For the seventh year in a row, the Future Perfect staff — plus assorted other experts from around Vox — convened near the end of the year to make forecasts about major events in 2026.
As always, we try to avoid random guessing. Each prediction comes with a probability attached. That’s meant to give you a sense of our confidence in our forecasts. The idea here is to exemplify epistemic honesty — being as transparent as we can about what we know we know, what we know we don’t, and what we don’t know, we don’t know.
As we have every year, we’ll check back at the end of 2026 and provide a report card on how we did, whether our accuracy ends up being Nostradamus level, or more like a band of blindfolded monkeys throwing darts at a board.
This kind of work is made possible by our Vox Members. If you would like to support Vox’s independent journalism, please consider becoming a Vox Member today.
—Bryan Walsh, senior editorial director