The phrase “knowledge is the brand new oil” has echoed throughout boardrooms and technique decks for greater than a decade. However Tracey Follows, CEO of Futuremade, affords a extra visceral, and maybe extra correct, analogy: knowledge is the brand new blood. In my dialog together with her at FinovateEurope 2025, Follows challenged monetary providers leaders to rethink how knowledge flows, regenerates, and sustains our more and more digital and AI-driven economic system.
In a world the place digital id, embedded finance, and AI are converging at unprecedented pace, Follows argues that understanding the lifeblood of those methods– knowledge– is essential to constructing belief, guaranteeing relevance, and getting ready for what comes subsequent. Her insights are a wake-up name for monetary establishments which are nonetheless working with a fragmented or overly transactional view of knowledge.
“We hear that knowledge is the brand new oil. We’ve been listening to that for 20 years. No. No. Information is the brand new blood. That’s the best way I need folks to consider it. That’s the metaphor that basically does justice to the very important, intimate, private nature of the form of knowledge that’s now going to be flowing into AI, and notably agentic AI, to assist it make selections that encompasses our neurological features, cognitive features, physiological features, alongside our monetary decision-making.”
Tracey Follows is a globally acknowledged futurist, speaker, and writer. She is the previous Chief Technique & Innovation Officer at The Future Laboratory and has suggested main manufacturers similar to Google, Telefonica, and Diageo. Her e-book The Way forward for You explores the intersection of digital id, privateness, and personalization. Follows is a daily commentator within the media and was named one of many high 50 feminine futurists on the earth by Forbes.
Follows can also be the founder and CEO of Futuremade, a strategic foresight and futures consultancy that helps organizations anticipate long-term change and construct future-ready methods. With experience in situation planning, horizon scanning, and development evaluation, Futuremade helps world shoppers in sectors starting from finance to media and expertise. The agency’s work emphasizes moral innovation, societal shifts, and the human implications of rising applied sciences.
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