About the paper
The report is a mixed-methods outlook study on the political, economic, technological and social forces expected to shape 2024, with a particular focus on implications for business.
It combines 60 stakeholder depth interviews conducted in October and November 2023 with public polling of 2,024 UK adults, weighted to be nationally representative; the geographic scope of the primary data is clearly the UK, even though many of the issues discussed are global.
Length: 23 pages
More information / download:
https://a.storyblok.com/f/137553/x/db3cf37498/fgs-global-radar-report-2024.pdf
Core Insights
1. What is the report’s central argument about 2024, and why does it frame the year as unusually consequential?
The report’s central argument is that 2024 will be defined by volatility, uncertainty, disruption and change, but not in a purely apocalyptic sense: it also presents openings for adaptation, resilience and selective optimism. The authors frame the year as unusually consequential because it combines an exceptional concentration of elections, continuing geopolitical conflicts, economic fragility, climate pressure, AI disruption and changing expectations of business leadership.
The report begins by describing 2024 as a year of “known-unknowns”, with particular emphasis on the fact that more people would be involved in elections than at any other point in human history, and with the US election treated as the most consequential uncertainty. Rather than trying to predict exact outcomes, the study aims to identify the trends and debates that will affect business during the year. That is an important framing choice: this is not a forecasting model, but a strategic interpretation exercise grounded in elite interviews and public opinion data.
Its key findings reinforce that framing. Opinion formers expect uncertainty and turbulence across geopolitics, the economy, culture and the workplace. They see volatility as more likely to intensify than fade. At the same time, they hold a mildly more positive view of the UK’s prospects than the public does, largely because they expect some political stabilisation after the UK general election and some easing in inflation and interest rates. So the report’s core argument is not simply that 2024 will be chaotic, but that business leaders will have to navigate overlapping shocks while distinguishing between background noise and genuinely strategic shifts.
2. Which major risks and uncertainties does the report identify as most important for business leaders?
The report identifies political instability and geopolitics as the most important risk cluster for business leaders. Stakeholders describe political instability as the biggest risk facing business in 2024, driven by major elections, continuing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the growing influence of non-democratic states. The phrase “uncertainty is the new certainty” captures the report’s broader diagnosis: unpredictable external shocks are no longer exceptional but normalised.
Within that broader risk picture, the potential return of Donald Trump is treated as the single most significant political threat. Stakeholders widely believe a Trump victory is a real possibility and fear that a second term would be more unconstrained than the first, with consequences for NATO, Ukraine, global trade and geopolitical stability. Importantly, the report notes that this concern is less about the resilience of the US domestic economy and more about the international effects of American foreign policy and political posture. The public polling echoes this anxiety, with large shares of UK respondents expecting another Trump presidency to destabilise the world and negatively affect their own lives.
The report also highlights immigration as a major source of political polarisation, especially in the UK, Europe and the US. Stakeholders expect it to become an even more contentious election issue, sharpened by climate-related migration pressures and labour-market tensions. This matters for business because immigration is not presented merely as a social issue; it is bound up with economic policy, labour supply, social cohesion and electoral strategy.
Beyond politics, the report emphasises supply-chain vulnerability, energy-price shocks and the strategic consequences of long-running conflict. Several interviewees argue that resilience now matters as much as profit, and that businesses will have to think more seriously about de-risking supply chains. The report stops short of advocating a single economic doctrine, but it clearly suggests that geopolitical risk is now a boardroom issue rather than a distant policy concern.
3. How does the report portray the economic outlook, and where do stakeholder and public perspectives diverge most sharply?
The report portrays the economic outlook as cautiously stable rather than buoyant. Stakeholders broadly expect a middling global year and a mildly positive UK year, shaped by falling inflation, eventual interest-rate cuts and the likelihood of a more stable UK political environment. They do not foresee dramatic economic improvement, but neither do they expect collapse. In that sense, the report’s economic lens is one of guarded pragmatism.
For the UK specifically, stakeholders are relatively bullish. They associate an expected Labour victory with greater predictability, continuity in fiscal policy and a calmer investment environment after years of political turmoil. They also expect inflation and interest rates to decline over the course of 2024, though some note that the timing of monetary easing may be late and its effects delayed. This is not presented as a growth boom, but as a return to something closer to normality.
