Track record
Every call our briefings make, graded later against what happened. Misses included.
Each Decision Intelligence edition makes calls about where a topic is heading and sets milestones to watch, and each Signal Scan states how likely its signal is to bite within a dated window. A later edition grades each one against what has happened since. We copy each grade here and do not change it afterwards. Calls that went against us stay on the record, and a call that is not yet settled is not counted as a hit.
How we check our work before publication: How we verify →
11 graded so far
The 23 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Signal Scan A Launch Duty Meets a Price Rule That Rewards Delay, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
At least one EU member state publicly invokes the new launch-on-request duty against a medicine's manufacturer before the end of 2029.
What will settle it
A member state, regulator or manufacturer publicly confirms a formal launch request made under the new EU launch duty.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2028 to Dec 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan England's Care Pay Deal Is Capped Before It Is Bargained, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
England's first adult social care Fair Pay Agreement settles at or near the government's annual funding envelope rather than above it, leaving councils and providers to cover any shortfall.
What will settle it
The first Fair Pay Agreement settlement, due by April 2028, is announced within the government's funding envelope, with councils or providers publicly reporting an unfunded gap.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Cheaper Pills, Scarcer Care, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
By 2030 more of the cost and the work of caring for older people will sit with families and employers than today.
What will settle it
Care eligibility rules in Germany and elsewhere, England's care report in 2027, and the number of people caring unpaid.
By 2030 more people in rich countries will pay a larger share of their health costs directly.
What will settle it
US uninsured numbers and marketplace enrolment, employer cost shifting, and co-payment and deductible rises in Europe.
By 2030 weight-loss drugs will be a mass-market product priced like other generics in much of the world.
What will settle it
Generic approvals and prices in India, Canada, Brazil and China, and the first WHO-approved generic.
By 2030 the price of a new medicine in Europe will be set with one eye on Washington, and the gap in launch dates between the US and smaller markets will widen.
What will settle it
Launch-delay data such as the European drug industry's annual survey of patient access, and whether companies skip or delay European launches after US pricing deals.
AI will be in most consultations well before 2030, and clinicians will carry the risk until the rules arrive.
What will settle it
Uptake of AI note-taking, the UK government's response to its national commission, EU liability rules from December 2026, and the first legal cases.
By December 2028, the UK government brings forward a bill to update its fertility law for new techniques such as lab-made eggs and sperm.
What will settle it
Signpost for the potential surprise 'Eggs and sperm made in a laboratory reach fertility clinics' (2033 to 2040).
By December 2029, a peer-reviewed study reports human eggs or sperm made in a laboratory with normal chromosomes.
What will settle it
Signpost for the potential surprise 'Eggs and sperm made in a laboratory reach fertility clinics' (2033 to 2040).
By December 2028, china adds an implanted brain-computer interface to its national insurance list, not only Shanghai's.
What will settle it
Signpost for the potential surprise 'Brain implants become a paid-for treatment for paralysis, with China setting the first prices' (2031 to 2037).
By December 2029, the US medicines regulator approves an implanted brain-computer interface for sale.
What will settle it
Signpost for the potential surprise 'Brain implants become a paid-for treatment for paralysis, with China setting the first prices' (2031 to 2037).
By September 2027, the US medicines regulator's updated research priorities name ageing and longevity.
What will settle it
Signpost for the potential surprise 'Regulators accept slowing ageing as something a medicine can be approved for' (2033 to 2040).
By December 2029, the US or European medicines regulator publishes draft guidance on how a drug could show it slows ageing.
What will settle it
Signpost for the potential surprise 'Regulators accept slowing ageing as something a medicine can be approved for' (2033 to 2040).
Calls made in Signal Scan England's Nursing Supply Fell From Both Overseas and Domestic Sources at Once, October 2026. Added from the scan as published.
England's nursing supply will keep thinning from both overseas and domestic sources, with funding decisions in 2027 and the pipeline gap visible in 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
The NMC's report for the year to March 2027 shows UK-educated joiners below 30,581 for a second year. If this happens: The domestic fall is a trend; the posture should move from Prepare to Decide on pipeline funding.
What would count against it
UK-educated joiners to the NMC register rise above 32,164 in the year to March 2027.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Oct 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan State Verification Choices, Not Work Status, Will Decide Medicaid Losses, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Medicaid coverage losses under work requirements will be decided by each state's verification design rather than by whether people work, from national enforcement on 1 January 2027 to disenrollment visible in states' first 2027 renewals.
What will settle it
Nebraska releasing verified disenrollment counts for its second and third renewal cycles.
What would count against it
Nebraska's disenrollment counts converging toward the 40,000 projection rather than tracking near the 200 first-round figure.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Sep 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Medicare Reprices the Hospital Outpatient Premium by Service Family, and From 2028 Site by Site, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Medicare will withdraw the hospital outpatient payment premium one service family at a time, with a final rule expected late in 2026, imaging repriced from January 2027 and separate identifiers for off-campus departments from January 2028.
What will settle it
The final CY 2027 rule confirming the physician-office rate for imaging without contrast, and naming any further service families.
What would count against it
The final rule dropping the imaging proposal after the August comment round.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan America's Nuclear Regulator Treats Oncology Capacity as a Licensing Problem and Deregulates the Authorised User, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The US nuclear regulator will expand radioligand cancer-therapy capacity by redefining who may administer it, through the NRC rule proposed on 27 July 2026, with capacity the binding limit from 2026 to 2030 and beyond.
What will settle it
An NRC final rule that keeps both the residency-based qualification pathway and the removal of licence amendments for diagnostic authorised users.
What would count against it
The NRC withdrawing the training and experience changes after the comment period, leaving the counted-hours pathway intact.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Sep 2035
Calls made in Signal Scan China's Premium Drug Channel Is Being Underwritten by the Drugmakers, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
China's commercial insurance list for innovative drugs will stay underwritten largely by drugmakers rather than insurers, with the second list due around the end of 2026, renewals from January 2027 and moves to the national list in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
A second list with fewer additions than the first, or listed firms disclosing claim-cap or outcomes terms.
What would count against it
Huiminbao innovative-drug payments for 2026 reported well above the flat 2025 level.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Defined-Contribution Crossover: Employers Reach for the Individual Market as It Shrinks, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US employers will start converting health cover into a fixed contribution toward individual plans, with the crossover, if it comes, landing in the 2028 and 2029 plan years, depending on whether the individual market stabilises first.
What will settle it
A Fortune 500 employer publicly moving its core benefits-eligible population, not a carved-out class, onto an ICHRA.
What would count against it
Business Group on Health or comparable surveys showing 2028 cost projections falling back towards general inflation.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Nov 2026 to Aug 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Out of Order: Disclosure Arrived Before the Denominators, Automation Before the Oversight Rules, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US oversight of prior-authorisation denials will arrive out of order, with disclosure first in 2026, automation and data-interface duties from January 2027, and oversight rules settling in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
A payer publishing its post-appeal net denial rate alongside the required initial-determination metric.
What would count against it
Second-year disclosures showing appeal rates flat or lower than the first-year figures.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Aug 2034
Calls made in Signal Scan The Price of the Dataset: African Governments Are Turning Down Health Aid Over Data Terms, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Health datasets and specimen archives will be the real price of the bilateral deals replacing US health aid, and more African governments will refuse those terms, with a Kenyan ruling expected in October 2026 and the WHO annex in 2027.
What will settle it
The Kenyan Court of Appeal's full ruling addresses the duration of the data commitment, not only consent.
