Sam Mallikarjunan: AI, Disrupters, and the Physical World

Ahead of his talk at Turing Fest 2025 (May 7th-8th, Edinburgh), Sam Mallikarjunan to discusses his thoughts on new technology, the major challenges ahead and the future of tech.

Sam Mallikarjunan is a growth strategist, entrepreneur, and the Growth Lead at agent.ai. He is the
former CEO and co-founder of OneScreen.ai, a marketplace for out-of-home advertising, and
previously served as Chief Revenue Officer at Flock.com and Head of Growth at HubSpot Labs,
where he drove significant customer acquisition and revenue growth. Sam is a former instructor at
Harvard University, where he taught Advanced Digital Marketing and Innovation, and he currently
shares his expertise as a LinkedIn Learning Instructor. He is also the co-author of the bestseller
Inbound Commerce – How to Sell Better than Amazon and frequently offers insights on AI,
marketing, and business strategy.

1. What new technology do you believe will have the biggest impact on the product development, marketing or tech world in the next 12 to 24 months?

Without a doubt, the rise of artificial intelligence – especially the emergence of AI agents – will be the most impactful technology in the coming 12–24 months. We’re moving beyond simple generative AI that can draft emails or ads, into AI agents that can take autonomous actions on our behalf. In practice, that means AI systems will not just suggest what to do, but actually do it – analyzing data, making decisions, and executing tasks across apps without waiting for a human command. This is a profound shift: AI agents have a bit of “agency” (pun intended) in that they can carry out semi-complex jobs for you. I often compare them to eager interns – they have an unnecessary amount of confidence that they’re right, but you still need to keep an eye on them. When harnessed well, these AI agents can handle the drudgery and free us up for higher-level strategy and creativity.

What’s truly exciting is how this tech lowers the barrier to innovation. AI is becoming a force multiplier for every team, not just big companies with big budgets. It’s democratizing access to capabilities that used to require large staffs or advanced technical skills. A small startup or a lone marketer can now leverage AI agents to compete with far larger players on a more level field, whether it’s automating customer service or optimizing marketing campaigns in real time.

In fact, we may be on the verge of an economic shift as significant as the Industrial Revolution – but happening much faster. I tell businesses that they probably have “20 months to adapt in some way … or it’s going to put you at an irreparable disadvantage.” In other words, changes that used to play out over decades are now occurring in a span of mere years. The companies that embrace AI early – experiment with it, learn its nuances, and integrate it into their products and workflows – will have a huge advantage. Those that don’t will quickly find themselves disrupted or left behind.

To sum it up, the next 12–24 months will be defined by AI-driven transformation. We’ll see AI agents woven into product development cycles (automating testing, personalizing user experiences), into marketing (running multivariate campaigns and scaling one-to-one conversations), and into day-to-day work (as personal digital assistants). My team and I are already building platforms to help people coordinate multiple AI agents for work tasks because we see how much this will change how we live our lives at work. It’s an incredibly exciting time – but also a time for every product leader and marketer to pay attention and proactively ride this wave of AI innovation.

2. Reflecting on your experience, what major challenges do you anticipate product/growth/tech will face in the coming years? How do you think leaders should be preparing themselves and their teams to tackle these challenges?

The coming years will bring rapid, relentless change – faster than many organizations are used to. One key challenge will be simply keeping up with the pace of innovation. In tech and growth, there is no “coasting.” Industries are evolving constantly, and new disruptors can emerge overnight. If you’re doing anything worth doing, you can bet someone out there is trying to upend your business model. I often say you cannot wait and respond defensively

you must be the disruption that you fear. Companies that cling to “the way we’ve always done things” risk getting leap-frogged. Leaders should prepare by cultivating agility and a mindset of continuous innovation in their teams. Encourage your team to question assumptions and imagine “how would we put ourselves out of business?” – because it’s better to reinvent your own products than have a competitor do it. As I once put it, you can’t just mimic your industry’s Uber

you have to be your industry’s Uber.

