The antidote to AI is IRL (in real life). It's simple economics - because synthetic, generative AI is making digital content infinite and almost free, which pushes its value down, in-person presence stays scarce and rises in value. The data already shows consumers cutting digital spending to pay for offline experiences, and digital platforms paying users to meet face to face. For business, this means every brand now needs an IRL strategy alongside its content strategy.
I'm Anders Sörman-Nilsson, a futurist, keynote speaker and the founder of Thinque. As an AI keynote speaker and conference speaker, I spend my working life helping leadership teams and conference audiences think about AI and the future. At home, as a single dad with limited time with my two boys, I run a very analogue investment strategy. We use a Dadventure Deck, a pack of 50 IRL outings for dads and kids. One of the boys pulls a card, whether it's a ropes course, the zoo or flying a kite, and we go and do it together. When people ask what I invest in, my answer is: memories.
Some of our best nights are spent in the stands at Broncos games, scarves on, surrounded by tens of thousands of people who chose to be in the same place. Those two sides of my life have convinced me that the most valuable thing in an AI economy may be the one thing AI can't produce: you, physically in the room with the people you love and care for.
In-person experience is gaining value because AI has collapsed the cost of producing digital content. Text, images, video and voice can now be generated in seconds, and the result is a flood of material that is competent but rarely memorable. When supply becomes effectively unlimited, value moves to whatever remains limited. Human time and physical presence cannot be generated or copied, so they are being repriced upwards.
It is the same logic behind my recent piece on the story of gold: a true story can't be synthesised, and neither can a person who shows up - fully present.
There is also a trust effect. As people get better at sensing generated content, they lean harder on signals that are difficult to fake. Meeting someone, standing in a venue, or hearing a recommendation from a person you know are all signals of that kind.
The attention economy (eg social media addiction and click bait) is giving way to a search for the real, the authentic, the analogue and, above all, belonging. For more than a decade, social platforms have competed for attention by keeping people scrolling, comparing their lives with filtered versions of everyone else's, and doom-scrolling late into the night. As those feeds fill with AI-generated content, people are pulling back towards experiences and relationships they can trust.
I describe this as a renaissance of the analogue world. It isn't a rejection of technology. It is a rebalancing, in which in-person time, physical places and real communities regain value precisely because the digital world has become so abundant and so synthetic.
The clearest recent evidence comes from Mastercard's Experience Economy Report, Europe 2026, which surveyed 27,000 people across 28 countries in February 2026. It found that:
That last figure matters most for business leaders. At the peak of an AI boom, nearly two in three people are deliberately choosing human judgement over algorithmic suggestion when deciding how to spend their time.
The broader industry picture points the same way. PwC's Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2026 to 2030 identifies live and immersive experiences, including sport, concerts and trade shows, as a significant growth area, within an industry that grew 5.3% in 2025 to US$3.5 trillion and is forecast to grow another 4.6% in 2026.
Hinge launched One More Hour in December 2023 with a US$1 million fund to help Gen Z find belonging and community in person. It has since awarded US$2.3 million to more than 100 groups across the US and UK, and will donate US$1.5 million globally in 2026, including in Sydney and Melbourne for the first time.
The program responds to a stark finding: today's young adults have roughly 1,000 fewer hours of in-person connection each year than young adults two decades ago. That University of Rochester research, published in SSM Population Health in 2023, was cited in the US Surgeon General's advisory on loneliness and isolation.
From a futurist's point of view, this is one of the strongest signals available. A digital platform whose revenue depends on engagement is funding activity that happens away from its app. That is a company recognising that its long-term value depends on real-world connection, not screen time.
Gen Z is not abandoning digital, but it is the generation most eager for balance. A Quad and Harris Poll survey reported by EMARKETER found that 81% of US Gen Z adults and 78% of millennial adults often wish they could disconnect from digital devices more easily.
Their behaviour backs this up. RainFocus research found that 73% of event attendees prefer in-person formats, and 77% of Gen Z were at least somewhat likely to travel for events, compared with 63% of millennials and 34% of baby boomers. The generation assumed to be most at home online is the one most willing to travel to be in the room.
The Belonging Economy is the commercial category that sits above the experience economy. The experience economy, a concept introduced by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore in the Harvard Business Review in 1998, holds that people will pay more for memorable experiences than for products. The Belonging Economy goes further: people increasingly value, and pay for, ongoing membership of a group where they are known.
The difference is continuity. An experience is a single event. Belonging is a relationship you return to, such as a club, a community, a team, or a venue where the staff know your name. Hinge's decision to fund community groups rather than one-off events reflects exactly this distinction.
Sports clubs are among the clearest proof that belonging has a market price. The Ross-Arctos Sports Franchise Index, compiled with the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, tracks team values across MLB, the NBA, the NFL and the NHL. Over the two decades to 2024, it returned about 12% a year, compared with roughly 10% for the S&P 500. In June 2025 the Los Angeles Lakers sold for US$10 billion, the largest price ever paid for a professional sports franchise.
Investors are not paying for the games, which can be streamed anywhere. What can't be replicated is a loyal, multi-generational community that turns up in person, which is why investors value clubs as belonging assets rather than content businesses.
The same pattern shows up in Australia. In my futurist-in-residence work with the Brisbane Broncos, I've watched membership become a measure of identity as much as of on-field results. In 2024 the club became the first in NRL history to pass 50,000 members in a single season and finished with a record 61,280 members, up from 28,533 in 2021, in a season when the team missed the finals.
