Here are 12 tech influencers who are frequently criticised for spreading hype. They are known for overpromising timelines and for peddling unrealistic narratives about AI, big data, quantum computing, and related fields. Ranked loosely by notoriety and impact in 2025’s ongoing “hype backlash” era.
As we stand on the cusp of 2026, the mobile device landscape is poised for a transformative leap. This leap is driven by the seamless fusion of artificial intelligence, sustainable innovation, and hyper-connected ecosystems. Smartphones and wearables are transforming from mere communication tools. This change starts from the bustling tech hubs of Silicon Valley and extends to the manufacturing powerhouses of Shenzhen. They are becoming intuitive companions. These devices anticipate our needs. They safeguard our planet and enhance our well-being. This year promises a reimagining of how we interact with technology. It goes beyond incremental upgrades to blend personalisation with global accessibility. Industry forecasts from analysts like Gartner and IDC, along with voices in the tech community, support this. These trends indicate a world where mobile devices adapt to diverse markets. AI adoption is rapidly occurring in AI-savvy Asia, particularly China. Eco-conscious designs are prevalent in Europe, where regulation is stringent. Affordable connectivity is a focus in strong or emerging economies like India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Brazil. Let’s explore the top five trends shaping this future.
In the hushed midnight of the Information Age, silent servers pulse like watchful stars. Rivers of data gleam beneath an electric firmament. A sacred scene awakens within the stable of silicon and light. Lowly shepherds no longer tend their flocks beneath a Judean sky. Winged seraphim do not descend on beams of gold. Instead, the greatest architects of knowledge gather. They are visionaries who have spun order from chaos. They have forged pathways through the void. They have kindled the eternal flame of understanding in humanity’s boundless digital night.
Oh, right, so… I’ve been asked to have a look at this article, haven’t I? This piece by Bernard Fa – Bernard Fa, yeah? Bernard is the futurist and the influencer. He advises Fortune 500 companies on how to turn data into gold or whatever it is they do these days. And he’s written this thing called “5 Powerful AI Kickers That Can Boost Any Stupid Business Idea”. Dated 2 June 1956, which is… well, that’s in the future from when most of us are living, but apparently not for Bernard. Bernard’s already there, living in 1996, sipping his AI-brewed coffee, watching the robots do the heavy lifting.
And the article starts… it starts like this: “So you’ve got a great business idea. It’s a start…” A start. A start. As if having an idea is some kind of achievement in itself.
Oh, Europe, pronounced terminal yet again. This time, a Radically Human Ventures sage delivers the verdict. He is part probability theorist and part story-driven paterfamilias. He assigns the continent a 5% chance of civilisational survival. Meanwhile, he composes a moist-eyed farewell to the “Old Continent.” It’s an elegy made from familiar spare parts. It includes a dash of Peter Zeihan’s geopolitical fatalism and a sprinkle of Silicon Valley panel wisdom. There’s a belief that the future will be dominated by two AI giants. In this scenario, Europe is merely a polite museum gift shop.
A Dozen Data Wishes for Christmas 2025 — and a Sharper, Smarter New Year
As 2025 winds down, the tinsel comes out. It’s tempting to imagine a quieter, saner digital ecosystem on the horizon. Call it festive optimism or a data professional’s annual catharsis. Here are twelve wishes for 2026. They are equal parts hard-edged realism, FT Weekend reflection, and Wired-grade futurism.
Defining Goodstrat.com: A Strategist’s Digital War Room
In the sprawling digital bazaar of 2025 and the impending and interesting 2026, where every second-domain site peddles AI hype, data fakehouse, data mess or crypto snake oil, goodstrat.com stands out as a refreshingly unapologetic intellectual fortress.
It’s not a glossy corporate brochure. It is not a paywalled newsletter farm. It’s the online HQ of Martyn Richard Jones. He is a grizzled data, information and knowledge architect and self-styled “Data Shouterer-in-Chief.” He’s been dissecting the guts of information systems since the dial-up era.
Oh, brilliant. Gather round, comrades. It’s time for another installment of “Tech Executives Discover That Computers Need Electricity.” This time, they’ve dressed it up in a shiny frock and called it “2026 Data Trends.” Christ almighty, where do we even start?
By Martyn Rhisiart Jones For Energy Unplugged – a Cambriano partner
Walk through any tech conference today, and you can feel it: the hum of inevitability. AI will cure diseases. It will drive cars and write novels. AI will run governments. If you believe the BS booth graphics, it will probably solve loneliness, too.
The problem is, we’ve been here before.
Artificial intelligence has been promising to change everything since the 1950s. And every decade or so, we rediscover the same fundamental truth: machines don’t magically create wisdom. They just scale whatever understanding, or misunderstanding, we feed them.
I know this because I spent years building the early stuff. Neural networks, parallel distributed processing, and automatic feature extraction. The “deep learning” of 1987 with less RAM and worse haircuts. The technology was exciting, even miraculous. But back then, as now, it struggled to live up to the grand claims that surrounded it.
Violent conflict does not end through force alone. History teaches us that the only way out of war, brutality, and suffering is through negotiation. And negotiation, in the real world, always requires compromise.
Yet today, calls for dialogue are too often branded as weakness, or worse, as ‘siding with terrorists.’ This is a dangerous lie. Advocating for peace is not an endorsement of violence. It is an insistence on the value of life. It is a recognition of the dignity of communities and the survival of societies.