Another major challenge I see is the human factor – maintaining trust, engagement, and talent in an era of information overload and high expectations. In marketing and sales, for example, trust in our profession has been abysmally low (in one poll a few years back, marketers ranked below politicians in trustworthiness!). Customers today are bombarded with information and have razor-sharp BS detectors. This means growth isn’t just about adopting new tech

it’s about standing out with authenticity and value. Leaders should instill a philosophy of “give before you take” – deliver real value to your audience before expecting anything in return. That’s how you build trust and long-term loyalty. We need to prepare our teams to focus on customer success and education, not just pushing a sale. I like to remind sales and marketing folks that the rep who “functions as the objective trusted adviser to the prospect’s process is the one that wins deals” – in other words, listening and teaching beats hard-selling in the long run. The same is true for product development: build trust by truly listening to user feedback and being transparent.

We also can’t ignore the organizational and cultural challenges that come with fast growth and tech shifts. As technology automates more tasks, the work human teams do will be more creative and complex – which requires a culture of learning and adapting. Leaders should prepare by investing in their people’s development and fostering an environment of experimentation. I’m a big believer in staying curious and encouraging my teams to “experiment freely” with new ideas and tools. Give your team the psychological safety to try things, fail, learn, and try again. This could mean setting up hack days, skunkworks projects, or “Labs” teams (like I led at HubSpot) whose mandate is to test crazy ideas. It also means training your team on emerging skills (say, prompt engineering for AI) and hiring for adaptability.

To tackle these challenges, leaders themselves need to walk the walk. It’s not enough to preach innovation or work-life balance – you have to model it (more on that later). Strategically, some steps I recommend:

Be Agile and Proactive: Don’t get caught waiting. Regularly review how emerging technologies (AI, VR, blockchain, etc.) could impact your product or market. Create small teams to explore “what’s next” so you’re leading change, not reacting to it. I was once tasked with figuring out how someone could disrupt HubSpot – that kind of exercise keeps you sharp.

Focus on Trust and Value: Make “customer value” your North Star metric. Encourage your marketing and product teams to ask at every turn: “Are we genuinely helping the customer?” If you prioritize helping over selling, the growth follows. I live by the principle “give value before you ask for anything”, because that’s what creates trust.

Empower Your People: Structure your organization for innovation. Break silos between product, marketing, and sales – they should be extremely aligned around the customer. Invest in hiring and upskilling talent who are adaptable. And crucially, build a culture where it’s okay to question, to fail, and to learn. The future doesn’t belong to those with the most resources, but to those “willing to experiment, learn, and reimagine what is possible.” Create that ethos on your team.

In short, the challenges of the future – from rapid tech disruption to changing buyer behaviors – can be met by organizations that are fast, empathetic, and people-centric. Double down on human creativity and trust, supported by the right tech and an agile culture. If you take care of your people and your customers, and stay boldly curious about new technology, you’ll be ready to navigate whatever comes next.

3. Considering recent advancements in AI, what are yourl thoughts on the ethical implications? From your perspective, what are the critical ethical challenges that need to be addressed as AI becomes more widespread?

The ethical implications of AI’s rapid rise are profound and multifaceted. As someone deeply involved in AI, I believe we must address several critical challenges to ensure this technology truly benefits everyone:

Fairness, Bias & Transparency: AI systems are only as good as the data and rules we give them. If the data is biased or incomplete, the AI’s decisions can unintentionally reinforce injustices. An ethical priority is making sure AI models are tested for bias and designed to treat people fairly. We need transparency around why an AI made a decision (especially in high-stakes areas like lending or hiring). In practice, this means developing standards for explainability and auditing AI outcomes for fairness. Users should be able to trust that AI isn’t a black box making life-altering choices based on biased history.

Intellectual Property & Credit: Modern AI draws on oceans of content – articles, art, code – created by humans. It raises the question of how to compensate original creators whose work trains AI models. If an AI writes a paragraph that sounds a lot like a famous author’s style, does that author get credit? Similarly, artists worry about AI trained on their illustrations. We need ethical frameworks (and likely new laws) to ensure creators are respected and perhaps even paid when their work feeds these models. AI companies should be transparent about their training data and allow creators to opt out or share in the value.

Job Displacement & Economic Impact: AI will automate some tasks that people do today – there’s no way around that. I’m generally optimistic that AI opens up new opportunities, but we can’t ignore the disruption to people’s livelihoods. Entry-level jobs or routine tasks (like basic customer support or data entry) might be handled by AI agents, which means fewer junior positions to bring humans into a field. The ethical challenge is how we, as a society, manage this transition. How do we retrain and upskill workers for the new roles that AI will create? Do we need new educational and economic models (like apprenticeship-style training or even universal basic income) to support those in transition? I often emphasize that AI should be a “digital partner” for people, not a replacement. Used well, it augments human workers – taking over the drudge work and freeing people for more creative, higher-value tasks – which can actually make jobs more fulfilling. But that positive outcome requires intentional effort from leaders to reposition roles and invest in their people, rather than just cutting headcount.

