How are modern milestones and AI reshaping the path to success?

Read the full What the Future: Success issue

What brand doesn’t want its customers to succeed? For generations, the American timeline of success followed a predictable script: graduate, get a job, buy a house and start a family. Historically, this ladder relied on education, homeownership, mobility and entrepreneurship. Each milestone shaped how people spent and saved.

Today, those benchmarks are happening on a different timeline, if at all, and many Americans are falling short of their most important goals. Just as we found in the American Dream issue last year, a majority of Americans (68%) still believe in the dream, but a growing majority (88%) think it’s harder to reach than it used to be. And for Gen Z, there’s been a 22-point jump since last year in their belief that the U.S. economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful. Meanwhile, 43% of Americans say they want one full-time job that pays the bills, a data point that challenges the “hustle culture” driving work today.

In What the Future: Success, we’ll dive into these shifting attitudes and what they mean for business. We’ll also cover how brand leaders across industries and public policy can adapt to these evolving benchmarks by understanding where consumers are today to help them succeed tomorrow.

Keep reading below and register for our companion webinar on companion webinar.

For full results, download the annotated questionnaire or the Ipsos Future of Success data tables.

Introduction

Who wins when customers shift the milestones of success?  Matt Carmichael, editor, What the Future

Interviews & Features 

How will AI help consumers DIY their own success?  John Paul Marcantonio, president and CEO at Bosch Power Tools North America
What happens to financial goals when traditional milestones shift?  Jill Perlberg, vice president, head of marketing at Northwestern Mutual
Are younger Americans redefining success or rescheduling it?  What the data on shifting timelines means for modern brand strategy
What defines the entrepreneurial dream in an AI-first world?  Laura Behrens Wu, founder and CEO at Shippo
Tensions  Brand insights from Ipsos experts