Can Bill Gates really predict the future?

The tech prophet's hits and misses

Step aside, Nostradamus. Bill Gates has made many remarkably insightful and spookily accurate predictions about society over the years, anticipating everything from smartphones and streaming services to the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting homeworking revolution.

The software magnate and mega-philanthropist hasn't always been spot-on though, with some of his forecasts totally missing the mark. Read on to discover 23 predictions Microsoft's co-founder got right and seven that didn't come to pass.

All dollar amounts in US dollars.

Smartphones

Released in 1995, Gates's first book, The Road Ahead, is loaded with intriguing predictions, including the emergence of "the wallet PC".

Dubbed "the new Swiss army knife", Gates imagined that this dinky multitasking mobile device would allow users to send and receive emails, check the weather, play games, and more. He was, of course, describing what we know today as the smartphone. 

Streaming services

Gates foresaw the rise of streaming services like Netflix and HBO Max, which he described in both The Road Ahead and during a 1994 interview with Playboy.

The tech pioneer told the magazine that people would be able to watch movies on demand and even predicted that content-based recommendation algorithms would suggest suitable titles based on the user's preferences.

COVID-19 pandemic

Gates had been warning of the high likelihood of a devastating pandemic for years and was sadly proved right when COVID-19 spread around the globe in early 2020.

In 2015, the Microsoft co-founder gave a TED talk where he explained that the world wasn't ready for the next big pandemic. Gates says he urged President Trump the following year to bolster America's readiness, and in spring 2018 the tech genius predicted that the next pandemic would happen within a decade.

WFH revolution and hybrid working

When you're as instrumental as Gates is when it comes to shaping the future, predicting upcoming trends can be a piece of cake, and the working from home revolution and the resulting rise of remote working were also foreseen by the tech billionaire.

In his 1995 bestseller, he envisaged that workers would eventually use a hybrid working model, as many do now, including Microsoft employees. The pandemic has only served to hasten the transition.

Online learning

Similarly, Gates predicted the rise of remote learning, too. In The Road Ahead, Gates wrote that homeschooling would become more prevalent thanks to technological advancements and he certainly wasn't wrong.

Again, the pandemic accelerated this trend – between the spring and autumn of 2020, the number of homeschooled students in America doubled.

e-book readers

The e-book was invented in 1971 by University of Illinois student Michael Hart. However, the very first e-reader, NuvoMedia's Rocketbook, wasn't created until 1997, while the first successful mass-market device, the Amazon Kindle, only arrived in 2007.

In his 1995 book, Gates anticipated the popularity of the gadget years before it went mainstream, noting: "Ultimately, incremental improvements in computer and screen technology will give us a lightweight, universal electric book, or 'e-book'."

Global satellite internet

In 1994, Gates invested in a satellite internet company called Teledesic and predicted in his book the following year that "hundreds of low-orbit inexpensive satellites by Teledesic will provide global fiber-quality internet." 

A casualty of the dot-com bubble, Teledesic failed to deliver and suspended its operations in 2002. However, other firms have taken its place, most notably Viasat and Elon Musk's Space X, via its Starlink constellation.

Price comparison sites

Gates was bang on the money with his prediction about price comparison websites, which appeared in his 1999 book Business @ the Speed of Thought. "Automated price comparison services will be developed, allowing people to see prices across multiple websites, making it effortless to find the cheapest product for all industries," he wrote.

In fact, the experimental BargainFinder, which is considered the first price comparison engine, had already launched in 1995. However, so-called 'shopbots' only hit the mainstream in the 2000s.

Online payments and internet banking

Pizza Hut's experimental PizzaNet digital ordering hub launched in 1994 and accepted the first ever internet order, although the customer had to pay in cash on delivery.

The first encrypted online payment was processed by Visa that same year. Also in 1994, Stanford Federal Credit Union became the first financial institution to offer internet banking, so it comes as no surprise that Gates wrote in his 1999 book that "people will pay their bills [and] take care of their finances...over the internet."

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Social media

One of the central principles of Gates' 1995 bestseller was that technology would facilitate unprecedented social networking, and Gates went on to speculate in his 1999 book that "private websites for your friends and family will be common, allowing you to chat and plan for events."

Still, in 2020, the tech billionaire revealed that he didn't realize how polarizing social media would be, or that so many people would filter out opposing viewpoints to reinforce their existing perspectives.

Digital music

Gates correctly predicted the rise of digital music in The Road Ahead, suggesting: "Record companies, or even individual recording artists, might choose to sell music a new way. The music will be stored as bits of information on a server on the highway."

By "highway", he means "information (super)highway", a term coined by Al Gore in the 1990s that describes the internet, TV, and telecoms networks.

Online discussion boards

The first software dedicated to online forum protocol launched in 1994. Gates waxed lyrical about the emergence of online discussion boards in his 1999 book, predicting that "residents of cities and countries will be able to have internet-based discussions concerning issues that affect them, such as local politics, city planning, or safety."

Remote home monitoring

In Business @ the Speed of Thought, Gates surmised that "constant video feeds of your house will become common, informing you of when somebody visits while you are not home."

Given the ubiquity of remote home monitoring these days, it's safe to say that the tech seer was 100% accurate with this prediction.

Targeted online advertising

Cookies, which enable individual web tracking, were invented by Netscape in 1994, while rudimentary targeted online ads were launched the following year but didn't really become sophisticated until the mid-2000s.

Gates saw the massive potential in both and wrote in his 1999 book that "devices will have smart advertising. They will know your purchasing trends, and will display advertisements that are tailored toward your preferences."

Online recruiting and professional networks

Gates also foresaw the rise of online recruiting in his 1999 book and more or less anticipated the emergence of platforms such as Linkedin, which was launched in 2003 from founder Reid Hoffman's living room in Mountain View, California.

