You can’t predict the future. You can build the fitness to respond to it. #Mindcandy prompts are fuel for a strategic conversation about what’s next. DM “SESSION” if you want to find out more.
When the wearable disappears
Wearables are disappearing. Researchers are developing thread-like electronic circuits that can be woven into clothing, wrapped around the body or potentially used as intelligent sutures. Others have created breathable electrodes that can be painted directly onto the skin to monitor muscle activity, heart rate and brain waves. Both technologies remain early-stage, but the direction is clear: the device is disappearing.
Add AI and these systems will not merely collect information. They will interpret it, form conclusions and intervene. Your shirt might detect stress. Your chair might challenge your posture. Your running shoes might argue with your couch. Objects will appear to develop opinions based on years of observing our behaviour.
Wearables are becoming behavioural infrastructure. That creates enormous opportunities in prevention, personalised healthcare, safety, performance and customer experience. It also creates uncomfortable questions about surveillance, ownership, consent and human agency.
- https://ianreppel.org/how-successful-companies-go-blind/
- https://www.fastcompany.com/91572756/digital-biology-code-becomes-a-new-layer-of-business
- https://futuristspeaker.com/artificial-intelligence/the-future-where-objects-have-opinions/
The leadership question
What happens to your business when the interface disappears and products can continuously sense, interpret and influence the customer?
The future fitness move
Identify one area where continuous sensing could detect a customer or employee need before it becomes visible. Design a small experiment.
Free downloads
12 free books on strategy, innovation, intrapreneurship, AI, future trends and leadership. Each one distils the best thinking from dozens of business books into a single, actionable read. Every book is also available as a BookBuzz session, board briefing or keynote.
In a first, kidney and liver tissues printed in space to tackle critical Earth problem
Using an orbital bioprinter, California-based Auxilium Biotechnologies successfully manufactured tissues containing human kidney, liver, and cartilage cells in space, marking the first reported production of kidney and liver tissues beyond Earth.
https://interestingengineering.com/space/first-kidney-liver-tissue-printed-in-space
A manifesto for Sustainability Robotics
Sustainability spans environmental, societal and economic challenges, from climate change to healthcare and education. Robotics holds substantial promise for addressing these issues, yet current developments remain fragmented and lack a unifying framework
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-026-01260-6
Innovation Is The New Measure Of Digital Transformation
The Old Definition Of Digital Transformation Is Too Narrow
Secretive Silicon Valley Startup Tries to Quash Interview, Says It’s Definitely Not Working on Growing Brain-Free “Organ Sacks”
R3 Bio’s aspiration is to grow nonsentient humanoid life-forms — from which, in theory, they can grow and harvest organs for implantation into human bodies, or to test future drugs and other treatments without the need for live animal testing.
https://futurism.com/future-society/secretive-silicon-valley-startup-interview-organ-sacks
Electronics-free robotics could feel and react instantly with new soft sensors
Researchers have developed a soft mechanical force sensor that enables robots to detect touch and respond immediately without relying on electronics, computers, or external power.
https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/new-soft-sensor-robots-electronics
MIT engineers find a precise way to grow artificial blood vessels
Gently stretching and pulling a “blood vessel on a chip” encourages controlled sprouting of new vessels, for possible use in artificial tissues or organs.
https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-engineers-find-precise-way-to-grow-artificial-blood-vessels-0714
How Successful Companies Go Blind
Companies who have forgotten what it took to become successful are similar: they stop recognizing competence, because the environment has stopped expressing the trait in anyone the company hires. Call it competence blindness, which is different from incumbents who fail because they cling to the customers and margins of yesterday’s market. Firms with competence blindness do not disappear. In fact, they can survive for decades.
https://ianreppel.org/how-successful-companies-go-blind/
Digital biology: Code becomes a new layer of business
Advances in AI, computation, imaging, sensors, and biological data can make living systems more measurable and modelable. Advances can increasingly make it more designable. Biology is starting to look less like an opaque natural constraint and more like a domain that can be translated into data, prediction, and action.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91572756/digital-biology-code-becomes-a-new-layer-of-business