Responsible Use & Security: As AI gets more powerful, there’s potential for misuse – from deepfakes and misinformation to privacy invasions. An ethical AI strategy means putting guardrails in place. I often warn that tossing AI into your workflow without guidelines is “like putting a self-driving car on the road without rules.” We need clear policies on data privacy (e.g., not feeding sensitive customer data to external AI without consent), on accountability (e.g., if an AI agent makes a mistake, who corrects it and how do we prevent repeats?), and on safety (ensuring AI can’t be easily repurposed for harm). Security is also a huge factor – if an AI agent has access to your systems to execute tasks, you must protect it from being hacked or manipulated.

Beyond these challenges, there’s an overarching ethical question: What kind of future do we want with AI? My hope is that we use AI to make humans more human, and to enhance qualities like empathy, creativity, and connection. The worst-case scenario is using AI just to scale cheap, impersonal outputs – essentially flooding the world with more mediocrity or automating exploitation. I often caution people that “the lazy way to use AI is to say, how can I be mediocre at scale?” (e.g., blasting out thousands of AI-generated spam emails). That not only erodes trust, it squanders the real promise of this technology. The best use of AI, in my view, is to help individuals overcome their limitations and be their best selves. For example, I’ve seen AI help a friend with dyslexia communicate more clearly at work, and another friend uses AI to rephrase texts in a more thoughtful tone. This is AI enabling vulnerability and self-awareness – you can ask an AI the “dumb questions” you might be afraid to ask a coworker, without feeling judged, and get the knowledge you need. It can coach you to improve your communication style, not replace your voice. In other words, AI can make us more human, not less, if we use it intentionally.

So, ethically, we need to steer AI development and usage toward that higher goal. That means actively addressing bias, compensating creativity, smoothing the job transitions, and putting strong ethics and security at the core of AI projects. I’m involved in these conversations daily, and I push my team to think about not just what we’re building, but why. If we get this right, AI can truly be a tool that amplifies human potential and equity. But it won’t happen automatically – we have to build the guardrails and incentives now, before AI is everywhere, to ensure we steer toward the good and not the bad.

4. How do you envision the integration of emerging technologies like VR or AR evolving in professional environments where you work?:

Immersive technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) have huge potential to enhance how we work together, especially as remote and distributed teams become the norm. In my own experience, I’ve led fully remote teams spread across continents – from “Bali to Bucharest” as I often say – and I’ve even done the digital nomad thing, working from a camper van while traveling the country with my family. These experiences taught me the value of tools that bridge physical distance. Right now, we rely heavily on video calls, shared documents, and chat apps to collaborate across time zones. But it’s not quite the same as being in the same room, is it?

That’s where I see VR and AR stepping in. In the near future, I envision VR meeting spaces becoming a natural extension of our workplaces. Instead of another tired Zoom call, imagine putting on a VR headset and joining your team in a virtual project room – your avatars standing around the same whiteboard, post-it notes in hand, or examining a 3D model of your product prototype on the table. The tech is getting close. This could make brainstorming sessions or design reviews far more interactive and engaging than a grid of video thumbnails. We’ve already seen early examples of this in engineering and design fields where teams collaborate on 3D models in VR. As the hardware becomes more comfortable and the software more seamless, I expect more of us will start to “meet” in virtual spaces for certain types of work that benefit from that in-person feel. The key is that VR can provide a sense of presence and focus – when you’re virtual face-to-face, making eye contact (or at least headset to headset!), you tend to be more immersed in the discussion than when you’re half-listening on a conference call while checking email. It can bring some humanity back to remote work interactions.