What would count against it
Ghana, Zambia or Zimbabwe signs on substantially the original data terms.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Oct 2026 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Out of Scope by Design: Clinical AI Accountability Lands on the Clinician, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Accountability for clinical AI will land on the clinician who reviews its output, as the EU defers its high-risk rules to December 2027 and August 2028 and the UK keeps transcription tools outside device regulation.
What will settle it
The National Commission into the Regulation of AI in Healthcare recommends an evidenced verification step rather than a general duty.
What would count against it
The MHRA narrows the carve-out so that summarisation of clinical conversations is treated as device functionality.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2032
Calls made in The Summer Medicine Chose Sides, August 2026. Graded in Cheaper Pills, Scarcer Care (October 2026).
The 100% US tariff on patented medicines would work as a lever for pricing deals rather than a wall, so the headline rate would overstate the real burden.
What happened
From 29 September firms with no pricing deal pay 100%, but firms pairing a pricing deal with US manufacturing pay nothing until January 2029, and many specialty medicines are exempt.
No full US return to the World Health Organization or Gavi, the vaccine alliance, though targeted re-engagement was possible.
What happened
The US said in July it would release $600 million for Gavi, with conditions, but there is no sign of money for the World Health Organization.
Left open: whether the EU's Critical Medicines Act would be adopted with its buy-European preference intact once member states' budgets were tested.
What happened
The preference survives in the agreed text, but formal adoption has slipped to the end of 2026 or early 2027.
Pledges to build medicine factories in the US would turn into plants only slowly and partly.
What happened
Building has started, including a $6.5 billion Eli Lilly plant in Houston, but none of the new plants is producing yet.
Cheaper, better medicines would reopen the fight over who can afford them, with weight-loss drugs a test of whether access widens through insurance or narrows to those who can pay.
What happened
Access is narrowing in US workplace cover, with fewer large employers paying for these drugs and some steering staff to pay cash. Abroad, generics are widening access instead.
AI would move into the consulting room faster than the safety and evidence rules behind it.
What happened
The UK has a detailed blueprint from its national commission, but the EU has delayed its rules for AI in medical devices to August 2028.
The Global Fund's shortfall in money to fight AIDS, TB and malaria would land on the poorest first.
What happened
It is biting on prevention: people taking HIV prevention medicine fell from 1.4 million to 1.1 million in 2025.
Calls made in Signal Scan Rationing by Assessment: How the Eligibility Threshold Became Long-Term Care's Main Cost Lever, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Long-term care systems will cut costs by tightening the eligibility assessment rather than contributions or benefit rates, led by Germany's draft care law, which uprates the assessment annually from 2028.
What will settle it
The German draft clears cabinet with the assessment-recalibration measure and its savings line intact.
What would count against it
The assessment-recalibration measure is dropped from the German bill before cabinet.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2028 to Aug 2034
Calls made in Signal Scan The Linkage Fight: Why an Unfinished WHO Annex Now Carries the Weight of the Treaty, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The WHO Pandemic Agreement's entry into force will turn on whether access to pathogens and sequence data is legally tied to benefit-sharing, with the annex due at the World Health Assembly in May 2027 and ratification in 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
Green text appearing on linkage and contractual arrangements in the outcome of the eighth round in September 2026.
What would count against it
The annex adopted in 2027 with linkage intact and broad ratification following quickly.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Jul 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The 100/20/0 Menu: How US Pharma Tariffs Force Onshoring and Price Cuts, Company by Company, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US pharmaceutical tariffs will work as a tiered menu that trades lower rates for company-by-company onshoring and pricing deals rather than as a blunt border tax, from 31 July 2026 through build-out in 2026 to 2029.
What will settle it
Commerce confirms the first company-specific onshoring agreements and their reduced tariff rates.
What would count against it
The 31 July effective date slips again or the tariff is materially narrowed.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jul 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan One Country, Many Vaccine Schedules: America's Immunization Standard Splintered Into a Non-Federal Patchwork, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The single US vaccine schedule will splinter into a non-federal patchwork, with a coverage cliff building for the end of 2026 and divergence between states entrenching over 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
A state pegs insurer coverage or pharmacist scope to a non-federal schedule rather than ACIP.
What would count against it
The First Circuit restores a lawful ACIP and a single federal schedule that states and societies re-adopt.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Approved on Mechanism, Not Trials: The FDA's Plausible-Mechanism Reset for Bespoke Gene Therapies, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The FDA will approve bespoke gene editors as platform products on a plausible biological mechanism rather than large trials, with first approvals plausibly in 2027 to 2029 and a market effect in 2028 to 2031.
What will settle it
The FDA finalising the guidance after the 60-day comment period, with the mechanism-strength and "large effect size" thresholds specified.
What would count against it
The FDA narrowing the final guidance so tightly that few diseases qualify.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2029 to Jul 2032
Calls made in Signal Scan After the Market Failure: How 'Subscription' Payments for Antibiotics Are Crossing From Pilot to Policy, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Subscription-style pull payments for new antibiotics will cross from pilot to policy across the major economies at once, with EU adoption and US legislation in 2026 to 2027 and an investment response in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
The PASTEUR Act receiving a committee mark-up or floor vote, rather than lapsing again.
What would count against it
PASTEUR stalling again in committee with no floor vote through 2027.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Two-Track Obesity Care: How GLP-1 Access Split by Payer Just as the Pills Arrived, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US coverage of obesity drugs will split by payer into a subsidised but time-limited Medicare track and a cash market, while Medicaid mostly excludes them, with the coverage cliff biting at the end of 2027 into 2028.
What will settle it
Part D plan sign-up rates for the voluntary BALANCE model ahead of the 2027 open-enrolment transition.
What would count against it
A permanent, mandatory Medicare obesity benefit replacing the time-limited Bridge with cap-counted cost-sharing.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Borrowed Pipeline: Western Pharma’s Dependence on China-Originated Drugs Collides With Decoupling, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Western pharma's dependence on drug candidates originated in China will keep growing and collide with US decoupling measures, with the friction biting in 2026 to 2030 and pipelines splitting in 2028 to 2032.
What will settle it
Further 1260H or Commerce Entity List additions of Chinese biotech, CRO or genomics firms.
What would count against it
China’s share of global licensing plateauing or falling over consecutive quarters.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2030 to Jun 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan When the Cure Outruns the Checkbook: The Gene-Therapy Payment Model Is Being Rebuilt Around Outcomes, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Payment for high-cost gene therapies will be rebuilt around patient outcomes, building on the CMS outcomes-based model live in 34 states, with the reimbursement architecture set in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
CMS extends the Cell and Gene Therapy Access Model beyond sickle cell to additional conditions, or adds manufacturers.
What would count against it
Gene-therapy venture funding and IPO activity rebound durably across 2026-2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2029 to Jun 2032
Calls made in Too Much Cure, Not Enough Care, June 2026. Graded in The Summer Medicine Chose Sides (August 2026).
Drug-pricing pressure would accelerate through 2026.
What happened
It went further than expected: pricing pressure became full industrial policy, with a 100% US tariff on patented medicines tied to pricing deals.
Regulation in the major markets would converge, so manufacturers would face the same clocks running in parallel.
What happened
The opposite happened. Markets diverged: US tariffs and pricing deals, an EU buy-European medicines law, and the completed US exit from the World Health Organization.
Weight-loss and diabetes drugs (GLP-1s) would reshape the economics of metabolic disease.
What happened
Confirmed and widening: the first GLP-1 pill was approved and Medicare launched a bridge scheme to pay for these drugs.
AI diagnostic tools would move from approval by regulators to routine payment by health systems.
What happened
Recast and broadened: adoption moved to AI note-taking and other AI in everyday care, about 75% of US health systems now use or plan to use it, while 4.8% of AI medical devices have been recalled.
An ageing workforce would leave care systems short of staff in all major markets.
