Humanity has dreamed about what the future could look like for thousands of years. In the Information Age specifically, these wonderings have been filled with the potential of technological advancements.
Film and television have long been a place where these wonderings about futuristic technology come to life. And today, many of these once-distant ideas are simply part of how we live and work.
From AI platforms that can generate content in seconds to devices that connect people and data across the globe in real time, the gap between imagination and reality continues to shrink.
What is Retrofuturism?
The future is one of the most common settings in science fiction, especially in media that explores high-tech worlds. Today, looking back at these conceptual futures—going Back to the Future, if you will—can be called retrofuturism.
Retrofuturism is an artistic movement that explores how past generations imagined the future. It can be described as “the future that never was” or “yesterday’s tomorrow—today,” often blending what we recognize today as vintage or nostalgic design aesthetics (i.e. mid-century modern or Art Deco) with futuristic technologies. This combination gave birth to subgenres such as atompunk, cyberpunk, and steampunk.
Some sci-fi media that falls into this category accurately predicted tech like agentic AI and video calling, while some of the dreamed about futuristic technology remains elusive.
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What Technology Did Sci-Fi Films & TV Correctly Predict?
Some of these imagined technologies stayed fictional, but many didn’t. So what did sci‑fi actually get right? Let’s take a look at some of the examples.
Agentic AI
Agentic AI is everywhere today. But one of the earliest examples of agentic AI in media is HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). HAL autonomously operates the spaceship and makes decisions without human intervention. Other notable examples are the Skynet in The Terminator (1984) and JARVIS in Iron Man (2008).
Today’s agentic AI systems already support decision-making in areas like customer service, operations, and data analysis. While agents today haven’t caught up to the decision-making capabilities of these three, there’s probably a near future where autonomous agents become a normality across industries.
Autonomous cars
Driverless cars don’t just belong as getaway vehicles in Total Recall (1990). Companies like Waymo launched autonomous cars in 2018. They use a sensor suite of LiDAR, radar, and cameras to autonomously navigate and drive passengers without a human driving the car. Tesla also boasts self-driving technology for its cars, although the cars require consistent human attention for this feature to work.
Bionic limbs
When you think of bionic limbs in media, you might think of The Six Million Dollar Man (1973) or Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Both of these predate the first successful bionic arm, created in 1993 in Scotland.
Today, thousands of adults and children use prosthetic robot limbs on a daily basis. In 2024 alone, over 42,000 peoplewere fitted with prosthetic robot arms alone.
Cell phones
The first known use of a cell phone in media? Aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise in Star Trek: The Original Series (1966-69). The modern flip phone traces its design inspiration back to this famous series. But the first bulky cell phone wasn’t invented until 1973. Smaller flip phones like Captain Kirk’s communicator didn’t break the mainstream until 1996.
Biometric recognition
In Back to the Future: Part II (1989), the year 2015 heralds a plethora of exciting new tech for protagonist Marty McFly: flying cars, hoverboards, and fingerprint technology. We sadly didn’t have flying cars and hoverboards in 2015. But as of the 2010s, biometric recognition became widely used on a consumer level for financial transactions, device security, and keyless home entry. All of these were used in the ‘80s-imagined 2015.
Physical AI & Robots
Nothing says retrofuturism like looking at past depictions of robots and physical AI. Some of the most famous robots in media include Forbidden Planet’s (1956) Robby the Robot and Star Wars’ C-3PO and R2-D2. These sci-fi robots do operate autonomously but with clear human oversight, much like the robots of today. The smart house technology of The Jetsons (1962-63) can now be seen in physical AI integrations like Alexa, Google Home, and even Roombas.
Today, robotics is also expanding into areas like warehouse automation and surgical robotics, where machines assist with precision tasks and repetitive processes.
Smart watches
While smart watches find their print origins in the “wrist radio” of the 1940s comic strip Dick Tracy, The Jetsons pioneered media depictions, followed closely by Star Trek. Today, smart watches range from fitness watches to the mini computers that are Apple, Samsung Galaxy, and Google Pixel watches.
All these futuristic technologies show up not just in everyday life, but across industries—from healthcare and manufacturing to finance and logistics.
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What Did the Sci-Fi Genre Get Wrong?
Of course, not every prediction made it into reality—at least not yet. Even with all the technology that the sci-fi genre got right, there are quite a few inventions that media either got wrong or that haven’t been realized.
- Flying cars: Even though self-driving cars are in wide use today, commercial flying cars are still a figment of imagination.
- Holograms: Popularized by Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), we don’t have the technology that could create a holo-Princess Leia. Today’s “holograms” are more often projections or augmented reality.
- Jet packs: Jet packs do exist, but they’re very expensive and only allow for short flights rather than as everyday transport.
- Lightspeed travel: We’ve broken the sound barrier and achieved supersonic speed. However, lightspeed space travel remains a fiction that belongs to galaxies far, far away.
- Teleportation: No “Beam us up, Scotty” anytime soon. Physically teleporting a person from one place to another is still entirely fictional.
While some predictions never materialized, others—especially AI—sparked more than innovation. They shaped how we think about technology itself.
How Sci-Fi Shaped Our Thinking About AI
Sci-fi hasn’t just imagined powerful technology. It’s often warned about what happens when we rely on it too heavily. The introduction of AI has made some people feel uneasy or even wonder if they’re relying too heavily on AI. A 2026 survey from GoTo reports that 50% of respondents feel like they rely too much on AI, with 30% of respondents saying they can’t function without it.
Most movies that feature technology taking over the world or important tech systems—Terminator, WarGames (1983), 2001: A Space Odyssey to name a few—take it to the extreme. AI specifically is now very embedded in our daily lives.
That perspective isn’t limited to fiction. In recent conversations around AI, religious leaders like Pope Leo XIV and companies like Anthropic have called out the importance of human involvement and empathy in our use of technology.
Rather than replacing human judgment, today’s AI is increasingly designed to support it, helping teams move faster while keeping people at the center of decision-making.
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Building the Future—Right Now
The future of technology is already taking shape across industries. The same innovations once imagined in film are now driving real business outcomes, from AI-powered workflows to connected systems that scale globally.
Bringing those ideas to life takes the right expertise, at the right time. Whether you’re building new capabilities, modernizing existing systems, or scaling emerging technologies, having the right people and support in place makes all the difference.
Insight Global connects organizations with the talent and technical services needed to turn forward-thinking ideas into real-world impact—because building futuristic technology doesn’t have to be a fiction.
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