AR, on the other hand, will likely shine in blending the digital and physical in our day-to-day workflows. In professional environments, AR can act like a real-time coach or assistant overlaying useful information onto your field of view. I’m excited about scenarios like these: an engineer wearing AR glasses that overlay schematics and step-by-step instructions onto a machine as they repair it

a sales rep getting live prompts or customer data in their glasses during a presentation, so they don’t have to break eye contact to look at notes

or even something as simple as walking into a coworking space and having floating labels that show who’s working on what project (opt-in, of course!). In my world of marketing and product growth, I could see AR being used for data visualization – imagine looking at a physical dashboard on your wall through your phone/AR glasses and seeing real-time campaign metrics animate in 3D, or post-its that digitally update themselves with the latest sprint progress. AR could also be powerful for training and onboarding: new employees might wear an AR device that highlights points of interest around the office or factory floor and provides contextual tips as they go through their first tasks.

Admittedly, VR/AR are not as mature in the workplace as AI is today. We’re likely a couple of years away from mass adoption for everyday use. There are also practical challenges – not everyone wants to wear a headset for hours, and seamless integration with our existing workflows is still being figured out. But I believe these technologies will find their stride in specific professional applications where they truly add value. My team is already discussing how, in the future, even our AI agent platform could leverage AR – for instance, an AR interface where you can see your fleet of AI agents as little helpers on your desk, showing you what they’re working on. It sounds a bit sci-fi, but so did smartphones and Zoom calls at one point.

In environments I work in – high-tech, collaborative, often remote – I foresee gradual integration of AR/VR to augment, not replace, our current tools. We’ll still Slack and email for a while, but maybe once a week the team hops into VR for a creative huddle. Or we’ll still have our laptops, but also an AR panel hovering to the side with additional insights during a meeting. The end goal is using these technologies to make work more intuitive and human-centric. If VR and AR can help people feel more connected despite physical distance, or help us understand complex information more easily, then they’ll become a natural part of our professional toolkit. I’m keeping an eye on it and, when it makes sense, I’ll be ready to pilot these technologies with my teams. After all, anything that helps people work better together – especially in a hybrid world – is worth a try.

5. In your opinion, what is the next big opportunity for tech innovation that you feel is currently being overlooked or isn’t receiving enough attention?:

One big opportunity that I think a lot of tech folks are overlooking is the convergence of the digital and physical worlds – specifically, innovating in spaces that blend technology with traditional offline industries. A great example (and a personal passion of mine) is out-of-home advertising and real-world marketing. We’ve spent the last 15 years obsessed with online channels – Google Ads, Facebook, SEO, you name it – and for good reason. But as a result, many marketers have almost completely written off traditional channels like billboards, direct mail, trade shows, etc. There’s a huge opportunity right now to bring modern technology (data, automation, AI) into those offline channels and reinvent them. When I was at HubSpot, I wish I had realized this – I joked later that I would have wrapped an ice cream truck with branding and driven it around a conference if I’d known how effective out-of-home could be!

Why is this such a big opportunity? Because digital channels are oversaturated and increasingly constrained by privacy changes. Online ads have become ridiculously competitive and expensive, and new privacy regulations (and browser changes) are limiting targeting and tracking that digital marketers used to rely on. Meanwhile, offline media like out-of-home (OOH) – think billboards, transit ads, digital screens in venues – have evolved quietly in the background, but many growth leaders aren’t paying attention. These aren’t your grandfather’s billboards

modern OOH can be bought programmatically, targeted using data (location, demographics), and measured for performance thanks to mobile location data and other proxies. It’s now possible to run an outdoor campaign and get metrics similar to what you expect from online campaigns. Yet budgets and mindshare haven’t caught up to this reality. Marketers still tend to default to Google/Facebook because that’s what they know, even if those channels are delivering diminishing returns.

I often say something happened to the brains of marketers in the last decade: we shifted from always seeking new ways to reach customers to simply optimizing the familiar channels that were easy to measure. We became addicted to the convenient ROI dashboards of digital ads and got timid about trying anything that didn’t have an instant, trackable payoff. That made sense under past pressure – CFOs love predictable numbers – but it means we’re under-indexing on innovation. The next big opportunity is to break out of that rut and explore the neglected avenues. There’s “a lot of leverage and a lot of opportunity in the things that we’ve blown off for the last 15 years,” as I’ve noted. For me, out-of-home advertising was one such goldmine. It combines the impact of physical presence (people actually see it in the real world, and there’s less ad blindness than online) with new tech that makes it easier to execute and tie back to results. We found that when companies mix online and offline tactics, they can capture people’s attention in ways their competitors aren’t. It can be a growth channel hiding in plain sight.

