Foreword
The monthly update from Trajectory: November 2025
I don’t want to be negative but…
Optimism, like daylight, is in short supply now. The needle on our Optimism Index dropped back last month and is now at its lowest point this year.
One of the big drivers is that confidence in household finances fell for a fourth consecutive month. This is likely to feed through to spending behaviour so this year Santa may leave you a bottle of Morrisons Scotch Whisky under the Christmas tree rather than the Auchentoshan American Oak Single Malt that you asked for.
For the last few months we’ve drawn your attention to the polarisation within the index: men, Londoners and high earners have been consistently more optimistic than women, those living outside the concrete ring of confidence that is the M25 and those on average and below average incomes. Polarisation is still much higher than it was a few years ago but it has recently fallen back. Alas, this has been caused by the most optimistic feeling less sanguine rather than the gloomsters feeling more positive.
Our research was conducted in the second week of October - well before last week’s less than seasonal message from the Chancellor about the cost of running the country and the unspoken but deafening hint that rises in personal taxation will be announced in sixteen days time.
Trajectory’s Senior Analyst, Mari, had a look at the words that the most and least optimistic consumers would use to describe the UK currently. The most optimistic chose the words; ‘hopeful’, ‘grateful’ and ‘excited’ (in that order). Mari’s analysis doesn’t show it, but we’re assuming that these people are not supporters of Liverpool Football Club. The least optimistic chose the words; ‘disappointed’, ‘worried’ and ‘frustrated.’ Importantly, the least optimistic feel their negative emotions much more keenly than the optimists feel their positive emotions. Looking at the total sample, the words most often selected were; ‘worried’ and ‘disappointed’. A significant minority also feel ‘angry’.
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Leave me alone. Can I not just have 72 minutes of peace?
The phrase; ‘alone is not lonely’ has a slightly defensive ring to it, carrying an unwelcome resonance of Norman-no-mates social failure.
However, our Time Use data shows that, over the last ten years, we have come to spend significantly more time on our own.
Compared to 2016, we now spend 72 more minutes by ourselves each day.
While this might suggest a potentially unhealthy increase in loneliness, the Social Health survey indicates otherwise; very few people describe themselves as lonely and most of us have at least one person to call if we’d like to talk.
Seventy two minutes is a significant amount of time - long enough to watch an episode of Traitors, book a holiday, read a chunk of a book, carry out chores, take a night class or cook a meal from scratch. The World Health Organisation state that everyone aged between 18 and 64 would lead healthier lives if they spent a minimum of 75 minutes a week engaged in; ‘vigorous intensity physical activity.’
What are we doing with those extra 72 minutes of me-time every day?
What are the implications of our society becoming more atomised?
We’ll be using our own time use and Optimism Index data to consider the commercial opportunities that this change in time use brings at our next webinar on November 27th at 09:00.
As ever, the webinar is free and it lasts for 60 minutes - leaving you another 12 minutes for another solo activity of your choice.
To learn more - and to register - click the button below.
Here we go. Again.
Every month, I look at examples of companies and brands responding to the trends that Trajectory continually monitors.
I’ve worked in foresight for 19 years, long enough to know that some future scenario stories never go away. There’s a certain unflushable quality about smart toilets and Universal Basic Income. However, the perennial favourite - one that has existed since (at least) the industrial revolution - is that a new technology will arrive and confer efficiency benefits so great that humanity will no longer need to work for the majority of the week. The soul-deadening drudgery of work will be handled by stoic machines while we go to the pub broaden our horizons through culture and the arts.
It was inevitable that this story would be re-energised by the arrival of AI.
Last month, the Financial Times reported that Ari Emanuel, a; “Hollywood talent agent and sports tycoon” had raised $3 billion from investors including the Qatar Investment Authority. The billions are to fund the acquisition of sporting and cultural events in the expectation that many people will have much more time to watch and attend them as they’ll only be working three days a week thanks to AI. Mr Emanuel’s new company - MARI - owns the Madrid and Miami Tennis Opens and the Frieze Art Fairs.
In a statement, Mr Emanuel said;
“Live events and experiences have never been more powerful … As people increasingly value experiences over things — and as hybrid work and AI give us more time to enjoy them— sports, art, lifestyle, and entertainment are becoming even more essential. At MARI, we’re building on the global impact of Frieze and the success of the Madrid and Miami Opens to create new ways for audiences to come together and share their passions.”
On October 20th, the Los Angeles Times reported that MARI had acquired the TodayTix Group, a theatre ticketing platform that has partnerships with 10,000 venues including those on Broadway and in London’s glittering West End.
On November 3rd, Variety reported that MARI had acquired IMG’s Arts and Entertainment and Action Sports Events portfolios which, among other things, include London’s Hyde Park Winter Wonderland and the Nike Melbourne Marathon. Clearly that $3billion is burning a hole in Mr Emanuel’s pockets - indeed the speed at which he is operating suggests that his trousers may have ignited.
Mr Emanuel’s alacrity may be motivated by a couple of factors. Firstly, he is not the only person who believes that some form of leisure society is finally manifesting. Silver Lake, a private equity group, are leading a band of investors - including Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund - who have offered $55 billion to acquire Electronic Arts. Bloomberg believe that this will be the largest leveraged buyout of all time. Part of the rationale is that workers, free from the shackles of corporate serfdom for most of the week, will spend languid weekdays playing Battlefield 6.
Secondly, sport looks like a good bet regardless of the impact of AI on working hours. Liberty Media’s investment in Formula One has proven the value of owning elite-level sport. Further, as our Shifting Family Dynamics trend makes clear, as a society we now spend more time as pre and post-family adults, something that creates more space for following sport either in person or via television.
Trajectory is a bit sceptical about AI finally ushering in the long-awaited leisure society. Part of our wariness comes from the number of times it has been promised in the past and failed to materialise. While working hours have declined in the last 100 years, most of us are still working five days a week. A recent article in the Financial Times is similarly sceptical. Their doubt comes from three factors - that, in the short-term, AI-generated ‘workslop’ is creating more work for the unlucky people who receive it and who then have to decode it, that the AI productivity gain will mainly benefit business owners rather than workers and that the assumption that workers will want to convert any AI efficiencies into more leisure hours (rather than more income) may be flawed.
The rapid expansion of MARI illustrates a number of the trends that Trajectory monitors, including AI Citizens, the Importance of Experience and Time Millionaires.
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