The Future 100: LATAM 2026

Imperfect aesthetics set the stage for creative renewal. Instead of polished and impeccable, roughness, grime, and wear define the tone of 2026.

Raw textures, intervened materials, and fragmented narratives celebrate authenticity over digital visual homogenization.

For decades, global creativity was dominated by a handful of Western capitals; however, today, imagination knows no borders.

Contemporary culture is no longer produced exclusively from the “center” but emerges with equal power from Buenos Aires, Lima, or São Paulo as from Seoul or Shenzhen. According to VML Intelligence estimates, 82% of people in LATAM perceive their cultural consumption as increasingly international, driven by the global circulation of content; among Generation Z, the figure rises to 87%.

Urban spaces are transforming into dynamic ecosystems for life, leisure, and everything that happens within them. As the urban experience becomes more complex and changing, cities are beginning to abandon the rigidity of single-use designs.

A new generation of architects, entrepreneurs, and cultural leaders promotes environments designed for fluidity: hybrid spaces where work, well-being, entertainment, and community life coexist and overlap naturally.

Surveillance is no longer a centralized phenomenon: today it is distributed and operates across multiple layers: governments, corporations, artificial intelligence systems, and ourselves, in a logic of permanent exposure.

In Latin America, this omnivigilance adapts to a context marked by insecurity, inequality, and institutional distrust, where many control technologies are accepted in the name of protection. However, the region not only incorporates surveillance tools but also begins to debate its limits, demand regulations, and experiment with forms of resistance.

Artificial intelligence is becoming local because language is never neutral. Although the most popular models promise universality, they still carry an Anglocentric viewpoint that translates into misinterpreted idioms and lost cultural nuances.

This everyday friction drives regional innovators to question the idea of a "global" necessarily Western AI. Instead of adapting the local to the global, they are committed to developing LLMs from their own linguistic, cultural, and political DNA.

Micro-dramas are consolidating as an effective way to generate emotional engagement. These short stories, told in multiple episodes and designed for vertical format, combine the immediacy of social media with the narrative intensity of classic drama. Thus, they adapt the DNA of traditional fiction to digital consumption habits.

For brands and platforms, they become an agile and powerful bridge to connect with audiences seeking emotion in capsules.

Spending oriented towards enjoyment is consolidating as an emotional relief strategy in contexts of uncertainty. More and more people are prioritizing accessible and intentional pleasures—small daily indulgences—that offer immediate peaks of satisfaction and positive memories.

According to VML Intelligence data, 33% of Generation Z in the region state that they are spending more on themselves, and 23% are investing more in these "permitted luxuries," compared to only 13% of Generation X. This reflects a search for comfort, control, and a sense of deserving when other budget areas are being adjusted.

Brands leverage gaming, pop culture, and celebrity power to close the financial education gap. Through campaigns featuring recognized figures and gamified proposals, they transform a complex topic into accessible and engaging experiences.

In Latin America—marked by informality, historical distrust towards the system, and rapid digitalization—many companies are taking on an educational role that goes beyond sales.