Beyond advertising, this “overlooked convergence” theme applies to other areas too. Think of industries like education, healthcare, or logistics – many have been slow to digitize fully. The pandemic accelerated some of it (telehealth, remote education tools, etc.), but there are still corners where modern tech hasn’t penetrated. Innovators who bring fresh tech to these less glamorous sectors can unlock enormous value. For instance, applying AI or IoT to improve farming (agritech) or manufacturing might not sound as sexy as the latest social app, but there’s huge opportunity (and money to be made) in increasing yields or efficiency in the physical economy.

In summary, the next big opportunity I see is tech enabling new growth in the offline world. In marketing, that means revisiting channels like out-of-home and direct mail armed with data and automation. In product terms, it means solving real-world problems that Silicon Valley hype cycles have ignored. We’re at a point where the playing field is very crowded in the purely digital arena – which is exactly why looking outside of it is so promising. My advice to entrepreneurs and innovators is to zig where others zag: explore the spaces everyone else dismisses. Often, that’s where the breakthrough growth can happen. As one example, my team’s foray into out-of-home taught me that when a channel or idea seems “old school,” it might just be ripe for a renaissance with the right tech approach. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit out there for those willing to venture outside the digital bubble.

6. From your own experience, how do you see the continuing evolution of remote work and its technologies impacting your own work-life balance?:**

Remote work has been a game-changer in my life and career – in both positive and challenging ways. I’ve been working with remote and distributed teams for years (long before it became as widespread as it is now), and I even took the opportunity to travel around the country with my family while still doing my job remotely. The evolution of remote work technology – from Slack to Zoom to whatever AI-driven collaboration tools are coming next – has enabled an incredible amount of freedom and flexibility in how I work. I can hire great talent regardless of geography, I can collaborate with colleagues in London or Sydney from my home office, and I’ve been able to integrate work with life in ways that weren’t possible in a strict 9-to-5 office setting. For example, being remote allowed me to spend more time with family

I wasn’t stuck in a commute during the hours my kids were home. That’s a huge plus for work-life balance. I firmly believe remote work (and its cousin, hybrid work) is here to stay, and overall it empowers us to design a work life that fits life better.

However, the flip side of that freedom is the blurring of boundaries. When your office is also your home (or basically, your laptop travels with you everywhere), it’s very easy for work to seep into every hour of the day. I’ll admit, I’ve struggled with this at times. There were periods in my career – especially in startups – where remote work meant I never really stopped working. I’ve had to learn (sometimes the hard way) to set boundaries for myself. One lesson I’ve learned and now preach to others is: if you don’t deliberately unplug, you will burn out. It’s ironic – remote work was supposed to give us balance, but without discipline it can actually lead to overwork because there’s no physical office to leave. I even had an experience early in my career where I worked so continuously (nights, weekends, you name it) that I hit a wall and ended up quitting my job for a short break because I was completely burned out. That taught me an important lesson about balance and pacing.

The good news is that the culture around remote work is catching up. Smart companies now recognize that you can’t just give people laptops and Wi-Fi and expect healthy habits. I often say that the tone for work-life balance is set by leadership, especially in a remote environment. If the boss is sending midnight emails and never taking a vacation, the team gets the unspoken message that they’re expected to be “always on,” even from home. At one company (HubSpot) we actually moved to an unlimited vacation policy, but found people took even less time off because they felt guilty or uncertain. We had to enforce a minimum of two weeks vacation a year to ensure everyone unplugged! That experience taught me that organizations must be intentional about encouraging time off and setting boundaries.

In my teams now, I make it a point to openly talk about balance, encourage people to block off personal time, and I try (still working on this!) to model good behavior by not messaging people at odd hours and by taking time off myself. As a leader, if I say “don’t work on weekends” but then I’m working on a Saturday, it sends a mixed message. I wrote about this – “Leaders, be the work/life balance you want to see in the world” – because ultimately our teams will follow what we do, not what we say.

Technology is also helping address the challenges. We’re seeing better tools for async communication that respect people’s off hours (features like Slack’s “delay send” or status messages that say someone’s offline). The continued evolution of remote tech, I suspect, will focus a lot on mitigating burnout and fostering human connection. For example, smarter meeting schedulers that cluster your video calls to avoid Zoom fatigue all day, or virtual commute rituals that help mentally start and end the day. Some companies are even doing things like “Zoom-free Fridays” or enforced offline days to give people a break. I embrace those kinds of ideas.

