Benedict Evans brings his perspective on technology, business and value to the ICONS stage at D-Congress 2027.

For the past few years, the AI conversation has focused on what the technology can do. Each new model raises the bar. Capabilities that recently seemed extraordinary are becoming features in products used by millions of people. But what happens when access to those capabilities becomes widespread?

That is the question Benedict Evans has spent his career preparing us to ask. For more than two decades, he has analysed how mobile, e-commerce, platforms, cloud and social media moved from emerging technologies into everyday life. His interest goes beyond the products themselves. He looks at the systems around them: which habits change, which businesses emerge, who becomes a gatekeeper and where the value moves.

AI could bring similar changes to commerce. If an AI assistant searches, compares and filters products for a customer, the way people discover brands may change. If every retailer can produce content and recommendations at scale, doing so may no longer be enough to stand out. The challenge for businesses is to understand how the technology changes customer behaviour and competition, then decide what advantage they can build.

Close to 200,000 people subscribe to Benedict’s newsletter, and his annual macro presentations are followed by leaders across the technology industry. His AI Eats the World work asks us to look beyond the models and consider what happens as AI spreads through companies, industries and daily life.

At D-Congress, Benedict brings that lens to What Happens After the AI Boom? on the ICONS stage. It connects directly to our 2027 theme, Powering Fandom – Creating Icons: when powerful technology becomes available to more businesses, what makes people choose, remember and care about a brand?

D-Congress

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Ways to think about token pricing — Benedict Evans explores how falling AI costs could shift where economic value is created.
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2026/7/9/ways-to-think-about-token-pricing

AI, tools and transformation — Why giving a company new tools is only one part of changing how it works.
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2026/9/3/ai-tools-and-transformation

AI, networks and Mechanical Turks — A perspective on how AI could reshape search, recommendations and discovery.
https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2025/11/23/ai-networks-and-mechanical-turks