption and uncertainty? How can citizens and politicians learn how to get ahead of perpetual change? By adopting The Future Habit and building it into their way of thinking, operating and seeing the world.

In fostering the Future Habit, business leaders can develop the muscle memory to deal confidently with the future and give themselves a competitive advantage over those stuck in a status quo mindset.

The Future Habit is a practical and provocative guide for building the one capability every organisation, team and leader needs: a disciplined habit of working with the future. Drawing on cognitive science, applied foresight and decades of strategic experience, the book introduces an actionable framework for developing 'the future edge' – a repeatable process of anticipating, adapting to and shaping emerging realities.

Unlike most books that treat foresight as trendspotting or speculative fiction, The Future Habit insists on one thing: the future is not something we predict; it's something we practice. It offers a methodical approach to working with the future in real-world contexts – through scenario work, predictions, pre-mortems, narrative exploration and the integration of AI.

The authors have spent years embedding foresight in companies at the forefront of the tech revolution and use this experience to ensure that The Future Habit is a practical book that will make a positive difference to all readers who follow its lessons.

Nicklas Berild Lundblad is a technology policy expert, researcher and strategist with over twenty years of leadership experience at the intersection of law, informatics and public policy. In these roles he has been a trusted adviser to some of the most senior executives in AI and technology. He has served as Head of Global Policy at DeepMind and VP of Public Policy at Stripe and held senior roles at Google. He holds a PhD in Informatics, an LLM in ICT Law and a BA in Philosophy. This is his second major book.

David Skelton is a writer, strategic adviser and former technology executive with a background in policy, regulation and strategy. He has built foresight teams, shaped regulatory frameworks in highly complex industries and advised senior leaders on long-range planning. He has written two widely praised books outlining the factors that have caused dramatic change in British politics and society. The New Statesman described him as ‘one of our… most prescient social and political writers’.