For me personally, remote work’s evolution has meant I can integrate work into my life in a healthy way if I set clear rules. I love that I can do things like exercise at lunchtime, or go for a walk with my daughter in the afternoon and make up for it later in the evening – that flexibility is priceless. But I also have to guard against the workday extending to 10pm every night. I now schedule personal activities on my calendar (just as I would meetings) to create forcing functions to log off. I also use some personal rules, like no Slack on my phone after a certain hour, or taking walks to bookend the “work day” even if I’m home – a fake commute of sorts to switch gears. These little habits help keep me sane.

Overall, I see remote work continuing to empower better work-life integration for myself and my teams, as long as we remain mindful. The technology will keep improving to support that – making collaboration easier across time zones, reducing the need for synchronous firefighting, and hopefully encouraging healthier work patterns. It’s on each of us, though, to take advantage of the flexibility for our well-being, not to let work take over our homes. I’m optimistic because employees are voicing these concerns more now, and forward-thinking companies are listening. The future of work is remote/hybrid, so the future of culture and balance at work has to evolve with it. I’m continuously adapting my own approach to make the most of remote work’s benefits (family time, travel, focus time) while curbing the downsides (overwork, isolation). It’s a journey, but one I’m grateful to be on – I wouldn’t trade the flexibility of remote work, because done right, it truly lets you design a life where work fits in around your life, not the other way around.

In ten years, I predict that technology and sustainability will be inextricably linked in how every business and industry operates – to the point that “tech innovation” and “sustainable innovation” will essentially become one and the same. In fact, I’ll go as far as saying that sustainability will be one of the driving forces of tech disruption in the coming decade. Just as we’ve seen digital transformation define the last 10–15 years, I believe green transformation will define the next 10. Companies that leverage technology to reduce their carbon footprint, optimize resource usage, and create sustainable products will outcompete those that don’t, because consumers, investors, and regulators are all moving in that direction.

On a very practical level, we’re already seeing early signs. At OneScreen, the startup I co-founded, we felt a responsibility to make advertising more sustainable – so we started planting trees to offset the carbon impact of our billboard campaigns and even built it into our business model. I’ve said before that “from individuals and businesses to industries and countries, it’s our responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support our planet.” That ethos is only going to get stronger across the tech world.

My bold prediction is that within a decade, carbon-neutral (or even carbon-negative) operations will be the expected norm for successful companies. Tech will play a huge role in that shift: from AI optimizing energy grids and supply chains for maximum efficiency, to IoT sensors monitoring everything from factory emissions to office energy use in real time. We’ll manage resources with an unprecedented level of precision thanks to technology. For example, AI-driven systems will dynamically route electricity, traffic, and logistics in ways that minimize waste – cutting down idle times, reducing fuel consumption, and so on. Sustainability will move from a niche “corporate social responsibility” topic to a core design principle in products and processes.

I also foresee massive innovation in clean energy and climate tech, much of it powered by advances in AI, materials science, and data analytics. Over the next ten years, we’ll likely see breakthroughs in areas like battery storage (finally solving the intermittency of solar/wind), smart grids that intelligently balance load and maybe even household-level energy trading, and perhaps scalable carbon capture solutions. What gets me excited is imagining an AI similar to the ones we use in marketing, but pointed at climate problems – say an AI agent whose job is to continuously monitor and tweak a building’s energy usage. It might notice patterns humans don’t and cut energy use by, say, 30% without anyone feeling a difference, simply by adjusting HVAC or lighting based on actual occupancy and weather predictions. Multiply that kind of savings across thousands of buildings and cities, and you have a huge impact.

Another bold change I predict: greater transparency and accountability via tech. In ten years, it’ll be much harder for a company to greenwash (i.e., fake being sustainable) because data will be everywhere. Consumers might use apps that scan a product and show its entire environmental footprint, verified by blockchain or public databases. Companies will compete on sustainability metrics as visibly as they do on price or quality. We might even see sustainability scores displayed next to stock prices – who knows! And the companies that score well will attract more customers and better talent (today’s younger workers care deeply about these issues). In that sense, sustainability will intersect with tech in HR and recruiting too: remote work (as we discussed) can reduce commuting emissions and open up talent pools, and companies can tout that as part of their impact.

