IEEE poll of 166 experts expects gene therapy to be used frequently by 2028

The method is a graded poll. The experts scored each of the 30 technologies on five criteria: likelihood of success, impact to humanity, maturity, market adoption and horizon to adoption ^[8]. The panel came from industry, academia and government on six continents ^[7]. Spread over 38 countries, 166 people works out to about four per country ^[18].

Personalized medicine's 4.93 is 0.07 below the top of the scale ^[19]. An average that close to the ceiling leaves little room for dissent about impact. The thing this doesn't tell you is whether the same experts expect it soon. Spectrum's summary of the report gives the impact score but not personalized medicine's grades for likelihood, maturity or horizon, and it does not say how many of the 166 rated each technology.

The gene therapy forecast appears in two wordings. The headline version says genetic engineering and gene therapy will be used frequently to treat a variety of diseases by 2028, thanks to advances in AI ^[1]. Later in the same account, the experts predict that within two years they will be used in therapeutic areas ^[5]. In my view the second wording is a much easier test to pass. The report also expects researchers to be able to make simple synthetic proteins, engineered from scratch, to do one job in the body, such as targeting a tumor or supplying a missing enzyme ^[12].

AI underpins many of the 30 technologies ^[6]. Dejan Milojicic chairs the IEEE Future Directions Committee's Industry Advisory Board, the group responsible for the report, and is a vice president at HPE Labs ^[17]. "Artificial intelligence is no longer operating in a vacuum; it is now deeply connected to our energy, infrastructure, and physical systems," he said ^[9]. The report lists the lack of computing infrastructure and energy sources as constraints on scaling AI ^[2]. It names trust, security, explainability and policymaking as the conditions that will decide which AI-supported technologies scale ^[3]. Mary Ellen Randall, IEEE's 2026 president and CEO, said in a news release that "trust, safety, and human connection must guide every major breakthrough in the decade ahead" ^[4].

IEEE's news release estimates that data centers, networks and computing hardware already use about 10 percent of the world's electricity ^[15]. "Data centers can ramp up within milliseconds, yet it takes months for the power and energy sector to ramp up," Milojicic said ^[16]. The experts also cite the Jevons paradox, the idea that efficiency gains tend to raise overall consumption. As AI chips become more efficient, they argue, organizations will run more hardware to build ever-larger frontier models ^[14].