Rising demand for mental health care would push digital therapies into the gap.
Calls made in Signal Scan Diagnosed, Then What? Alzheimer's Blood Tests Are Outrunning Treatment and Care Capacity, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Alzheimer's blood tests will outrun treatment and care capacity, as diagnosis rolls out in primary care ahead of UK decisions on treatment access and memory-service capacity in 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
NICE's 10 June 2026 committee draft reverses earlier refusals on donanemab or lecanemab, or attaches conditions tied to memory-service capacity.
What would count against it
NICE issues a fourth refusal on donanemab and lecanemab in 2026, capping demand-side pressure on memory services.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jun 2026 to May 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Exporting the Price Fight: How US Drug-Pricing Reform Is Quietly Repricing Medicines Worldwide, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US most-favoured-nation drug pricing will reprice medicines outside the US, through manufacturer agreements, CMS's GLOBE and GUARD models in 2026 to 2027, and changes to launch prices and launch order abroad in 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
CMS finalises GLOBE or GUARD for Medicare with a defined reference-country basket and start date.
What would count against it
CMS shelves GLOBE and GUARD and the MFN agreements unwind without successor frameworks.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The 2026 Patent Geography Split: How Generic Semaglutide Is Bifurcating the Global Obesity-Drug Market, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Generic semaglutide launching in five large markets in 2026 will split the obesity-drug market into two pricing worlds, with emerging-market price discovery in 2026 to 2027 and pressure on G7 and US Medicare prices in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
CMS publishes its 2027 Medicare negotiated maximum fair price for semaglutide referencing international comparators below $300/month.
What would count against it
Indian generic semaglutide brands face FDA-equivalent quality concerns or immunogenicity failures, undermining the production-cost framing.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Coverage Without Mortality Evidence: How Medicare's 2026 MCED Pivot Restructures Cancer Screening Ahead of the Data, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Medicare coverage of multi-cancer early detection tests, enacted ahead of FDA approval and mortality evidence, will reshape cancer screening before the data arrive, with an FDA decision on Galleri in 2026 to 2027 and the Medicare coverage trigger in 2028.
What will settle it
FDA issues a Premarket Approval determination on Grail's Galleri PMA, with detailed labelling on the intended-use population and clinical-benefit framing.
What would count against it
FDA declines Galleri PMA citing insufficient evidence of mortality benefit, blocking the Sewell coverage trigger absent a successor MCED submission.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The Homology Trap: Biosecurity Law Is Mandating DNA Screening AI Has Already Learned to Evade, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Biosecurity rules will mandate DNA synthesis screening based on sequence similarity, a method AI-designed sequences can already evade, with the regulatory turning point in 2026 to 2028 and function-based screening either mandated or not by 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
NIST publishes a sequence-to-function screening prototype or standard with an actual deployment timeline, rather than an open-ended research mandate.
What would count against it
Peer-reviewed evidence that patched homology-based tools robustly detect AI-paraphrased sequences across short and long fragment lengths.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to May 2033
16 graded so far
The 26 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Signal Scan PJM's Backup-Generator Reserve Runs Only on DOE Orders, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between 2027 and 2028 the route by which PJM can run data-centre backup generators is reset, by a standing permit rule or by a legal setback to DOE emergency orders.
What will settle it
A state or federal rule gives backup generators a standing grid-support allowance, or a court or permit challenge stops an order's use for them.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan US Grid Equipment Is Licensed, Not Banned, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between 2027 and 2028 supplier eligibility for US bulk-power equipment is set by DOE licences and vendor prequalification, not by an import prohibition alone.
What will settle it
DOE publishes a prequalified vendor list or issues its first licence decisions covering transformers, inverters or batteries.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan New York Pays for Grid Batteries Only After Local Approval, and Its Towns Keep Extending Moratoria, October 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Delivery of New York's first 950 MW of grid batteries will depend on town and county approvals that bid competition cannot buy, with local decisions in 2026 to 2028 and an in-service deadline at the end of 2030.
What will settle it
Suffolk County grants the Holtsville variance, or a court overturns the denial, before the project’s December 2028 target date. If this happens: A disputed award clears its local gate; keep the approval discount on comparable disputed projects but lower it for Holtsville.
What would count against it
All eight awarded projects hold their local approvals by the end of 2028.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Oct 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Europe’s 2028 Switchgear Gas Ban Would Leave Grid Operators One EU-Based Supplier, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Unless the European Commission pauses them, EU switchgear gas bans from 2028, and from 2032 for high voltage, will leave grid operators one EU-based supplier of the lawful alternative, with the Commission's response due in 2026 to 2027.
What will settle it
A Commission proposal in the Omnibus or Grid package carrying a stop-the-clock or derogation for fluoronitrile-based switchgear.
What would count against it
The Commission confirms in writing that the 2028 bans stand, and dry-air makers publish delivery slots meeting European demand.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Europe Funds a Subsea Repair Fleet Its Power Cables Cannot Call On, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Europe's funded subsea repair capability will cover telecommunications cables but not power interconnectors and offshore wind export cables, leaving them exposed to unpriced outages as pressure binds in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
A Commission repair-capacity call or CEF work programme amendment naming energy cables alongside communication cables in its eligible scope.
What would count against it
Interconnector and export-cable faults through 2027 restoring within the outage durations already assumed in national adequacy studies.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Apr 2027 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Paying More Did Not Bring More Power, September 2026. The next edition will grade them.
By 2030 the question for power buyers will be less what capacity costs than who gets it when there is not enough.
What will settle it
PJM's choice among its market reforms, including rationing by place or customer type, and how Texas meets demand nearing 175,000 MW.
Connection terms written now will govern a much larger data-centre load by 2030, as their electricity use roughly doubles worldwide.
What will settle it
The International Energy Agency's figures for data-centre demand and new grid connection rules for large loads.
By 2030 the argument over large power users may move from the cost of connecting to the cost of leaving the shared grid.
What will settle it
How much gas generation is built on site at data centres, and who pays for the network as large loads leave it.
Gas plants ordered today will mostly arrive around 2030, so until then new supply will come from solar, batteries and flexible demand.
What will settle it
Turbine prices and delivery dates, and GE Vernova's output.
By 2030 a hot, dry summer will be a planning case for power systems, not an exception.
What will settle it
Losses at power plants from heat and low water, and summer demand peaks.
By December 2027: A US state caps or refuses a data-centre water withdrawal on aquifer grounds.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Water, not power, decides where data centres can be built'.
By December 2028: A second US state publishes a groundwater limit study that rules out a region for large industrial users.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Water, not power, decides where data centres can be built'.
By December 2027: A second EU country writes loss of grid access into law as a penalty for large users.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Disconnection, not price, becomes the standard penalty on large loads'.
By December 2028: A US state tariff makes a large load's access revocable for breach of its terms.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Disconnection, not price, becomes the standard penalty on large loads'.
By December 2027: A turbine maker reports rising cancellations or resold delivery slots.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'A turbine glut after 2030 as the backlog lands on slower demand'.
By June 2028: The largest cloud companies cut their spending plans for two quarters running.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'A turbine glut after 2030 as the backlog lands on slower demand'.
Calls made in Signal Scan France Kept Its Reactors Running in the Heatwave by Moving the River Limit, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The summer output of France's river-cooled nuclear fleet will rest on the regulator waiving river-discharge limits case by case, with its opinion on operation beyond 60 years due by end 2026 and the next test in summer 2027.
What will settle it
The ASNR's end-2026 opinion attaching thermal-discharge conditions or a standing heatwave protocol to operation beyond 60 years.
