More Change in 36 Months Than the Last 30 Years: What AI's Most Accurate Futurist Says Is Coming
by Sandy Waggett
6 min reading time
A scientist with an 86% prediction accuracy rate says we will see more change in the next 36 months than the last 30 years combined. AGI — AI that can outperform humans in every field — arrives by 2029. The businesses that build AI systems now will have the bandwidth of a team of 20 while paying for a team of 5. Here are the five questions every business owner should be asking right now.
When I was speaking in Salt Lake City recently, someone in the audience asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks:"Where do you see the future of AI actually going?"
My answer was simple:I think we will stop calling it AI. It will just become our default operating system.
We do not say "I am going to use the internet now." We just live on it. AI is heading to the exact same place — except the timeline is measured in months, not decades.
Then I watched one of the most important interviews I have seen in years, featuring one of the world's most credible futurists, and thought: he said it better than I ever could.
The predictions are specific, they are backed by data, and they have direct implications for every business owner reading this. Let me break down the biggest takeaways — and the five questions you should be sitting with right now.
The Most Accurate Futurist Alive Just Told Us What Is Coming
The futurist in question has an86% accuracy rate on his predictions over the last 30 years. He predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of the internet, and that a computer would beat a human at chess by 1998. He is not a hype guy. He is a scientist with receipts.
His core thesis: human progress does not move in a straight line. It moves exponentially. And we are at the point on the curve where things that looked impossible last year become normal next year.
Prediction 1: AGI Arrives by 2029
Artificial General Intelligence — AGI — is the point where AI can do the best work ineveryfield. Not just write emails or summarize documents. We are talking about diagnosing rare diseases better than the world's top specialists. Writing code at a senior engineer level. Designing legal strategy. Running financial models. All of it, at a level that surpasses the best human practitioners.
A Stanford panel of AI experts recently put this milestone at 100 years away. The futurist says 2029. That is not a minor disagreement. That is a completely different reality. And given his track record, the 100-year estimate looks dangerously optimistic for anyone who is not preparing.
Prediction 2: AI Will Not Replace You — But Someone Using AI Will
This is the prediction most people misread. The future is not AI versus humans. It is AI-powered humans versus everyone else.
The businesses that deploy AI agents to handle their intake, follow-up sequences, content creation, review requests, and customer service will have the bandwidth of a team of 20 while paying for a team of 5. That gap is already opening. By 2027, it will be a canyon.
The futurist's view is that AI will handle every routine, administrative, and repetitive task — freeing humans to do only the work that requires creativity, judgment, and genuine human relationships. The question is not whether this happens. The question is whether you are on the right side of it when it does.
Prediction 3: The Next 36 Months Will Create More Change Than the Last 30 Years Combined
This is the one that most people cannot fully absorb, because human brains are wired to think linearly. We expect next year to look roughly like this year. Exponential growth does not work that way. It looks slow, then it looks impossible, then it is already done.
We are at the "looks impossible" stage right now. The businesses that act in the next 12 to 24 months will be the ones that look back and say they caught the wave. The ones that wait will spend years trying to catch up to competitors who had a head start.
The 5 Questions Every Business Owner Should Be Asking Right Now
Understanding where AI is going is one thing. Knowing what to do about it in your actual business is another. Here are the five questions I think every business owner should be sitting with this week.
1. Which tasks in my business could an AI agent handle by the end of this year?
Start with a simple audit. Think about every repetitive, rule-based task that happens in your business: intake forms, appointment reminders, follow-up email sequences, social media scheduling, review requests, FAQ responses, lead qualification. If it follows a pattern and does not require genuine human judgment in the moment, it belongs on this list. Most business owners are shocked by how long their list gets.
2. If AI can do the best work in every field by 2029, what is my actual competitive advantage?
This is the uncomfortable one. If AI can write better, analyze better, and execute faster than most humans, what do you bring that it cannot replicate? The honest answer is relationships, trust, lived experience, and judgment built over years. The question is whether you are actively building those things — or whether your business is mostly built on tasks that are about to be automated.
3. Am I building a business that multiplies with AI, or one that competes against it?
There is a meaningful difference between a business that uses AI as a force multiplier — deploying it to handle the mundane so humans can focus on the strategic — and a business that is trying to do everything manually and hoping the technology slows down. One of those strategies has a future. The other does not.
4. Does my brand have enough of a digital footprint for AI to know who I am and recommend me?
We have covered this in previous posts: AI search engines are replacing traditional Google results, and they recommend businesses based on attributes, brand authority, and consistent digital presence — not just keyword rankings. If AI cannot find consistent, credible, attribute-rich information about your business across the web, it will not recommend you. This is not a future problem. It is a right-now problem.
5. Who in my world is actually helping me navigate this — or am I figuring it out alone?
This is the one most people skip. They read articles, watch videos, and feel informed. But feeling informed and actually building the systems are two very different things. The businesses that will win the next five years will not be the ones who understood AI the best. They will be the ones who built systems around it the fastest — usually with the help of people who are already doing it.
What to Do Next
If this landed for you, the next step is not to read more articles. It is to start building. Here is where to start:
Watch the full interviewreferenced throughout this post. It is one of the most important pieces of content available right now for business owners who want to understand where this is all heading.Watch it here.
Audit your business for AI-ready tasks.Spend 30 minutes this week writing down every repetitive task in your business. That list is your starting point for building your first AI agent.
Join the AI Accelerator Mastermind.Once a month, a small group of business owners and I work together to actually build and deploy AI agents into our businesses. We're not talking theory - we're building real systems that go to work. Performance Program clients join free. Everyone else is by application, capped at 10 people. The sessions are the 4th Wednesday of each month.
The curve is coming. The only question is whether you are ready for it.
It's free of charge but insanely valuable. We'll use the time the way you want to. Website or marketing review, AI integration ideas, you name it. Let's start a conversation - we're here to help you be successful online!
