Trend Trend C: Risks becoming routine, diversified and global

Summary

New risks such as climate change, cyberattacks, AI hazards and pandemics are growing in frequency, reach and intensity. They are also broadening into compound digital, ecological and social risks that spread across the globe. Unpredictable and interconnected hazards are coming to act as an existential threat to humanity as a whole. Under the megatrend of social change and value diversification, the trend groups issues on the expansion of transnational crime and the chained escalation of compound risks. Both experts and the public ranked it as a priority in the 2025 survey, placing it among the six driver candidates, though it was not chosen as a final dominant driver.