Less than most of us assume. The "18 summers" idea, popularised by Jim Sheils in The Family Board Meeting, reminds parents that childhood is short. A widely shared rule of thumb goes further, estimating that around 75% of the time parents will ever spend with their children has passed by age 12. That figure is an estimate rather than a research finding, but Tim Urban's essay The Tail End reaches a similar conclusion: by the end of high school, he had used up 93% of his lifetime in-person time with his parents.
For separated families the time is scarcer still, and it falls unevenly. Australian Institute of Family Studies analysis of child support data shows about three in four children of separated parents live mainly with their mother, around 13% are in shared care, and around 7% live mainly with their father. An earlier AIFS survey of separated parents found that in about 9% of cases, children had no contact with their father at all.
This is the personal version of the argument in this article. When time with the people you love is finite, it becomes the thing most worth protecting, and in a world of synthetic connection that is truer than ever.
Leaders should invest in memories with clients because shared, in-person experiences build the kind of trust that no digital channel can manufacture. The logic is the same as at home. The time I spend with my boys is an investment in a bond I hope will last a lifetime, and the clients I value most are the ones I have spent real time with, in their offices, at their events and around a table, rather than only in their inboxes.
As AI makes emails, proposals and content effortless to produce, those things carry less weight on their own. Showing up in person carries more. The best present you can give another human being, whether a family member or a client, is your presence.
Digilogue is my framework for combining digital and analogue, first set out in my book Digilogue. Its central idea is that the future is rarely purely digital or purely analogue, and that competitive advantage comes from knowing which of the two carries the value in a particular moment.
Applied to AI, Digilogue suggests a clear division of labour. Let AI handle what can be generated, summarised and automated. Invest human time, physical space and presence where they create value that a screen can't. This is how organisations become AI-first without becoming AI-only.
An IRL strategy starts by treating physical presence as a deliberate asset rather than an overhead. In my work with boards and executive teams, I find three questions consistently open up the conversation.
Map every point where a customer meets your brand in person, including stores, events, offices, service visits and conferences. Many organisations find the list is shorter than they expected, or that those moments have been cost-cut into something forgettable.
If an in-person interaction could be replaced by a video call or a chatbot without anyone noticing, it isn't creating IRL value. The goal is to design moments where being there genuinely matters.
A feed competes with infinite generated content for a few seconds of attention. A place, physical or communal, earns repeat visits and loyalty. Brands that become places will be far harder for AI-generated competitors to displace.
It means that as AI makes digital content abundant and cheap, in-person experiences and relationships become relatively more scarce and valuable. IRL is not a rejection of AI but a counterweight to it.
Synthetic connection describes relationships and interactions with AI systems, such as chatbots and AI companions, that simulate human attention and empathy. As it becomes more convincing, real human time and presence become more valuable by contrast.
Your presence. As AI makes content, messages and even companionship easy to generate, undivided in-person time with another person becomes one of the most valuable things you can offer, whether to family, friends or clients.
It is a renewed appreciation for in-person, physical and community experiences as digital life becomes saturated with AI-generated content. People are rebalancing towards what feels real and authentic rather than abandoning technology.
No. It is an economic response to abundance. When digital content becomes effectively free, people redirect time and money to what remains scarce, which is human presence and connection.
Live entertainment, sport, events, hospitality, travel and retail are directly affected. Financial services, property and professional services are also exposed, because trust in those sectors is often built face to face.
Sports franchises combine scarce assets, long-term media deals and deeply loyal communities that gather in person. The Ross-Arctos Sports Franchise Index returned about 12% a year over the two decades to 2024, compared with roughly 10% for the S&P 500.
No. The strongest strategy is AI-first, not AI-only. AI should free up time and budget so people can focus on the in-person moments that build trust and belonging.
Anders Sörman-Nilsson is a futurist and AI keynote speaker whose talks focus on how AI changes business and why human presence, trust and belonging become more valuable as a result. He speaks at conferences and leadership events in Australia and internationally.
Anders Sörman-Nilsson is a Swedish-Australian futurist, AI keynote speaker, conference speaker and founder of the strategic foresight firm Thinque. He is the author of Digilogue, Seamless and Aftershock, and has worked with organisations including Apple, Google and Adobe.
Anders Sörman-Nilsson is a Sydney-based futurist and AI keynote speaker who helps conference audiences and leadership teams understand how AI will change their industry, and where human presence, trust and belonging will matter more than ever. He is a Keynote Speaker of the Year award winner, a Global Speaking Fellow and a TEDGlobal member, and has advised and spoken for organisations including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Dyson, LEGO, BMW, Westpac and Woolworths.
His keynotes draw on his own frameworks, including Digilogue, AI With a Human Soul and The 2nd Renaissance, and on the research in this article on the Belonging Economy. He speaks at conferences, leadership offsites, sales kick-offs and industry events across financial services, technology, pharma, resources, retail, property and sport, in Australia and internationally, and also runs scenario planning workshops and strategy sessions for executive teams.
I think of a futurist as a science fiction author for business: someone who writes plausible stories about tomorrow so leaders can make better decisions today. If you'd like to explore what the Belonging Economy and an IRL strategy mean for your industry, I work with organisations through keynotes, scenario planning workshops, strategy sessions and commissioned thought leadership. Get in touch with Thinque to start the conversation.