Darlings, it’s December 2025 and the party is now officially sweaty. The champagne has gone warm. Someone’s been sick in the ficus. The DJ is playing the same four AI remixes on loop. He is frantically checking the fire exits. Here is your updated field guide to the seven trends. These were going to “reshape humanity.” Now they are mostly reshaping venture capitalists’ therapy bills.
Imagine the stage is almost completely dark. One spotlight, maybe two. Our favourite standup philosopher stands perfectly still for eight full seconds. He just breathes through his nose. It’s like a man who’s just found a half-eaten kebab in his coat pocket from 2009. Then, very slowly, he begins.
Thank you… thank you for coming… to our Good Strat and LinkedIn dog and pony show.
Martyn Rhisiart Jones, Sir Afilonius Rex, Lile de Alba and our agentic intelligent actor, Selina Savant.
Spain, 6th December 2025.
The Logic Layer: Why Old-School Rules Are the New Guardrails for Generative AI
A hybrid renaissance is quietly rewriting the future of trustworthy artificial intelligence. The great folks here at Good Strat humbly champion this movement. In the fevered race to build ever-larger language models, a counterintuitive truth has begun to emerge from the labs. Surprisingly, sometimes the best way to make AI smarter is to shackle it with centuries-old logic. Modus ponens is that dusty Latin phrase from Aristotelian syllogism (“if P then Q; P, therefore Q”). It is enjoying an unexpected second act. It has become one of the most promising tools for keeping generative AI honest. It helps make AI coherent and, dare one say, responsible.
The Emergence of Goal-Directed Autonomous AI Systems: An Evidence-Based Enterprise Framework
Sir Horatio Pollox with the collaboration of Martyn Rhisiart Jones, Lila de Alba and Sir Afilonius Rex
London, Paris, New York and A Coruña, 5th December 2025
Autonomous AI agents are goal-directed systems. They show planning, tool-use, long-horizon reasoning, and continuous execution. This signifies a phase transition in the capabilities of artificial intelligence.
Recent benchmarking (e.g., GAGA-MAGA, GAIA&GAIA, WebSerena, and AgentBotch) shows state-of-the-art agents now outperform human baselines on multi-step, real-world tasks by margins exceeding 1040 %.
Why Data Warehousing Is the Boring, Brutal, Beautiful Future of Data
Martyn Rhisiart Jones
A Coruña, 5/12/2025
The modern enterprise data stack looks less like technology and more like cyberpunk plumbing. Pipes are rerouted through pipes. Valves are attached to valves. Layers are placed on top of each other until the whole thing resembles a drawing. It’s like a creation made by a caffeinated child let loose on a whiteboard. Data lakes are here. A data mesh is over there. A lakehouse is balanced precariously on top. It resembles a loft extension built by someone who learnt carpentry from TikTok.
CEOs are panicking. Again. They’re not worried about a recession. It’s not a hostile takeover. It’s not even the GDPR lurking in their inbox like a passive-aggressive ghost. They’re panicking because of AI. Yes, apparently there’s a talent gap. A yawning, gaping chasm of human inadequacy between what exists and what robots can do. Only the CEOs are brave. Some may even be desperate. They are the only ones who stare into it without blinking or vomiting on the nearest whiteboard.
La industria tecnológica se ha convertido en una máquina expendedora de mentiras
Martyn Rhisiart Jones Oza-Cesuras, 4 de diciembre de 2025
Hay un momento en cada ciclo de bombo publicitario en el que la realidad le da un golpecito a la industria y le susurra: “Esto no funciona”. Y cada vez que llega ese momento, la tecnología responde con la gracia de un mapache acorralado.
There’s a moment in every hype cycle when reality taps the industry on the shoulder and whispers, “This isn‘t working.“ And every time that moment arrives, tech responds with the grace of a cornered raccoon.
If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper-middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end – people like myself – should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.
It’s not your obedient chatbot anymore. It’s a proactive and goal-driven system. It plans and reasons. It uses tools like browsers, APIs, and code editors. It keeps working until the job is done. Often, it requires zero human hand-holding.
Think: a tireless, hyper-competent underling who takes care of everything. They book your Provençal villa and negotiate the rate. They also curate restaurants and arrange transfers, all while you’re already on the rosé.
THE QUANTUM REVOLUTION IS HERE (THEY SWEAR), AND IT’S ABOUT MUCH MORE THAN COMPUTING — IT’S ABOUT GENERATING ENOUGH HYPE TO POWER A SMALL COUNTRY
Sir Afilonius Rex, Martyn Rhisiart Jones, and Lila De Alba
Madrid 3rd December 2025
(Mel Brooks: “Ladies and gentlemen… QUANTUM! The only science where nobody knows what the hell is happening, including the scientists!”) (Dave Chappelle: “Man, every time somebody says ‘quantum’, my wallet hides in the corner out of fear.”)
When people hear “quantum,” they think of a super-computer so powerful it could fold reality, solve climate change, and somehow still lose to your gran at Sudoku. But no — the PR departments insist — that’s tiny baby quantum. Now we’re in Quantum 2.0, which sounds like a direct-to-DVD sequel starring a different actor.
Agentic AI refers to advanced AI agents. They are capable of independently chasing ambitious, open-ended objectives. These agents break tasks into steps and reason iteratively. They wield tools and persist through obstacles with minimal human guidance. In summary: think of a less obedient tucan. Imagine a more relentlessly competent understudy. This AI can orchestrate your travel, chase invoices, or conduct desk research. It does all this while you’re on the Amalfi Coast with an Aperol spritz. The phrase du jour in Palo Alto marks a shift. Assistants move from being responsive to becoming genuinely proactive. Your to-do list may soon sort itself out as if by magic.