What would count against it
Summer 2027 passing with no discharge waiver requested at any French plant despite red heat alerts.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Reserved, Not Ordered: The Turbine Pipeline Carries 89 GW of Options, Not Orders, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Access to US gas-turbine capacity to 2031 will be allocated by cash-backed slot reservations at a few manufacturers, with 2031 slots more than half contracted by December 2026 and reservations converting or lapsing in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
GE Vernova reporting a combined book at or above 125 GW at year-end 2026 with reserved slots still above half the total.
What would count against it
Reservation balances falling as a share of disclosed backlog at both GE Vernova and Siemens Energy for two consecutive quarters.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Utility Wildfire Liability Now Turns on a Regulator-Approved Document, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Utility wildfire liability across the US West will turn on compliance with regulator-approved mitigation plans, repricing identical hazard along state lines, with plan approvals in 2026 to 2028 and first appellate tests in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
An appellate ruling in Idaho, Montana or Texas interpreting substantial compliance with an approved wildfire mitigation plan.
What would count against it
California enacting a liability cap in 2027 that closes the gap with the shield states.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Megawatts Without Availability: Retirement Deferrals Are Padding Reserve Margins the Grid Cannot Draw On, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US retirement deferrals will pad reserve margins with capacity the grid cannot rely on, forcing reserve-requirement revisions in 2026 to 2028 and capacity accreditation haircuts on the deferred units that bind in 2028 to 2029.
What will settle it
NERC or a Regional Entity publishing measurable generation-performance reliability indicators.
What would count against it
The 2027 State of Reliability showing conventional forced outage rates back inside the 7% to 8% band.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2032
Calls made in Signal Scan Back on the Balance Sheet: How Utilities Re-Enter Generation Without Changing the Law, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US utilities in restructured states will re-enter generation ownership by reclassification rather than repeal, starting with New Jersey and Maryland storage dockets in 2026 to 2027 and extending to dispatchable and nuclear plant through 2027 and 2028.
What will settle it
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approving Atlantic City Electric's ownership of the Pittsgrove battery.
What would count against it
The New Jersey board rejecting the filing on the ground that storage is generation under the restructuring statute.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Aug 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Queue Was Never the Demand: Collateral Now Decides Which Data Centres Count, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Commitment tests such as deposits will cut disclosed US data-centre demand by a third or more where applied, with a Texas decision on 20 August 2026, tariff filings late in 2026 and procurement consequences in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
RTO tariff filings answering FERC's show-cause orders that carry deposit and milestone requirements.
What would count against it
Utilities converting uncommitted pipeline into signed agreements fast enough to leave forecasts broadly intact.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Aug 2026 to Aug 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Regulated Load: Data Centres Are About to Be Treated Like Power Plants, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The largest US data centres will become registrable, standards-bound entities under grid reliability regulation, with draft standards out for comment in August, standards and registry criteria filed by 31 December 2026 and first obligations in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
NERC posts the Phase 1 draft standard for the August 45-day comment period, with ride-through performance requirements included.
What would count against it
NERC misses the 31 December filing deadline, or files standards limited to utility-side modelling with no obligations on load entities.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Aug 2026 to Aug 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Priced for Proof: Adaptation Evidence Becomes the Insurability Test for Infrastructure, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Documented physical adaptation will become the condition for insuring and financing infrastructure, with prudential consultation outcomes in 2026 to 2027 and the first repriced renewals and loan conditions in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
EIOPA publishes a feedback statement or opinion proposing dedicated standard-formula treatment for adaptation measures.
What would count against it
EIOPA closes the consultation concluding that no dedicated prudential treatment for adaptation is justified on proportionality grounds.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jul 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan Retirement by Federal Order: The Quiet Federalisation of US Resource Adequacy, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US emergency orders under Federal Power Act section 202(c) will be serially renewed into a standing federal capacity instrument that overrides utility retirement plans, with a DC Circuit ruling expected in 2026 to 2027.
What will settle it
A 202(c) order lands on a plant beyond the current set, such as Cumberland Unit 2 in Tennessee or South Oak Creek in Wisconsin, before year-end.
What would count against it
The DC Circuit vacates a 202(c) retirement-deferral order and DOE stops issuing replacements.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in The Summer the Grid Said No, July 2026. Graded in Paying More Did Not Bring More Power (September 2026).
PJM's capacity auction for 2028/2029 would show supply running short of demand.
What happened
It cleared at the $325 per MW-day price cap, 6,831 MW short of the amount required, with only 317 MW of new generation.
A grid would actually order data centres to cut their power use this summer.
What happened
It did not. PJM kept the emergency powers it was given in May and met an all-time peak on 2 July with about 6,113 MW of customers cutting use on request, without ordering data centres onto backup generators.
The 2 July peak on PJM's grid, reported as about 162.7 GW, stayed below the 2006 record.
What happened
Wrong. PJM's own figure is 168,158 MW, which broke the 165,563 MW record. The September edition withdrew the July reading.
Spending by the largest cloud companies would hold up in the second quarter of 2026.
What happened
It held and rose, to about $490 billion across five companies in the twelve months to May, though borrowing now funds far more of it: new debt rose from 9% to 32% of spending.
Reinsurance prices would keep falling through the 2026 hurricane season.
What happened
First-half insured catastrophe losses were $46 billion, the lowest since 2019, and reinsurance prices fell 12% in January and 16% in July. The season is not over.
Water permits would start to decide where data centres can be built.
What happened
No headline refusal, but Virginia's environmental regulator found no site east of Interstate 95 can support a large industrial groundwater draw under current standards.
California's insurer of last resort, the FAIR Plan, would keep growing fast.
What happened
Growth slowed but was still 25% higher year on year in the first quarter. The milestone was handed forward.
The Bank of England would report its climate stress test of insurers.
What happened
The test finished in May 2026, and the Bank says it will publish its findings later in 2026.
Calls made in Signal Scan The Value-Deflation Cliff: How Solar's Own Success Repriced the Merchant Renewables Model, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Solar's own success will collapse its capture price in Europe, moving the binding constraint to revenue risk and shifting capital toward storage-paired and firmed assets through an investment and market-design reset in 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
France's CRE finalising its large-scale solar CfD redesign with negative-price compensation removed and a baseload reference price.
What would count against it
European battery deployment accelerating fast enough that capture factors stabilise or recover in 2027 spring data.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: May 2027 to Jul 2034
Calls made in Signal Scan The Designation Letter: Europe's Critical-Entity Rules Land Unevenly from 17 July, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Europe's critical-entity rules will turn physical resilience into a supervised legal duty for named operators, landing unevenly, with designations from 17 July 2026, duties binding around May 2027 and first enforcement in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
First national designation counts or registration figures (German BBK/BSI platform, Dutch ministries) in H2 2026.
What would count against it
The Commission signals forbearance on the 17 July milestone, or states delay designations into 2027 without consequence.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Jul 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Water Ceiling: Why Power-Plant Water, Not Cooling, Will Gate the AI Data-Centre Buildout, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Water consumed at power plants, more than on-site cooling, will gate the AI data-centre buildout across US states, with water-disclosure bills advancing through 2026 and water the binding constraint in 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
Other state legislatures enacting data-centre water-disclosure laws with power to refuse permits.
What would count against it
Rapid, fleet-wide migration to closed-loop and zero-water cooling that collapses both direct and incremental indirect water demand.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan The End of Stationarity: How Climate-Adjusted Design Codes Are Repricing the Built Environment, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Climate-adjusted design codes, led by NOAA's Atlas 15 and UK flood allowances, will re-label existing infrastructure and housing as underdesigned, with standards rewritten in 2026 to 2027 and assets, insurance and finance repriced in 2027 to 2032.