"People looking for work will be able to find employment opportunities online by declaring their interest, needs, and specialized skills," Gates wrote.

Remote doctor consultations

Remote doctor consultations over Microsoft Teams, Skype, Zoom, and so on became de rigueur during the pandemic and are commonplace now.

Gates alluded to this in Business @ the Speed of Thought, describing how people in the future would "communicate with their doctors over the internet."

Virtual assistants

While he called them "personal companions" in his 1999 book, Gates pretty much predicted the dawn of virtual assistants, which would be able to do things like check your emails and tell you the ingredients you needed for a recipe, all while staying in sync with every single one of your other devices.

These days, virtual assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Microsoft's very own Cortana do all this and more.

Content is king

Gates famously wrote an essay titled Content is King in 1996, where he predicted how most of the money generated on and from the internet would come from content.

He certainly wasn't wrong. Quality content that appeals to users and engages them is absolutely essential today, and underpins modern digital marketing. 

Smart homes

Gates raved about the possibilities of the future smart home in his 1995 book. He even incorporated state-of-the-art home automation tech into his own property. His Xanadu 2.0 mansion in Medina, Washington was completed in 1997 at a cost of $63 million, around $125 million in 2025 dollars.

Strikingly ahead of its time, the property was kitted out with all manner of tech wizardry, allowing the family to control lighting, temperature, music, and more.

Online voting

In the 1995 book, Gates predicted that "voters will be able to cast their ballots from home on their wallet PCs with less risk of miscounts or fraud."

Online voting hasn't caught on quite as well as the Microsoft co-founder might have anticipated due, ironically, to concerns over fraud. However, it's becoming more prevalent. According to online sources, 17 countries have allowed online voting to take place, but only Estonia permits all eligible citizens to cast their ballots online.

Google Earth VR

The tech soothsayer also used The Road Ahead to claim that in the future "you'll be able to jump into a map so you can navigate down a street or through the rooms of a building."

The prediction came to pass in 2016 when Google launched the fully immersive Google Earth VR, which worked with HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets, enabling users to explore the world in virtual reality.

Mass surveillance

One of Gates' more ominous forecasts also appeared in his 1995 book. He imagined there would be video cameras next to every street lamp, recording everything that happened and resulting in people leading "documented lives", ultimately meaning they'd never have to prove their innocence if they were ever wrongly accused of committing a crime.

His prediction might sound very 1984. However, this sort of surveillance society is emerging in places like China, which has the highest concentration of CCTV cameras in the world.

Internet kiosks

In another prediction that ended up being half-right, Gates envisioned that internet kiosks would be absolutely everywhere, "in much the same way that drinking fountains, rest rooms, and pay phones are available now". 

While they're not as commonplace as Gates might have thought they'd be, kiosks like those from Link are fairly commonplace in cities around the world these days, particularly in New York: the Big Apple will eventually boast around 7,500 'Links' across its metropolitan area.

But what about the predictions Bill Gates got wrong...?

The internet would flop

Now we've arrived at Gates' predictions that ultimately fell flat. He underestimated the internet big-time in the early 1990s, and allegedly said in 1994 that he saw "little commercial potential" for it over the next decade. He was equally dismissive of it in 1995's The Road Ahead.

The Microsoft boss soon learned the error of his ways though, and fully embraced the technology as outlined in his legendary Internet Tidal Wave memo, which was sent not long after his book was published. The following year, The Road Ahead was updated to reflect the growing importance of the internet.

Voice search takeover

Gates has long been an advocate of voice search and, during a speech he was giving at Carnegie Mellon University in 2008, described how “there'll be more searches done through speech than through the keyboard five years from now."

That certainly wasn't the case in 2013, and while adoption has since grown significantly, voice-enabled search is yet to eclipse the trusty keyboard.

Death of print Yellow Pages in 2012

Back in 2007, Gates predicted the demise of printed phone directories. During a Q&A session at the Microsoft Strategic Account Summit 2007, he said usage among the under-50s would drop to zero by 2012.

A survey conducted in 2010 found that 60% of Americans aged 25 to 29 were still using the Yellow Pages, so it's unlikely his prediction came true in time. However, the print version is considered obsolete now and has all but died in the US and other countries around the world.

Tablet takeover

During a speech in 2002, Gates envisaged that "within five years, I predict [the tablet] will be the most popular form of PC sold in America."

While that hadn't occurred by 2007, sales of all brands of tablet in the US did surpass desktops and notebooks by 2015, meaning Gates had simply got the timescale wrong, as he did with his Yellow Pages prediction.

Death of spam in 2006

Gates proclaimed that the demise of spam messaging was imminent during an interview with the BBC back in 2004, saying that it would be "a thing of the past in two years' time."

If only he had been right. According to data from Statista, almost 46% of email traffic in 2023 was considered spam, though it's interesting to note this percentage has plummeted from over 80% in 2011.

Death of the password

Speaking at a cybersecurity conference in San Francisco in 2004, Gates predicted the death of the password, telling the audience: "There is no doubt that over time people are going to rely less and less on passwords." 

This is true to some extent when you consider the alternatives available, such as fingerprint and facial recognition. However, the humble password is still very much with us.

Death of the mouse

In 2008, Gates suggested that the computer mouse would soon meet its demise. During his final speech at the Consumer Electronics Show as Microsoft CEO, the outgoing big boss heralded the end of the gadget, telling the audience that the devices of the future would be controlled by touch, voice, or with a stylus.

Again, this is a prediction that may come to pass eventually. However, the computer mouse still remains popular and it seems likely that fans of the device will be loath to see it go.

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