Let me give a concrete example from marketing, since that’s my home turf: I expect that in the next decade, running an ad campaign will come with an automatic carbon analysis. When you plan a campaign – whether it’s digital or out-of-home – the software might tell you the estimated carbon impact (from data center usage for digital, or printing and materials for physical ads). It will then suggest or even automatically execute offsets or alternatives to reduce that impact. We started doing this by planting a tree for every OOH campaign impression on our platform to make ads carbon-neutral. Ten years from now, that kind of practice might be standard. Perhaps every major online ad network will give you the option to run your campaign on servers powered by renewables, or to contribute to carbon removal based on your campaign’s footprint. The “next big thing” could be marketing campaigns that proudly advertise their sustainability (“this campaign planted 10,000 trees” could be a badge on ads).

So, my bold prediction in a sentence: Tech innovation in the 2020s will be largely aimed at sustainability, and the winners in tech will be those who make the planet a stakeholder in their success. By 2035, I think we’ll look back and be astonished at how quickly green tech became ubiquitous. Just as today we can’t imagine a business without the internet, in ten years we won’t imagine a business that isn’t actively leveraging technology to be sustainable.

The intersection of tech and sustainability will spawn new industries (think about the jobs created by the solar and wind boom, now add AI on top of that), and it will also redefine old ones (e.g., agriculture with precision farming, transportation with electric and autonomous vehicles coordinating to reduce congestion). Finally, I’ll add that this isn’t just idealism – it’s grounded in a trend I already see. When we partnered with a platform to plant trees, it wasn’t only for feel-good reasons

it made business sense because employees and clients loved it. Purpose and profit are aligning more than ever. Technology is the amplifier that can make solutions scalable. I’m excited for a future where every tech breakthrough asks, “How does this make life better and more sustainable?” If we do that consistently for ten years, the changes will be remarkable – a cleaner planet and a thriving tech-driven economy can go hand in hand.

8. If you could implement changes to the way people work based on your own routines and practices, what specific adjustments would you make to improve productivity or well-being?:

Over the years, I’ve experimented with my own work habits and led teams of all shapes and sizes, and I’ve learned a few truths about productivity and well-being. If I had a magic wand to change how people work, here are the key adjustments I would champion:

Make Work-Life Balance Non-Negotiable: First and foremost, I’d ensure that taking care of your life outside work is not seen as a luxury, but as a requirement. This means leaders actively modeling and enforcing downtime. I’ve written about this: if leaders preach balance but answer emails at 2 AM, it doesn’t work. We need policies and cultural signals that it’s not only okay to unplug – it’s expected. For example, I would institute minimum vacation mandates (just like we ended up doing at HubSpot, forcing people to actually take at least two weeks off a year). I’d encourage teams to set “quiet hours” when no one is expected to respond to messages. In my own routine, I block out time for family or exercise and treat it like a meeting – and I encourage my team to do the same. The goal is to prevent burnout before it happens. As I often remind fellow leaders: “If we don’t want our best people to burn out and quit, we have to be clear that work is not all-consuming of life, AND we have to enforce that culture by taking the time off we want them to take.” So one big change is to be the example: leave the office (or log off) at a reasonable hour, take vacations, and openly value rest and family time. This creates a healthier, more productive team in the long run.

Embrace Transparency and Authentic Communication: I would transform workplace communication to be far more open, honest, and yes – even vulnerable. Too often in companies, employees and leaders alike hide behind a polished professionalism, only sharing wins or carefully filtered messages. I’ve learned that this stifles growth and trust. I’d rather see people comfortably say “I don’t know” or “I need help” or share a half-baked idea without fear. In my own practice, I’ve moved away from the “highly curated, self-promotional drivel” and started sharing real, unfiltered updates about what’s working and what’s not. I encourage my team to do the same. Adopting a build-in-public mentality internally – where teams share progress, experiments, failures, and learnings in real time – can hugely improve collective learning and reduce duplicate effort or silent struggles. It creates an atmosphere where feedback is a gift, not a threat. Concretely, this could mean more open documentation, regular show-and-tell meetings for work in progress, and leaders being candid about challenges. When I post about our strategy or predictions, I even share things I’m unsure about, and invite input. That kind of authenticity is powerful. It humanizes the workplace and boosts well-being because people don’t feel they have to wear a mask at work. Imagine a workplace where nobody is afraid to say “I made a mistake” because they know it’ll be met with “Great, what did we learn from it?” That’s the culture I strive for. So, less corporate-speak, more real talk. Let’s drop the fear of negative comments – as I had to deliberately do – and foster an environment of trust and openness.