What will settle it
NOAA publishes Atlas 15 contiguous-US estimates after the September 2026 peer review, and state DOTs adopt the values into design manuals.
What would count against it
NOAA delays Atlas 15 beyond 2027 or publishes estimates that stay effectively stationary across most of the contiguous US.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Jun 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Curtailable Connection: How Flexibility Became the Price of Grid Access for AI Data Centres, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Fast grid connection for AI data centres in the US and Britain will be conditioned on accepting curtailment, with rule-making and early mandates in 2026 and flexible connection becoming the default in 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
FERC issues a final large-load interconnection rule that formalises an expedited path for flexible, curtailable loads.
What would count against it
FERC's final rule drops or dilutes the flexible-load fast lane after industry objections.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan When Inertia Stops Being Free: Grids Pivot From Building Power to Buying Stability, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Grid operators will stop getting inertia and short-circuit strength free from thermal plants and buy stability instead, with mandates and first markets in 2026 to 2027 and stability priced as a commodity in 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
The European Commission's grid-code revision is finalised with binding grid-forming performance requirements for inverter-based resources.
What would count against it
Regulators defer or dilute grid-forming mandates, leaving capability voluntary past 2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Factory, Not the Queue: Grid-Hardware Manufacturing Is the Binding Constraint on the Energy Build-Out, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Grid-hardware manufacturing, not connection queues, will be the binding constraint on the energy build-out, acute through 2027 to 2028 with long transformer, cable and switchgear lead times, before a reset in 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
DOE DPA Title III awards for transformer, cable and switchgear capacity, with named OEM or electrical-steel recipients.
What would count against it
Transformer lead times contract below 18 months across 2026 to 2027 reporting cycles.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Adequate, and Still Exposed: How Correlated Climate Stress Is Redefining Grid Reliability, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Correlated climate stress such as drought with heat will redefine grid reliability, as adequacy planning moves to compound weather while capacity markets and tariffs lag, with the 2026 to 2028 market cycles setting the perimeter.
What will settle it
A US ISO or RTO files a capacity-market reform pricing availability under correlated-stress scenarios.
What would count against it
2026 and 2027 summers pass without a correlated-stress outage of the Iraq, Iberian or NYISO-modelled type.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Aug 2027 to May 2030
Calls made in Powering AI in a Climate-Stressed World, May 2026. Graded in The Summer the Grid Said No (July 2026).
Summer 2026 would test whether grids could cope with data-centre demand.
What happened
The grid coped, using emergency curtailment powers and customers cutting their use on request. Prices in PJM, the largest US grid, tripled, and curtailment of data centres was authorised but not carried out.
Spending by the largest cloud companies would keep rising; a cut of 15% or more was the signal that would prove the load-growth case wrong.
What happened
No cut came. Spending for 2026 reached about $700 to $725 billion, up 77%, and every company raised its guidance. The ledger recorded the test as broken upwards.
Climate losses would make insurance steadily harder and dearer to buy.
What happened
Reversed on price: catastrophe reinsurance rates fell about 16% to 20% in mid-2026. The strain moved instead to insurers of last resort, such as California's FAIR Plan, and to household credit.
PJM, the largest US grid, would settle its rules for data centres built alongside power plants.
What happened
Not settled: the US energy regulator told PJM to write rules for sharing sites, and PJM's filing is still in progress.
Large buyers would keep signing firm clean-power deals, such as nuclear and small reactors.
What happened
The commitments kept growing, but the Carnegie Endowment judges most of the big cloud companies' pledges largely aspirational this decade.
Pressure from insured storm losses would ease in 2026.
What happened
The US weather agency forecast a below-normal Atlantic season (8 to 14 named storms), easing near-term pressure on insured losses.
The EU's carbon border charge would not become a major energy-cost shock in its first year.
What happened
Its full phase began on 1 January 2026 with an exemption that removed most small importers, so the friction was settled by a carve-out.
Shortages of gas turbines and transformers would keep tightening.
What happened
They did: record orders at GE Vernova, turbine slots tight through 2030 and utilities scrambling for transformers, though GE Vernova disputes that turbines are the main bottleneck.
Calls made in Signal Scan Load Follows Generation: How AI Data Centers Are Quietly Repealing a Century of Utility Planning Logic, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI data centres will invert US utility planning so that load follows generation, building colocated private grids beside the bulk system, with gas-turbine supply tight to the early 2030s and structural lock-in in 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
PJM tariff revisions for Firm and Non-Firm Contract Demand services accepted by FERC by Q2 2026.
What would count against it
Hyperscaler capex pulls back >30% in 2026, freeing gas-turbine slots.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Jun 2026 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Speed, Not Scarcity: How Flash Drought Is Outrunning the Insurance and Anticipatory-Action Architecture, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Flash drought will outrun disaster insurance and anticipatory action built on monthly signals, forcing weekly sub-seasonal and dual-trigger designs, with trigger redesign in 2026 to 2028 and central-bank incorporation in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
FEWS NET or WMO publishes operational sub-seasonal flash-drought trigger thresholds adopted by three or more sovereign reinsurance pools by end-2026.
What would count against it
2026 El Nino resolves into modest seasonal-drought conditions in core geographies and parametric payouts proceed normally on existing monthly triggers.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Hydrogen on Hold: How Aviation's Three-Pathway Decarbonisation Is Quietly Collapsing to One, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
After Airbus's hydrogen retreat, aviation decarbonisation will narrow from three pathways to one, SAF for narrow-body aircraft, through a cascade in 2026 to 2028, with hydrogen confined to niche small aircraft until a possible 2040s return.
What will settle it
A second narrow-body OEM (Boeing, Embraer, COMAC) publicly deprioritises hydrogen-aviation R&D or terminates a flagship hydrogen programme.
What would count against it
Airbus reverses or accelerates the ZEROe programme on new technology or supply-chain evidence by end-2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2041
Calls made in Signal Scan Sinking Faster Than the Sea Rises: How Megacity Subsidence Is Restructuring Coastal Urban Risk by 2030, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
New satellite monitoring will turn megacity subsidence into a finance-grade risk, operational in 2026, with insurers and lenders building it in over 2026 to 2028 and municipal credit and infrastructure spending repricing in 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
Major reinsurer (Swiss Re, Munich Re, SCOR) publishes a catastrophe-model update integrating NISAR-derived subsidence as a property-risk variable for named megacities.
What would count against it
Peer-reviewed re-analysis substantially narrows the Seeger-Minderhoud sea-level recalibration or attributes the bulk of the gap to gauge-instrumentation artefacts.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2034
Calls made in Signal Scan The Last Winter Road: How a Triple Diamond-Mine Crisis Is Ending Arctic Canada's Heavy-Freight Anchor, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The diamond-mine crisis will end the winter-road heavy-freight model in Arctic Canada, with the 2027 season short or failing, Gahcho Kué closing in 2028 and Indigenous-owned aviation the year-round freight backbone by 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
The 2027 Tibbitt-to-Contwoyto winter road fails to open commercially, or operates only for closure and reclamation traffic.
What would count against it
A new diamond or critical-minerals mine north of Yellowknife commits to using the existing winter road through 2030.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Grid Bypass: How Equipment Scarcity Is Quietly Splitting the Power System Into Two Tiers, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Equipment scarcity will split the US power system into two tiers, with large loads able to self-supply leaving the grid in 2026 to 2028 and a durable two-tier structure by 2028 to 2029 unless the rules adapt.
What will settle it
A state beyond Texas passes Senate Bill 6-style large-load cost-allocation and interconnection legislation.
