Power
Geopolitics8
conflicts between states in 2025, the most since records began in 1946.
UCDP, Jun 202691%
of the world's rare-earth refining happens in one country.
IEA, Oct 2025
Forum I · Amsterdam · 14–15 October 2027 · 300 people · by invitation
The GreatReconfiguration
Power, climate, work, cities, trust, culture, meaning and machine intelligence are moving at the same time. For two days in Amsterdam, the people who see it first take the stage: philosophers, scientists, anthropologists, systems thinkers, artists, founders and policymakers. Three hundred leaders come to learn what is changing, and leave ready for it.
74%of humanity now lives under autocracy.V-Dem, Mar 2026
900mpeople use ChatGPT every week. It launched in late 2022.OpenAI, Feb 2026
1.60°C2024 was the first year on record above 1.5°C of warming.Copernicus, Jan 2025
$2.9tnworld military spending in 2025, a record and the 11th rise in a row.SIPRI, Apr 2026
The evidence
The reconfiguration is already in the data.
Every figure here is published, dated and linked to its source. Each would make a headline on its own. Read together, they describe one change: the arrangements the modern world was built on are coming apart at once.
Earth
Climate & economy11 of 11
The last eleven years are the eleven hottest ever recorded.
Copernicus, Jan 2026$224bn
in disaster losses in 2025. Less than half was insured.
Munich Re, Jan 2026Work & Wealth
Jobs & skills40%
of jobs worldwide are exposed to AI. In advanced economies, 60%.
IMF, Jan 202439%
of workers' core skills are expected to change by 2030.
WEF Future of Jobs, Jan 2025Cities
Where people live33
megacities today. In 1975 there were eight.
UN DESA, Nov 20251 in 70
people on Earth is forcibly displaced: 117.8 million.
UNHCR, Jun 2026Institutions
Trust & authority1978
For the average person, democracy is back to its 1978 level.
V-Dem, Mar 20267 in 10
are unwilling or hesitant to trust someone with different values.
Edelman, Jan 2026Culture
Shared reality54%
get news from social and video platforms each week, now ahead of news sites.
Reuters Institute, Jun 202637%
trust the news, the lowest level the Reuters Institute has recorded.
Reuters Institute, Jun 2026Meaning
Belonging & purpose1 in 6
people worldwide is lonely. 871,000 deaths a year are linked to it.
WHO, Jun 202520%
of employees worldwide feel engaged at work.
Gallup, 2026Intelligence
AI deployment280×
drop in the cost of GPT-3.5-level AI in under two years.
Stanford AI Index, Apr 2025945 TWh
Data-centre power use more than doubles by 2030, slightly more than Japan uses today.
IEA, Apr 2025
The long view
It has happened before. Never this fast.
The modern world was built on separations: mind from matter, economy from nature, nation from planet, human from machine. They are coming apart at once. Every few centuries the world rethinks its foundations, and each time a few small rooms work out what comes next.
- 800–200 BCE
The Axial Age
China, India, Persia, Greece and Israel rethink what a human being is, at the same time.
- 1460s · Florence
The Medici circle
Bankers fund a philosopher to translate Plato. Poets, scholars and artists gather round. It helped shape the Renaissance.
- 1600s · Amsterdam
Descartes and Spinoza
In the Dutch Republic, Descartes separates mind from matter. Spinoza, born in Amsterdam, answers that they are one.
- 1765–1813 · Birmingham
The Lunar Society
Industrialists, scientists and philosophers at one table, once a month. It helped shape the industrial age.
- 2027 · Amsterdam
Forum I
Three hundred people, one room, the next reconfiguration.
The one map
Eight shifts. One movement.
Each shift traces back to the same five separations the modern world was organised around. All five are failing together, and AI is speeding up every one of them.
- Economy and ecology
- Nation and planet
- Human and machine
- Public and private
- Position and legitimacy
Forum I is built so you see this in one room, in one morning.
Hover or tap a shift to trace it.
The experience
Not only talks.
Some of what is changing is easier to see than to say. Around the stage, Forum I is a curated programme of art, film, food and music, made for the people in the room and commissioned around the eight shifts.
Commissions
Artists commissioned to answer the eight shifts, shown inside the Atlas and around the venue.
Night screenings
Short documentaries and films from the edges of each shift, with the makers in the room.
The Table
Chefs cook the reconfiguration: menus built on what the world will grow, eat and waste next.
The night programme
Music, readings and performance in Amsterdam venues after the day closes, and one long-table Salon in the spirit of the Lunar Society.
Small rooms
Hands-on sessions with makers, researchers and founders: twenty people, one question, one hour.
Amsterdam as a case
Walks and visits to where the city is already living the shifts: water, housing, energy, food.
Business leaders and policymakers come for the stage. Most remember the evenings.
