Kate Ancketill
Most companies benchmark obsessively against their direct competitors. The move that resets their sector usually starts somewhere else, in a category nobody in the room is watching. By the time it arrives through the peer set, the advantage has already been taken.
Kate Ancketill is a business futurist who helps consumer brands and retailers turn near-term shifts in AI and customer behaviour into commercial decisions they can act on now.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Kate Ancketill
- Ten consecutive years delivering the trends keynote at the NRF Big Show, the world’s largest retail technology event. Martin Reardon, NRF’s CMO and EVP of Content and Retail Strategy, attributes the repeat invitation to her audience feedback scores.
- Twenty-five years of client work at GDR Creative Intelligence with P&G, Tesco, Sephora, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Moet Hennessy, Lego, and the BBC, which is where her examples come from.
- A three to five year forecasting horizon, close enough for a board to commit budget against and argued from field research in Seoul, Dubai, Beijing, Tokyo, New York, London, and the Nordics.
- Her most requested talk hands the forecasting method itself to the audience, built on twenty-five years of watching global markets for early signals of change.
- The 2025 Speaker Awards named her Best AI and Future Technology Speaker, and BizTech Magazine listed her among its top thirty IT influencers in 2024.
Biography highlights
- Founder and, for twenty-five years, CEO of GDR Creative Intelligence, the London trends, foresight and strategy consultancy, which she has now closed to speak and advise full time.
- Ten consecutive years as trends keynote at the National Retail Federation Big Show in New York.
- Client roster includes P&G, Tesco, Sephora, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Moet Hennessy, Costa Coffee, Lego, and the BBC.
- 2025 Speaker Awards: Best AI and Future Technology Speaker.
- BizTech Magazine Top 30 IT Influencers, 2024.
- Broadcast, podcast and print commentator on high street decline, consumer behaviour, sustainability in business, and machine learning and AI.
Biography
The trends keynote at the NRF Big Show in New York has been given by Kate Ancketill for ten consecutive years. Martin Reardon, NRF’s CMO and EVP of Content and Retail Strategy, attributes the repeat invitation to her audience feedback scores. It is the world’s largest retail technology event.
For twenty-five years, as founder and CEO of GDR Creative Intelligence, she was the innovation partner to P&G, Tesco, Sephora, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Moet Hennessy, Costa Coffee, Lego, and the BBC. The consultancy tracked consumer-facing innovation across physical and digital channels and turned it into commercial implications on a three to five year view. She has now closed GDR to speak and advise full time.
The three to five year horizon does the commercial work. It is far enough out to change a format decision or a technology investment, and near enough that real examples already exist. Those examples come from field research in Seoul, Dubai, Beijing, Tokyo, New York, London, and the Nordics.
She is a self-described tech and AI optimist, and her stated position is to use the full capability of the technology while keeping human primacy intact. Her most requested talk now goes a step further and teaches the method, a practical toolkit for projecting three to five years ahead that she rebuilds for whichever sector is in the room.
Key speaking topics
- Business futurism on a three to five year horizon
- Consumer-facing AI in retail, brand and hospitality
- Practical forecasting method for business leaders
- The future of customer experience
- Disruptive business models in consumer industries
- Gen Z and Generation Alpha as future customers
- The future of the high street and physical retail
- Sustainability and consumer brands
Ideal for
- Retail, consumer goods and hospitality boards making three to five year capital and format decisions
- CMOs and customer experience directors rebuilding brand and CX around AI
- Innovation and strategy leads inside consumer brands
- Conference audiences of commercial operators working to a technology-led agenda
Audience outcomes
- Which retail and consumer innovations are worth acting on in the next three to five years, and which can wait
- Named examples of how global brands are already putting AI in front of customers
- A three to five year planning horizon they can take into a board or budget conversation
- Gen Z and Generation Alpha as commercial customers, with the buying behaviour that follows
- The forecasting method she uses, in a form they can repeat in their own sector
Talks
A practical toolkit for projecting three to five years ahead, built on twenty-five years of watching global markets for early signs of change.
Key takeaways:
- How to detect change in a market early, and what sharpens that instinct
- A three to five year planning horizon that boards and CMOs can work to
- Gen Z and Generation Alpha assessed as future customers
How consumer behaviour is changing in the AI era, and what pragmatic three to five year enterprise capability looks like against it.
Key takeaways:
- Which AI deployments return on the investment and which are expensive marketing gimmicks
- Global case studies of brands using AI to reduce customer friction
- How to hold human warmth and brand trust in an automated operation
How the next generations will live, work, travel, consume, and spend their leisure time, read from field research in Seoul, Dubai, Beijing, Tokyo, New York, London, and the Nordics.
Key takeaways:
- The challenges that will shape the next generations of consumers
- Case studies of the companies already solving Gen Z’s problems
- What an organisation changes internally to keep pace with shifting consumer needs