LSN : News : Foresight Friday: Fiona Harkin, director of foresight

CES 2025 daily recap: Next-gen wearables, female longevity and at-home hormone testing

US – Opening the third and final day of official programming at CES 2025 with a panel titled Next Gen Wearable Tech, representatives from Whoop, Garmin, Samsung Health and Abbot Lingo discussed the need to embed consumer wearables data into healthcare systems, assisting clinicians in diagnostics and helping relieve pressure on overburdened systems.

Continuing the theme of digital health, in The Future of Personalised Nutrition in the Era of Ozempic, one.bio founder Matt Barnard stressed the importance of fibre in modern diets: ‘We are starving the microbiome by not eating enough fibre,’ he said, sharing his belief that by feeding the gut more fibre we can eradicate anti-inflammatory diseases and eliminate the need for synthetic weight loss drugs. Find out more about the weight loss market here.

Later in the day, attention shifted to women’s health. Hosted by Fortune’s Most Powerful Women, a panel titled The Race for Female Longevity saw Tally Health CEO Melanie Goldey suggest that knowing your epigenetic age is as important as knowing your weight. Every panellist stressed that whilst they are working to make femtech more accessible, the most important thing, for now, is spreading information about women’s health and how symptoms of conditions such as heart attacks often present differently in women. Summarising the importance of longevity lifestyles, Goldey closed the event by saying, ‘It [longevity] is not about adding 20 years to your life right now. Maybe one day it will be, but for now, it’s about helping you age vibrantly’.

Start-ups and established companies in the health space also came to CES to showcase their technologies. Withings presented OMNIA, a conceptual smart health hub that uses the company’s existing technologies to provide 360-deep health screening and an AI health guide. Eli Health won the 2025 Best of Innovation in Digital Health award for Hormometer, the first at-home technology providing real-time hormonal health metrics from just saliva.

Our viewpoint with Dr Somi Javaid, founder and chief medical officer of HerMD, takes a deeper dive into the women’s health industry. For more insights on the future of femtech, read our interview of Marina Gerner, author of The Vagina Business.

Strategic opportunity

Alongside developing technologies that will help to close the gender health gap, consider how your brand can provide accessible health literacy tools that empower consumers with knowledge

Huel’s Every Fire Needs its Fuel campaign celebrates its diverse community of Hueligans

Every Fire Needs Its Fuel by Huel, Global

Global – Meal supplement brand Huel is kicking off 2025 with its first-ever global campaign, Every Fire Needs Its Fuel, showcasing the diversity of its growing community, known as the Hueligans. The campaign aims to solidify Huel as a household name in the UK and expand its footprint in the US, tapping into new year wellness trends.

Soundtracked by Disclosure’s When a Fire Starts to Burn, the black-and-white campaign film offers a dynamic glimpse into 24 hours in the lives of Hueligans. Directed by Phoebe Arnstein and narrated by UK rapper Outlaw the Artist, the ad spotlights a range of users beyond fitness enthusiasts. These include emergency workers, night shifters, farmers and clubbers. The ad highlights how Huel fits seamlessly into diverse routines.

Ark Agency, led by Mat Goff and Mike Wilton, and Magna Studios produced the campaign, which is running across tv, streaming platforms, YouTube and social media. As attitudes towards health and wellness evolve, Huel continues to redefine convenient nutrition, leveraging its cult following and investors such as Idris Elba and Steven Bartlett to drive growth. This bold campaign positions Huel as more than a meal replacement – it’s fuel for modern lifestyles.

In our Functional Feasting macrotrend report, we explored the growing demand among health-conscious consumers for functional ingredients and the flourishing food and drink market catering to this trend.

Strategic opportunity

Develop messaging that highlights how functional foods seamlessly integrate into diverse lifestyles, from fitness enthusiasts and remote workers to parents and retirees, using relatable narratives to showcase their versatility across demographics

Foresight Friday: Fiona Harkin, director of foresight

Every Friday, we wrap up the topics, issues, ideas and viral moments everyone’s been discussing. This week, director of foresight Fiona Harkin welcomes Generation Beta to the world.

: Whoa, 2025 – you’re serving it up already? It’s only the beginning of January so I shouldn’t have expected any significant shifts but it certainly looks like the digital culture wars are still game-on. With Meta announcing it is dumping third-party fact-checking – NewsGuard has been called a ‘censorship cartel’ by incoming chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr – and Elon Musk carrying on like he’s president of the world, this is shaping up to be the post-post-truth year that no one needs.

: And it’s against this backdrop that we officially welcome the first of Gen Beta (b 2025–2039). Gen Alpha (b 2013–2025) is complete and speculation around what kind of world this next generation will grow up in has already begun. As we once labelled Gen Alpha as ‘digital natives’, will these Beta babies be ‘AI naturals’? You can read more about the ongoing validity of generational demographics in our Generations: Now and Next report.

: There is some (often wild) opinion going around about what Gen Beta will shape up to be. But whether running STEEPLE analysis to look at their future relationship with tech, for example, or extracting their attitude to the environment, I can’t help but think – not of the plausible, possible, probable future for Gen Beta – but for the preferred future for them. What we want for Generation Beta starts now, with the decisions we make today. The rest is mere speculation.

EctoLife is a conceptual artificial womb facility created by biotechnologist and film producer Hashem Al-Ghaili, Germany

Quote of the week

‘In those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough or pretty enough, or skinny enough or successful enough, or basically just not enough. I had a woman say to me, ‘Just know, you will never be enough. But you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick’’

Demi Moore’s acceptance speech, Golden Globes 2025

Stat: Thailand could become a regional crypto leader

Crypto Manifold by Marija Bozinovska Jones

Thailand – Thailand’s cryptocurrency sector is thriving, with revenue projected to reach £228.29m ($292.68m, €269.27m) in 2024, rising to £311.16m ($398.92m, €367.01m) by 2028, according to a January 2025 report by Statista. The number of active users is expected to exceed 17m by 2028, showcasing the growing appeal of digital currencies in the country, and Thailand’s potential to lead APAC in this area.

Among these currencies, Tether (USDT) leads with 34% of the trading volume. Unlike Bitcoin, Tether is a stablecoin, meaning its value is tied to a real-world currency such as the US dollar, making it less volatile and more appealing for everyday transactions. Bitcoin and Ethereum, two of the most well-known cryptocurrencies, follow closely behind.

Bitkub, Thailand’s largest crypto exchange, dominates the market with a 75% share and over 1.4m app downloads in 2024. Young investors aged 18–24 are driving much of this growth, reflecting a strong interest in new financial tools.

Globally, countries including Nigeria are at the forefront of crypto adoption, with nearly one in three people owning or using cryptocurrencies in 2024 – compared to just 6% of Americans. Despite market fluctuations, experts see Thailand positioning itself as a regional crypto leader.

For more insights on what’s new and next for Thailand, head to our State of Luxury: Thailand report.

Strategic opportunity

Leverage the popularity of Tether (USDT) to create stablecoin-safe payment solutions for e-commerce, remittances and retail sectors. For instance, can you partner with local businesses to offer secure and low-cost transactions?