This week’s journey began in Singapore — a city that never fails to remind me what disciplined progress looks like. Few places capture the essence of modern consumption and innovation better. From the aroma of chili crab and chicken rice drifting through the hawker centres to the quiet hum of the Marina Bay financial district, Singapore feels like a living case study in how consumers adapt, evolve, and lead.
It’s also a reminder that prosperity isn’t accidental. Lee Kuan Yew’s transformation of a small, resource-poor island into the world’s richest economy per capita was built on a belief that intelligence and discipline could substitute for natural resources. That same principle now manifests in a new form — digital literacy and AI fluency, ironically, as the cost of intelligence plummets towards zero.
Everywhere I went, the adoption of intelligent tools and curiosity was visible — from small business owners using generative design software to food stalls integrating QR-driven loyalty programs. Singapore is now one of the top three markets in the world for ChatGPT usage on a per-capita basis. That’s a profound data point for investors: when the wealthiest consumers in Asia are embedding AI into how they eat, shop, and entertain themselves, the next generation of consumption patterns will almost certainly not look like the last.
Yet the tone has shifted — for the first time in two decades of visiting, I heard Singaporeans openly comparing their future to the UAE’s. Talent migration and digital ambition are becoming competitive exports. It’s a new kind of race: not who can produce the most, but who can think and build the fastest.
Click here for a short video from Singapore.
From Cars to Companions
On the other side of the world, Elon Musk’s latest earnings call offered another glimpse into the future of the consumer — one where the line between technology and lifestyle disappears. The company confirmed that its AI5 semiconductor chip, produced with TSMC and Samsung, is expected to power a generation of autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots.
The ambition? To make intelligent machines as common — and as indispensable — as the smartphone. Musk envisions a world where robotaxis lower the cost of transport to near zero, where home robots become as familiar as microwaves, and where consumers reprice what convenience actually means. The growth in miles driven by fully self-driving vehicles is growing rapidly with every improvement in technology, as displayed in the chart.
It’s easy to dismiss the optimism, but Tesla has already changed what we expect from mobility and energy. For investors, it may signal a new frontier at the intersection of technology, AI hardware, and automation — a confluence that has the potential to redefine spending, labour, and lifestyle. The macroeconomic consequences are significant, and we haven’t observed many Governments, economists or central banks who comprehensively grasp this.
The Great Consumer Rebalancing
Coca-Cola’s latest results tell a quieter but equally powerful story. Organic revenues rose 6% — entirely through pricing, with flat volumes. At first glance, that seems predictable for a global staple (I’ve written about Pepsi and Nestle in recent weeks). But beneath the surface, the real transformation is underway.
Three forces stand out.
- Health transformation is accelerating. Coke Zero surged 14%, while traditional sugary drinks stagnated. Fairlife — its premium dairy brand — is capacity-constrained, growing at double-digit rates. Consumers are redefining indulgence;
- Premiumisation paradox. Lower-income consumers are buying fewer units but better ones — mini-cans, protein-infused drinks, or functional products. It’s a barbell world: aspirational at both ends, fragile in the middle.
- The pivot from pricing to volume. Management hinted that 2026 will see a rebalancing — pricing power waning, volume growth returning. That transition, from inflation defense to market share offense, will test which companies built genuine loyalty and which relied on price tags alone.
For investors in staples, this is a critical signal. The next few years will likely separate the compounding brands from the complacent ones. Those that invested in zero-sugar, protein, and wellness ecosystems during inflation’s peak appear well positioned as consumers regain purchasing power. Those that didn’t may discover that pricing without innovation erodes more than margin — it erodes relevance.
Automating the Future of Consumption
If Singapore reveals where consumers are heading, Amazon shows what they’ll expect when they get there. This week, reports emerged that Amazon’s intends to automate 75% of operations by 2033, potentially eliminating over 600,000 jobs. The company has already deployed more than one million robots — all quietly rewriting the logistics code of retail.
By reducing fulfilment expenses and accelerating delivery speeds simultaneously, Amazon has turned infrastructure into an extraordinary moat. Traditional retailers can’t match $25 billion a year in automation spending or decades of operational data that now feed its proprietary AI infrastructure.
The consequences are significant.
- Capital intensity becomes the new moat — scale, not store count, defines advantage.
- Margins bifurcate between automation leaders and laggards.
- And derivative beneficiaries — robotics suppliers, AI infrastructure providers, power systems firms — become essential consumer enablers.
But there’s also a shadow side. When middle-income roles are replaced by machines, discretionary spending may fragment further. It’s the paradox of progress: the same automation that powers convenience can also reshape household economics.
Exploring the Edges of Consumption
At Infusive, we embed ourselves in these shifts—both on the ground and behind the screen. From hawker stalls integrating AI payments to trillion-dollar retailers reengineering logistics, each data point adds to the same story: the consumer is adapting to a world defined by intelligence, automation, and choice. The future of consumption isn’t written in numbers, but in habits, ambition, and the small decisions billions make every day—from the streets of Singapore to the factories of Texas, from the comfort of a home assistant to the hum of a robotaxi.
Please contact a member of the Team to discuss further. To add a colleague or peer to the note, send an email to jack@infusive.com or use the sign up form below.
What an exciting time to be alive!
Jack