What would count against it
Transformer lead times fall materially as new North American manufacturing capacity comes online in 2027 and 2028.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to May 2032
10 graded so far
The 24 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Signal Scan Agent Payments Are Built Before Anyone Decides Who Pays, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Who bears the loss when an AI agent exceeds its owner's mandate is settled between 2027 and 2028 by a UK consultation response or a card-network dispute rule, and until then by issuer practice.
What will settle it
HM Treasury's consultation response names the party that bears an agent's out-of-mandate loss, or a card network publishes a dispute rule specific to agent-initiated transactions.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan The Digital Euro's Holding Limit Is Set After the Law, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
The digital euro's per-person holding ceiling is set between 2027 and 2029 by a post-law recommendation and adoption procedure, not by a figure in the regulation.
What will settle it
The adopted regulation states no euro figure for the per-person ceiling, and the ECB's recommended ceiling is published after political agreement.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Scam Liability Is Reaching Past Banks to the Platforms and Phone Networks Where Fraud Starts, October 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Liability for scam reimbursement will extend past banks toward the platforms and phone networks where fraud starts, with a UK consultation in December 2026, revised UK rules in May 2027 and EU duties applying from about 2028.
What will settle it
The PSR's December 2026 consultation proposes reporting requirements or a cost contribution for platforms or telecoms, not only consistency rules for payment firms. If this happens: The UK is moving toward origin-side accountability; weight the shared-cost scenario higher in loss provisioning.
What would count against it
The PSR's December 2026 consultation covers only consistency among payment firms, with no platform or telecoms measure.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Oct 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan A Failed Vote Leaves Stablecoin Deposit Competition to One Regulator, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
After Congress failed to pass the CLARITY Act, whether stablecoin rewards may keep competing with bank deposits will be decided by the OCC's GENIUS Act final rule, due in November 2026, with charter applications opening early 2027.
What will settle it
The OCC publishing its GENIUS Act final rule by its stated November 2026 target, without a further delay.
What would count against it
The OCC missing its November deadline a second time, pushing the decision into 2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Nov 2026 to Mar 2028
Calls made in Where Your Money Will Live in 2030, September 2026. The next edition will grade them.
By 2030 the stablecoin question will be how generous rewards become, not whether interest is banned.
What will settle it
The US market-structure law and the reward terms stablecoin issuers and platforms offer.
By 2030 bank deposits will either work like tokens across banks or lose their settlement role to stablecoins.
What will settle it
Tokenised deposit networks between banks, and the European Central Bank's settlement bridge, due to run around the clock by mid-2028.
The digital euro will be piloted from late 2027 and launched around 2029, so by 2030 euro-area shoppers may carry a public digital wallet.
What will settle it
The pilot start, the launch date and the agreed holding cap.
The rules for payments made by AI agents will be set in the cautious years before 2030.
What will settle it
Rules and industry terms for agent payments, and measures of consumer trust in agents.
By 2030 more savings will sit in funds that lend than today, with retail and insurance money playing a growing part.
What will settle it
The size of private credit and the share coming from retail savers and insurers.
By December 2027: A US market-structure bill passed by either chamber of Congress keeps the Treasury's power to stop deposit outflows.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Governments can legally stop money leaving banks for digital dollars'.
By September 2029: Another major economy proposes a similar emergency power over flows from deposits into stablecoins.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Governments can legally stop money leaving banks for digital dollars'.
By December 2027: A private credit fund sold to individuals caps withdrawals, citing losses on loans to AI or data-centre borrowers.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'A slowdown in AI spending reaches ordinary savers first'.
By December 2028: A central bank stress test traces losses from AI financing through private credit to funds sold to individuals.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'A slowdown in AI spending reaches ordinary savers first'.
By December 2027: A card network issues verified identities to AI agents that merchants can check at the point of payment.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'AI agents hold money and carry liability in their own right'.
By June 2029: A financial regulator consults on licences or accounts held by AI agents rather than by their owners.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'AI agents hold money and carry liability in their own right'.
Calls made in Signal Scan Treasury Issuance and Dealer Balance Sheets Set the Price of Overnight Dollar Funding, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Treasury issuance and dealer balance sheets, not Federal Reserve reserve levels, will set the price of overnight dollar funding, with the test arriving when coupon auction sizes rise, which primary dealers expect in early 2027.
What will settle it
Treasury dropping the “at least the next several quarters” guidance on nominal coupon and floating-rate auction sizes at a refunding announcement.
What would count against it
A Federal Reserve staff or Desk publication finding reserve levels significant in the daily repo spread regression.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Mar 2027 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan US Insurance Regulators Take the Capital Charge Back from the Rating Agencies, September 2026. Graded in Change Tracker, 15 October 2026 (October 2026).
US insurance regulators will take over from rating agencies the conversion of insurers' private-credit assets into capital charges, from a proposal re-exposed on 23 September 2026 to new rules at the 31 December 2026 filing.
What happened
No source in this cycle covers the NAIC process, so the SVO challenge test cannot be graded from this evidence.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Sep 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Fungible by Permission: One Stablecoin Across Borders Now Needs an Equivalence Finding Nobody Has Made, September 2026. Graded in Change Tracker, 15 October 2026 (October 2026).
A stablecoin issued in several jurisdictions will stop being one fungible coin unless regulators make equivalence findings, with consultations closing from 30 September 2026, a US gate on 18 January 2027 and a US cutoff in July 2028.
What happened
Treasury's August proposal is in this cycle's evidence base but nothing in it shows a comparability process or a named first jurisdiction, and the 18 January 2027 test has not yet arrived.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Banking Without Deposits: The US Chartered Its Digital-Dollar System Through Uninsured Trust Banks, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The uninsured national trust charter will become the de facto US federal licence for stablecoin and digital-asset custody firms, with approvals and capital rules in 2026 to 2027 and the legal perimeter settling in 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
Final OCC approvals converting the BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets or Paxos conditional charters into operating banks.
What would count against it
A federal court vacating the March 2026 chartering amendment or enjoining a trust-charter approval.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Legislated Back In: Cash Acquired Acceptance Duties While Its Payment Share Kept Falling, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Cash will be re-legislated as mandated contingency infrastructure in Sweden, Australia, the Netherlands and the euro area, with the EU trilogue in 2026 to 2027 and the unpriced cost landing on retailers, banks and cash carriers by 2029.
What will settle it
A regulated or independently set pricing mechanism for cash-in-transit services published in any primary jurisdiction.
What would count against it
The euro-area legal-tender file dropped from the Single Currency Package or stripped of binding acceptance duties.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Recapture Charge: Regulators Put a Price on Pension Liabilities Coming Back, August 2026. Graded in Change Tracker, 15 October 2026 (October 2026).
UK and US regulators will price offshore annuity reinsurance by recapture risk and the reinsurer's domicile and rating, with a UK cut-off on 30 September 2026, UK rules from 1 July 2027 and a US factor for end-2027.
What happened
No source in this cycle covers UK funded reinsurance deals or the PRA counterparty proposal, so the 30 September cut-off test cannot be graded here.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Mobilisation Gap: Near 24/7 Settlement Meets an Office-Hours Collateral Perimeter, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Near round-the-clock settlement will open an unpriced gap against office-hours collateral plumbing, starting when CHAPS sterling settlement opens at 01:30 in September 2027, widening with weekend settlement in 2029 at the earliest and raising bank funding costs.
What will settle it
The Bank of England's feedback statement naming a date for revised intraday liquidity requirements.
What would count against it
The Bank sequencing the 22-hour weekday extension ahead of weekend settlement, keeping the longest non-settlement window intact.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Sep 2027 to Aug 2032
Calls made in Signal Scan Circles of Risk: Why the Credit Risk Banks Paid to Shed Has Not Left the System, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Credit risk that banks shed through synthetic risk transfers will keep looping back into the banking system unmeasured, with issuance climbing through 2027, a disclosure response in 2026 to 2028 and the first prolonged downturn as the test.
