Greg Lindsay

Greg Lindsay is one of the most incisive voices working at the intersection of cities, technology, and the future of human connection. A journalist turned strategic advisor, he brings a rare combination of investigative rigor, foresight methodology, and storytelling clarity to audiences navigating a world where the physical and digital are increasingly indistinguishable. As a partner at FutureMap, the Singapore-based geo-strategic and climate advisory firm, he counsels Fortune 500 companies, governments, and institutions on the forces reshaping how and where people live, work, and build.

Futurist speaker Greg Lindsay holds non-resident senior fellowships at MIT’s Future Urban Collectives Lab, Arizona State University’s Threatcasting Lab, and the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He was the founding Chief Communications Officer of AlphaGeo, an AI-driven climate location-analysis platform, where he remains a senior advisor. His work has been cited by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, CNN, NPR, and the BBC, and his writing appears regularly in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and the Wall Street Journal. He is notably the only human on record to have gone undefeated against IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy!

Lindsay first gained international recognition as co-author of Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next, the landmark book arguing that tomorrow’s most competitive cities will grow around airports to capture the flows of global commerce, talent, and ideas. The concept influenced urban planning across China, India, the Middle East, and beyond. His advisory footprint spans some of the world’s most consequential organizations — Intel, Samsung, IKEA, Starbucks, Audi, Hyundai, Microsoft, Deloitte, Ford, Tishman Speyer, British Land, Aldar, Emaar, and Expo 2020, alongside numerous G20 government entities. His collaborative work with Studio Gang Architects on the future of suburbia was exhibited at New York’s MoMA in 2012 and at the 15th, 16th, and 17th Venice Architecture Biennales.

The Augmented City and the Screen That Ate the World

His most recent landmark work is The Augmented City, a 2025 Cornell Tech report exploring how augmented reality, AI, and spatial computing are poised to overlay proprietary digital environments onto public urban space — and what this means for privacy, civic life, and economic opportunity. The research has informed a body of speaking work that now encompasses what Lindsay calls the defining tension of our era: the physical world is becoming vestigial to the digital one. In keynotes delivered at the Fast Company Innovation Festival, the World Economic Forum, and WRLDCTY, he has argued that the task for leaders and urbanists is to create spaces where being present with other people is more compelling than being alone with a screen — a challenge with profound implications for real estate, retail, workplace design, and city governance.

As a speaker, Greg Lindsay consistently achieves what few in the foresight space manage: making the abstract feel urgent and the complex feel actionable. Whether addressing the geopolitical scenarios he co-authored for the Atlantic Council’s Global Foresight 2025, the climate migration patterns driving AlphaGeo’s AI models, or the serendipity-engineering techniques adopted by Google, the US Military Academy, and the International Red Cross, Lindsay delivers perspectives that shift how senior audiences think — and what they do next.