Use Technology to Augment Humans, Not Replace Them: I am a tech nerd and always will be, but my philosophy is that tools should make work easier and people better, not just make people redundant or life harder. One change I’d implement is training everyone to use tools like AI as a personal productivity booster or skill coach. For instance, I’ve seen colleagues use AI to improve their writing or to draft a respectful email when they’re feeling frustrated – essentially using tech to become better communicators. I often tell the story: “Better than using AI to be inauthentic at scale is using AI to be the best communicator you can be.” That encapsulates it. I would encourage employees to lean on AI for the small stuff – summarizing meeting notes, suggesting initial ideas, checking grammar – so they can focus their energy on the creative and strategic work that only humans can do. I’d also implement AI as a kind of on-demand mentor: let people ask the “dumb questions” to a bot if they’re too shy to ask a coworker, so they can learn faster without stigma. On the flip side, I’d caution against the overload of tools – sometimes too many apps and pings hurt productivity. So I’d streamline workflows with tech consolidation (fewer, better tools) and encourage practices like “status asynchs” (where an AI can compile everyone’s updates instead of another meeting). The mantra is: work smarter, not harder. Use the best of tech to automate grunt work, to inform decisions with data, and to help each person perform at their peak – but always with a human in the driver’s seat.

Prioritize Well-being and Personal Growth as Metrics of Success: Lastly, I would change the way we define a “productive” employee or team. It’s not just output or hours logged – it should include well-being. I’d love to see companies track and value things like employee happiness, mental health days taken, or learning milestones achieved. In my teams, I try to have discussions about personal goals, not just project goals. If someone on my team says, “I want to learn coding” or “I’m trying to get better at public speaking,” we treat that as important, and we’ll set them up with resources or opportunities. For my own routine, I schedule reading time and courses, because continuous learning keeps me energized – and I consider that just as important as answering emails. If I could wave that wand, every manager would be as concerned about their team’s growth and wellness as they are about this quarter’s results. Concretely: normalize taking mental health days without stigma, encourage walking meetings or midday workouts, set up mentorship programs, and celebrate when people use their full vacation allotment. When people are healthy, motivated, and constantly improving themselves, they do their best work. Productivity soars sustainably, not in unsustainable burnout sprints.

In summary, the changes I’d push all center on a simple idea: treat people like the creative, whole humans they are, not “resources” to be squeezed. By promoting balance, honesty, smart use of tools, and personal growth, we create an environment where productivity and well-being reinforce each other. I’ve seen the difference it makes – teams that followed these principles not only hit their numbers but did so with smiles on their faces and gas left in the tank. If I can influence the way we work, I want to see more people excited to start work on Monday, and also able to log off at a reasonable time to enjoy their evening. That’s not utopian

it’s achievable with mindful changes. After all, happy, balanced teams build better products and companies. And as a bonus, they stick around longer, which creates a virtuous cycle of expertise and trust. So let’s enforce those vacations, share our real thoughts, leverage our AI sidekicks, and never forget that life is too short to be a burnout badge of honor. Those are changes I’m implementing with my teams today – and I’d love to see them adopted everywhere.

Sam Mallikarjunan’s Turing Fest talk:** Surviving the Future: Innovation & Leadership in the Age of Chaos

The AI revolution is redefining how we create value. In “Surviving the Future,” Sam provides leaders with a roadmap for thriving amid technological disruption and uncertainty while examining AI’s impact across five domains:

A. Strategic Adaptation: How AI is redefining competitive advantage and why traditional strategic models are becoming obsolete.

B. Monetization Evolution: Transforming revenue models and customer expectations in the age of AI.

C. Organizational Transformation: Implications for org structures, talent development, and workforce evolution.

D. Economic Recalibration: Navigating shifts in labor markets, supply chains, and resource allocation.

E. Ethical Leadership: Confronting complex challenges from algorithmic bias to privacy concerns.

Attendees will leave with a clearer vision for leading through technological transformation, and a vision for how they can thrive in the age of AI-driven chaos.