What will settle it
The Basel Committee or FSB launches a standing SRT data collection covering investor funding and leverage.
What would count against it
Full-year 2026 issuance falls below 2024 levels as US capital recalibration weakens the arithmetic behind the trade.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Aug 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The End of Free Bank Data: America Reprices Open Banking, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US open banking's free-data settlement will end as the CFPB's rewrite permits tiered bank data fees, with the rule and litigation resolved in 2026 to 2027 and aggregation economics repriced amid a state patchwork by 2029.
What will settle it
The CFPB's Section 1033 proposed rule publishes with an explicit free-request threshold and fee schedule for data providers.
What would count against it
The proposed rule retains the outright prohibition on data-provider fees, contradicting the reported tiered-fee design.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jul 2030
Calls made in The Summer Money Left the Bank, July 2026. Graded in Where Your Money Will Live in 2030 (September 2026).
The US crypto market law would settle whether stablecoins can pay interest.
What happened
The final Senate text banned interest on stablecoin balances, but a key Senate vote failed on 15 September and the bill is unlikely to pass this Congress.
DTCC, which settles US share and bond trades, would launch its token service.
What happened
First live trades ran on 15 July with more than 30 firms, and the service is due to launch in October 2026.
The Financial Stability Board's report on responsible AI would cover AI agents.
What happened
Its June consultation asks directly whether its practices cover AI agents acting on their own, and the final report is due in October.
Digital euro negotiations would settle a holding cap and the question of interest.
What happened
Parliament adopted its position on 9 July and talks with member states opened on 13 July, with a cap of €3,000 per person on the table and agreement aimed for by the end of 2026.
US regulators would finalise changes to how much capital banks must hold.
What happened
The revised proposals of March 2026 would cut the capital banks of every size must hold, but the final rule has not been issued.
Calls made in Signal Scan Past the Sponsor Bank: How Central Banks Are Rationing Direct Access to Settlement, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The Federal Reserve, Bank of England and ECB will give non-banks only a restricted, prefunded and capped tier of direct settlement access, with the US rule finalised late in 2026 and first applications in 2027.
What will settle it
The Fed finalises the payment account after the July comment close, keeping or dropping the clearing-house exclusion.
What would count against it
The final rule stays so restricted (no clearing house, low caps, prefunding) that no significant non-bank applies.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Counter-Ledger: Central Banks and Commercial Banks Build Their Answer to Stablecoins, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Central and commercial banks will build a rival to stablecoins that keeps tokenised money inside the two-tier banking system, with a shared US bank token network targeted for the first half of 2027 and architecture settled by 2030.
What will settle it
Agorá's first real-value transaction results, and which currencies and participants join.
What would count against it
The Clearing House launch slipping past 2027 or shrinking to a closed loop of owner banks.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jun 2027 to Jul 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Deposits, Not Stablecoins: How Rival Bank Consortia Are Rebuilding the Correspondent Hierarchy On-Chain, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US tokenised money will settle on tokenised bank deposits rather than stablecoins, split between two rival bank consortia that rebuild the correspondent-banking hierarchy on-chain, with go-lives at end-2026 and in the first half of 2027.
What will settle it
The Clearing House publishes governance and access terms for banks that are not among its owners.
What would count against it
The two networks agree common standards early, so tokenised deposits move freely between banks and the tiering fails to form.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Done-Away Gap: Treasury Clearing's Big Bang Arrives Before the Market Structure It Assumes, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The Treasury clearing mandate will land as a concentration event at FICC rather than the distributed reform the SEC designed, with cash clearing from 31 December 2026, repo from 30 June 2027 and market shares set by 2028.
What will settle it
SEC orders on the SIFMA inter-affiliate and IIB extraterritorial requests: relief granted broadly, capped, or denied.
What would count against it
Broad inter-affiliate and extraterritorial relief granted in Q3 2026, materially shrinking the mandated perimeter and the concentration risk with it.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan The Rail Switch: How Account-to-Account Payments Are Acquiring the Plumbing to Rival Cards, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Account-to-account payments will acquire the scheme-level plumbing to rival cards, with the UK's new scheme reaching general e-commerce in the second half of 2026, scaffolding built through 2027 and card interchange repriced in 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
The UK scheme's commercial VRP Wave 2 (general e-commerce) launching in the second half of 2026 on schedule.
What would count against it
UK commercial VRP adoption stalling in Wave 1 sectors with no progress toward the Wave 2 e-commerce timeline.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2034
Calls made in Signal Scan The Stablecoin Bid: How Dollar Tokens Became a Marginal Buyer of US Treasury Bills, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Dollar stablecoins will become a sizeable, run-prone marginal buyer of US Treasury bills whose reserve flows move bill yields, scaling with a first stress test through 2026 to 2028 that could force sales into the bill market.
What will settle it
Monthly reserve attestations showing rising direct Treasury bill holdings at Tether and Circle.
What would count against it
Issuers shifting reserves away from Treasury bills toward bank deposits or repo at scale.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Jun 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Liquid Wrapper, Illiquid Core: How Retailised Private Credit Is Moving the Liquidity Mismatch onto Households, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Retail private-credit funds will move the liquidity mismatch onto households, as gated redemptions spread stress between funds, with the systemic-relevance inflection coming in 2026 to 2028 as US 401(k) retirement and European ELTIF channels open.
What will settle it
A US semi-liquid private-credit fund suspends or resets its NAV, or halts redemptions outright.
What would count against it
Q2-Q3 2026 BDC redemption requests fall back below quarterly caps without further gating.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Invisible Dollarisation: How Dollar Stablecoins Are Eroding Emerging-Market Monetary Sovereignty, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Dollar stablecoins will erode monetary sovereignty in vulnerable emerging markets as they spread from crypto trading into everyday savings and payments, with sovereignty stress in 2026 to 2029 and dollarisation compressed from years into months.
What will settle it
An emerging-market central bank reports stablecoin holdings crossing a material share of bank deposits or broad money, or imposes restrictions in response.
What would count against it
Stablecoin use stays confined to crypto trading and cross-border transfers rather than domestic savings and payments.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2029 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The Stablecoin Bid: How Dollar Tokens Became a Price-Setter in the Treasury-Bill Market, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Dollar stablecoins will act as a price-setter in the US Treasury-bill market, compressing bill yields, with the structural test arriving on the first large redemption event, plausibly in 2026 to 2028, and regulators moving toward money-fund-style rules.
What will settle it
BIS, OFR or Treasury TBAC analysis quantifying stablecoin reserves as a named share of total T-bill demand or net issuance.
What would count against it
Stablecoin growth stalls or reverses, capping reserves below systemically relevant levels.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Know Your Agent: How the Race to Authenticate AI Buyers Is Rewiring Payment Liability, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Card networks will set the rules for authenticating AI agents that buy on people's behalf before regulators act, with network standards live in 2026, supervisory consultation in 2026 to 2027 and payment liability reset in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
FCA publishes a discussion paper on agentic AI payments naming Verifiable Intent or a competitor.
What would count against it
Agent-initiated transaction volumes remain trivial through 2026 to 2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The Narrow-Banking Drift: How Stablecoins Are Quietly Reshaping Who Creates Credit, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Stablecoins will drift US money toward narrow banking, moving dollars from lending banks into fully reserved tokens backed by Treasury bills, pushing credit to non-banks as the market heads toward Standard Chartered's projected $2 trillion by end-2028.
What will settle it
Stablecoin aggregate market cap resumes growth above the early-2026 plateau, with monthly net issuance turning positive.
