We bring together domain expertise and specialist futures research methods with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence to identify, track and interpret emerging narratives. Weak signals cannot be ranked by impact, or uncertainty, or measured against vulnerability criteria. Yet they are key to understanding ‘emergence’ in complex, open, adaptive systems, to crystallising ‘imagined futures’ and the narratives that express them, however far-fetched they might appear at first.
Above all, most so-called ‘Black Swan’ events are preceded by weak signals. In our view, there should be few surprises. Perfect storms, systemic failures and systemic innovation all cast shadows before.