The sharpest divergence appears between elite and public sentiment. The UK public is markedly more pessimistic than stakeholders, especially on the cost of living, living standards and the broader strength of the economy. The report shows net negative expectations on the cost of living, personal standard of living and the UK economy, even if job security is slightly more resilient. Public pessimism is also intensified by concern that prolonged wars will push up energy prices again. So while stakeholders see scope for stabilisation, the public sees little immediate relief.
That divergence matters because it reveals one of the report’s underlying themes: macro-level improvement does not automatically translate into felt improvement. A steadier political environment and lower inflation may look positive from a policy or business perspective, but ordinary people may still experience stagnation, pressure and distrust. The report therefore suggests that leaders will need to communicate with much greater sensitivity to this gap between institutional optimism and lived economic insecurity.
4. What does the report say about AI, and why does it treat it as both an opportunity and a source of backlash?
The report treats AI as one of the defining contradictions of 2024: it is seen as a potentially transformative engine of productivity and growth, but also as a source of labour disruption, democratic risk and public unease. Stakeholders are generally more optimistic than the public. They expect AI to boost economic growth, unlock gains in medicine and science, and accelerate efficiency. At the same time, they anticipate redundancies in white-collar fields such as customer service, software development and communications, with some even arguing that entry-level roles across many industries are vulnerable.
This combination of optimism and anxiety explains why the report expects backlash. Interviewees warn that AI could be used to distort elections through deepfakes and misinformation, undermining democratic legitimacy during an election-heavy year. They also foresee organised labour resistance, treating the 2023 actors’ strike as an early sign of broader anti-AI mobilisation. The public data supports this: a majority expects increased backlash, including further strikes, and many support faster government regulation to protect against security breaches and misinformation.
Another important point is that the public is less confident and less informed about AI than elite stakeholders. Only a small minority say they are very confident they could explain what AI is, and attitudes differ sharply by age, gender and self-reported tech literacy. Younger people and those more confident in explaining AI are more positive; older respondents and less confident groups are notably more negative. This suggests that public opinion on AI is shaped not just by material risk, but by familiarity and perceived agency.
The report therefore presents AI as a major battleground for 2024, not because it doubts the technology’s momentum, but because it expects a struggle over who benefits, who bears the costs and how regulation should work. That is why it frames the coming debate as not merely technological, but economic, political and social.
5. What broader conclusions does the report draw about climate, corporate purpose and the role of business in society?
The report suggests that businesses are entering 2024 under pressure to become more disciplined, more internally focused and more credible in how they talk about their role in society. On climate, stakeholders agree that the issue is strategically central and that no serious business leader or politician can now deny its importance. Yet they are pessimistic about actual progress towards net zero in 2024, citing weak political will, high investment requirements, election-year caution and unresolved disputes over who pays. The result is a gap between rhetorical commitment and practical momentum.
The public broadly shares the sense that climate change matters, but the report shows limits to public willingness to absorb the cost. That creates a politically difficult environment: there is acknowledgement of urgency, but less agreement on sacrifice. The report’s interpretation is that democratic politics, especially short electoral cycles, favours short-term decisions, whereas climate action demands long-term commitment. This is one of its clearest structural arguments.
On corporate purpose, the report argues that purpose remains important but that its public expression is changing. Many stakeholders believe external purpose messaging has become entangled with accusations of virtue signalling and greenwashing. As a result, they expect companies and CEOs to retreat from broad social commentary and focus more on purpose that is directly relevant to the business and more meaningfully communicated to employees and communities. This is not a rejection of purpose, but a repositioning of it.
The same logic appears in workplace culture. Hybrid working is described as here to stay, though not as a case for full-time remote work becoming universal. Stakeholders and the public both expect flexibility to remain important, and the public wants even more of it. Taken together, the report’s broader conclusion is that businesses in 2024 will need to act with restraint, relevance and credibility: less grandstanding, more internal alignment; less abstract signalling, more evidence and substance.
Overall, the report’s perspective is that business leadership in 2024 will be judged not by confidence alone, but by the ability to operate in a world of overlapping instability while making selective, defensible choices about what to engage in, what to say and how to build trust.