At a global level, half of the population are prioritizing job stability and retirement more than marriage or getting a college degree. Another 48 percent are making plans for their lives less than 12 months ahead, or don’t plan at all.
Accenture recently released its 17th annual Life Trends report.
This shift in mindset is brought on in part by the rapid advance of technology. However, this is putting society in flux and creating a level of uncertainty and fragility for businesses as people are now deconstructing everything in their lives, as they try to figure out their place in the world, stated the report.
“We’re entering a decade of deconstruction spurred on by changing consumer values, AI’s explosive growth and the relentless speed of change,” said Mark Curtis, global sustainability lead for Accenture Song. “This is causing business leaders to ask, ‘where do we begin?’ in the face of these challenges. It starts with a clarion call for excellence and giving the pursuits of human ingenuity and creativity space to flourish.”
These insights helped Accenture Song identify five global macro-cultural trends forecasted to revolutionize how businesses and leaders remain relevant to their customers while also accelerating growth.
1.The Customer is Always Right, Right?: For years, the correlation between customer experience and revenue growth inspired organizations to hold the customer at the center of every decision. Now, economic considerations are forcing cuts at enterprises, driving friction between customers and brands across channels—in the form of price increases, reduced quality, an avalanche of subscriptions and poor customer service. Nearly half of customers feel less valued when facing difficulty reaching or talking to unsupportive customer service.
Quality or size reductions (‘shrinkflation’), declines in service (‘skimpflation’), customer service shortcomings and unwelcome subscriptions are adding up to a sense that brands are quietly reversing their promises. At the centre of this trend is a critical perception problem: where companies see actions for survival, some customers see greed.
2.The Great Interface Shift: With 77 percent of people familiar with conversational AI, Generative AI is upgrading people’s experience of the internet from transactional to personal. Large language models (LLMs) are being used to stage intelligent, two-way conversations, giving people solutions to “I want to” queries, rather than simply “I want a” requests.
Forty-two percent of consumers would be comfortable using conversational AI like ChatGPT for product recommendations, completing tasks at work (44 percent) and wellness and healthcare advice (33 percent).
3.Is Creative ‘Meh-diocrity’ Looming?: In entertainment, consumers are being fed a constant diet of film and franchise extensions. And broadly, 35 percent of respondents feel app designs are indistinguishable across brands, a sentiment that rises to nearly 40 percent among 18-24-year-olds.
This mediocrity challenge isn’t going to solve itself and might even get worse as generative AI becomes a bigger player in creative processes.
4.Error 429: Human request limit reached: Nearly a third of consumers say that technology has complicated their lives just as much as it has simplified it. Tech feels like something that happens to them rather than for them, demanding too much and often failing to make a positive impact on well-being.
Thirty-one percent say constant notifications control their use of personal tech; 27 percent say it’s algorithms, while another 27 percent say it’s the draw of the endless scroll. In response, consumers are tightening the reins on their tech use: a third are removing notifications, one in five are putting on screen time limits and a quarter are removing apps and devices altogether.
5.Decade of deconstruction: People are challenging long-standing ideas, and shaping new ways of thinking, acting and living. It feels like a decade of deconstruction is beginning, and the impact on systems and services will be far-reaching.
For example, 48 percent make plans for their lives less than 12 months ahead, or don’t plan at all. In the past three years, we’ve also seen a drop in the value placed on traditional milestones including marriage (from 30 percent to 21 percent), graduating from college (from 30 percent to 24 percent) and moving out of the parental home (23 percent to 17 percent).
“It takes meticulous orchestration to play a meaningful and relevant role in customers’ lives,” said David Droga, chief executive officer, Accenture Song. “Consumers today are not linear, they are changing faster than businesses can, so keeping pace is a constant challenge. These trends are a window into the interplay between people, their behaviors and their overall attitudes toward the ever-changing world—be it business, technology or other societal shifts—helping our clients understand their customers’ motivations in ways that can catalyze growth.”