The programme · 14–15 October 2027
Two days with the people who see it first.
Keynotes and panels on each of the eight shifts, the evidence laid out in the Atlas, an afternoon turning it into decisions, and two evenings of film, art, food and music across the city. One room by day, one programme, no parallel tracks to miss.
Day one
Seeing
- Opening keynote: the Great Reconfiguration, and why the eight shifts are one movement.
- Keynotes and panels on Power, Earth, Work & Wealth and Cities.
- The Atlas: a walk-through exhibition of the evidence, open throughout both days.
- Evening: Witness Dinners in Amsterdam houses, then the night programme: screenings, performance and music.
Day two · morning
Understanding
- Keynotes and panels on Institutions, Culture, Meaning and Intelligence.
- The Collision: a philosopher and a founder who disagree, on stage, about where the movement is going.
- Conversations with people living at the edge of each shift.
Day two · afternoon
Preparing
- Readiness Studios in eight domains: capital, government, cities, companies, education, culture, philanthropy, technology.
- What the reconfiguration means for decisions in the next 24 months.
- Closing keynote, the founding of the first Sensing Circles, and a closing night in the city.
You leave with
- A Readiness Brief for your domain, plus your own page: three assumptions you're retiring.
- A picture of the decade you didn't have on the way in.
- A year of Weak Signal, the Forum's intelligence dispatch.
- The Atlas of the Great Reconfiguration, published after the Forum.
- For some, a seat in one of five Sensing Circles meeting monthly from November 2027.
- 299 people who now see what you see.
Speakers
Philosophers to founders. One stage.
The shifts don't respect disciplines, so neither does the stage. Each speaker is chosen for what they have seen first, not the size of their title, and brings evidence, a point of view, and time for questions. First names are announced in early 2027.
- Philosophers
- Scientists
- Anthropologists
- Systems thinkers
- Artists
- Filmmakers
- Entrepreneurs
- Economists
- Policymakers
- Polymaths
To be announced
To be announced
To be announced
To be announced
To be announced
To be announced
To be announced
To be announced
To be announced
To be announced
Know someone who should be on this stage?
Propose a speaker
Why it's different
A summit built for learning, not for being seen.
| The usual summit | Forum I | |
|---|---|---|
| Size | Thousands of delegates across dozens of venues | 300 people. One room, one programme, two days. |
| Format | Back-to-back panels in a hotel ballroom | Keynotes and panels by day; film, art, food and music across the city by night. |
| Speakers | CEOs on message, chosen for their logo | Philosophers, scientists, artists, founders and policymakers, chosen for what they have seen first. |
| Panels | Five people, five minutes each, everyone agrees | Three voices at most, real disagreement, moderated to get somewhere. |
| Sponsors | Paid speaking slots and logo walls | No partner buys a slot on stage, shapes the programme or chooses a name. |
| Access | Buy a badge | By invitation only. More than half the room are Fellows who cannot buy their way in. |
| Afterwards | A communiqué and a hashtag | A Readiness Brief for the next 24 months, and Sensing Circles that keep meeting. |
Forum I isn't a smaller Davos. It's a different kind of room.
The room
Three hundred people, chosen one by one.
Every seat is by invitation. An invitation can't be bought. More than half the room are Fellows: researchers, artists, younger builders and leaders from the Global South who attend free, because they carry what the rest of the room needs to hear.
120Invited participants. A participation fee of €1,250, invoiced to the organisation.
17Partner seats, filled with names agreed with the Curation Council.
163Fellows, curated and attending free, about thirty with travel covered.
Take part
Three ways into the room.
Request an invitation
Tell us who you are and what you're deciding over the next two years. The Curation Council reviews every request and issues invitations in three waves through 2027.
Participation is €1,250, invoiced to your organisation, and includes a year of Weak Signal. An organisation may bring up to three people and underwrites one Fellow's seat for each delegation.
Partner with Forum I
Partners make the room possible and underwrite Fellows' seats. They are named across Forum I and the Atlas publication. They never buy the stage, the programme or the guest list.
Founding Partner · one€50,000
Partner · two€25,000
Atlas Partner · five, one Atlas room each€10,000
To protect the Forum's independence, companies developing frontier AI cannot partner. The Founding Partner closes in February 2027, the others by June.
Propose a speaker
We are looking for keynote speakers and panellists who see a shift before it is obvious: researchers, builders, policymakers, writers, people working inside the systems that are changing.
Propose yourself or someone else. Speakers are chosen for the strength of what they bring, not for their title. Travel and accommodation are covered.
Start now · from November 2026
Weak Signal: read the shifts before they're news.
A biweekly dispatch of changes that don't have a name yet, each scored in public against what happened next. Founding subscribers pay €190 a year, locked for life, for the first 500.