Jeremy Gutsche, chief executive of trend intelligence platform Trend Hunter, believes humans are capable of more than we think — and that artificial intelligence can help multiply the things we’re best at.
“Today you can be an author, an artist, an actor, an influencer, a musician, a programmer, a scientist, a project manager, a film director, a game designer, a strategist, and you can be all of those things at the same time,” said Gutsche.
The rapidly evolving world of trends, research, risks and breakthroughs in AI super agents are at the forefront of Trend Hunter’s Future Festival World Summit in Toronto, which runs until Sept. 25.
Here are five takeaways from the first day of the event.
There’s no doubt AI is a disruptive technology, Gutsche said in his keynote speech on Tuesday, but humans have been here before.
Gutsche pointed to the bubonic plague in the 14th century, which reshaped Europe’s cultural and economic order and gave rise to social mobility and the pursuit of knowledge. In the hundreds of years that followed, art, geography, manufacturing, literature, science, business and architecture flourished.
“It was ‘polychaos,’ a time of rampant opportunity and change. It was like a veil being lifted from the eyes of mankind,” said Gutsche.
“Our work is about how chaos reshuffles the deck, changes the rules, switches who’s in the lead and creates opportunity. But, more importantly, our work is understanding the frameworks to get to that opportunity. It’s that chaos is predictable and there’s a series of patterns that you could use and apply,” he said.
“There’s a lot of buzz going around now about misinformation and I think there’s an opportunity for those of us that are in in the business of providing accurate, relevant, credible information that’s independently reported,” said Tony Hunter, chief executive of McClatchy Media Company. “What we need to do is catch up on the use of AI and technology, because we’ve been lapped.”
McClatchy acquired Trend Hunter in 2024 and uses AI across its newsrooms for tasks including transcriptions, data analysis, content generation and summarizing articles for readers.
Technology has upended traditional media’s business models, but Hunter said the company’s vision hasn’t changed — they just have new tools to execute it.
“We are applying a lot of discipline and rigour around innovation … encouraging our employees to take risks again (and) managing those risks, not breaking our values or our principles or our editorial philosophies,” he said.