What would count against it
Stablecoin market cap stalls or contracts through 2026-2027, leaving the share of dollar money outside fractional-reserve banks negligible.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to May 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Insurer of Last Resort: How War-Risk Withdrawal Is Restructuring the Architecture of Global Trade, May 2026. Graded in Change Tracker, 15 October 2026 (October 2026).
War-risk insurance will move from private markets to sovereign backstops used as statecraft, with a US Treasury cyber backstop consultation reporting in June 2026 and insurance markets fragmenting along geopolitical lines in 2028 to 2030.
What happened
This cycle's sources cover EU climate-cover pooling but nothing on war-risk reinsurance or a sovereign facility, so the call stays open.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jun 2026 to May 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan Beyond Stablecoins: How Tokenised Money Market Funds Are Becoming the Institutional Collateral Standard, May 2026. Graded in Change Tracker, 15 October 2026 (October 2026).
Tokenised money-market fund shares will become the standard institutional collateral, displacing non-yielding stablecoins where rules permit, with CFTC rulemaking by August 2026, collateral adoption in 2026 to 2027 and a derivatives-margin shift in 2027 to 2029.
What happened
This cycle's sources show no CFTC final rule on tokenised money-market fund collateral, so the August 2026 test cannot be graded from this evidence.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Aug 2026 to May 2033
14 graded so far
The 23 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Signal Scan US Keeps Black Mass at Home, EU Drafts Scrap Export Ban, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between 2027 and 2028 domestic-first control of recycled metal feedstock becomes standing policy in the US or the EU, and is not reversed by exceptions.
What will settle it
BIS extends or widens its order past August 2027, or the final EU list omits India for metal waste.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Brazil’s Next President Has Little Fiscal Room, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Brazil's new government has to announce a 2027 spending contingency or lower the 2027 primary-surplus target, because the budget leaves too little room for a fiscal pivot, between 2027 and 2028.
What will settle it
The government announces a 2027 spending contingency of at least R$35.7 billion, or formally lowers the R$73.2 billion primary-surplus target.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan US Drug Tariffs Are Paid for in Medicine Prices, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
A government other than the UK obtains a US medicines tariff rate below its 15% cap in return for pricing or reimbursement commitments between 2027 and 2029.
What will settle it
The US publishes a notice lowering the rate on patented pharmaceuticals for the European Union, Japan, South Korea or Switzerland below 15% after a pricing or reimbursement agreement.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2029
Calls made in Diesel, Allies and the New World Order, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
US diesel will remain a supply that politics can interrupt until at least 2027.
What will settle it
US diesel stocks and prices, and any restrictions on exports.
Export controls on fuel will remain a normal tool of government to 2030, used whenever home prices rise.
What will settle it
New fuel export restrictions by producing countries, and how long Russia's run.
By 2030 US partners such as the EU, Australia and Canada will each have at least one working alternative to the US for trade, defence supplies or energy.
What will settle it
The EU-Australia trade agreement entering into force, and Canada's exports outside the US.
By 2030 most trade rules that matter will come from clubs countries can join or ignore, not from one global rulebook.
What will settle it
The G7 target to cut reliance on any single supplier of rare earths and magnets, and new trade agreements outside the WTO.
Calls made in Signal Scan Niger's US Uranium Loan Turns Political Risk into a Queue of Sovereign Consents, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Political risk at Niger's Dasa uranium mine will run through a queue of sovereign consents attached to a $414.2 million US DFC loan, with consents due in 2026 to 2027 and first production targeted for late 2028.
What will settle it
Niger extends the Dasa mining convention and permit for at least the full term of the loan, not only to the 2028 production date. If this happens: the first of the four gates is cleared and the clock starts on the direct agreement.
What would count against it
Global Atomic reporting all four conditions met by end-2026 with the export route contractually open.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Refining States Are Metering Diesel Exports, Leaving Importers to Bid for the Remainder, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Refining states will keep metering diesel exports through bans, permissions and levies, leaving import-dependent economies to bid for a thin remainder through the winter 2026 to 2027 demand peak and into 2027 as Gulf supply recovers.
What will settle it
China's fourth-quarter export permissions falling toward 1.2 million tons a month, or a renewed export ban.
What would count against it
The US administration ruling out an export ban, and prices easing without one.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Mar 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan US Trade Blacklists Now Decide Who a Federally Funded Scientist May Work With, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US trade, sanctions and procurement blacklists will decide whom federally funded scientists may work with, starting with the NSF prohibition from FY2027, read in Beijing as 1 October 2026, and allied rules following through 2028.
What will settle it
NSF's FY2027 guidance carrying the restricted-entity certification, and NIH or DOE publishing an equivalent.
What would count against it
NSF's final guidance narrowing the prohibition to a subset of lists or adding a case-by-case waiver.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Oct 2026 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Voluntary Top-Up: Carbon Border Recognition as a Design Brief for Third-Country Carbon Markets, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Carbon border recognition will become the design brief for other countries' carbon markets, with EU rules on carbon prices paid abroad finalised through 2026, the UK border charge from 1 January 2027 and Türkiye implementing from 2028.
What will settle it
HM Revenue and Customs adding Turkiye's TR-ETS to the qualifying list, or removing a scheme already named.
What would count against it
The European Commission adopting a published list of qualifying jurisdictions that mirrors the UK's, collapsing the divergence.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan China Has Turned Its Export Control List Into a Standing Reciprocity Machine, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
China will answer each Western sanctions or entity listing with a matched list of Western firms, from the next EU sanctions package and its Chinese answer in 2026 to 2027 to supply-chain requalification by 2028.
What will settle it
A further MOFCOM announcement listing EU or US entities within days of the next Western sanctions or entity-list action.
What would count against it
A Western listing action passing without a matched Chinese listing within a month.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan One Metal, Two Prices: The Western Rare Earth Premium Is Being Written into 15-Year Contracts, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Western rare earth premiums will be written into 15-year floor-price contracts, giving one mineral a market price inside China and a policy price outside it, with floor contracts spreading in 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
A major price-reporting agency launches or expands ex-China rare earth assessments that get referenced in physical supply contracts.
What would count against it
A truce extension plus licence liberalisation narrows European premiums materially toward parity in the next IEA market data.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Rationed, Not Taxed: The Volume Cap Returns as Europe's Trade Instrument, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Volume caps that ration access rather than price it will become Europe's trade instrument, from EU and UK steel quotas live on 1 July 2026 to an EU scope review due June 2027 and out-of-quota duty to 2031.
What will settle it
The EU scope assessment due by June 2027, and whether it pulls steel-containing goods inside the cap.
What would count against it
A WTO panel treating the measures as continued safeguards, forcing compensation or withdrawal.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jun 2027 to Aug 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Capital Without Concrete: Why the Investment Rebound Has Not Reached the Ground, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The cross-border investment rebound will keep buying existing businesses rather than building new plants, so headline investment totals stop predicting industrial capacity, with the capacity shortfall arriving in 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
National statistics offices publishing acquisition and establishment expenditure separately, as BEA does.
What would count against it
Greenfield announcement values recovering in 2026 across regions rather than only in AI and energy assets.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2030 to Aug 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Earn-Down Tariff: America’s Rebuilt Trade Wall Prices Regulatory Alignment, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The US will rebuild its tariff wall on statutory authorities whose rates fall as partners adopt US rules, from Section 338 duties on Canada on 19 August 2026 through excess-capacity findings and reciprocal-trade deals in 2027.
What will settle it
USTR announces excess-capacity findings with tariff rates conditioned on named policy changes in the 16 investigated economies.
What would count against it
The Court of International Trade enjoins the forced-labor tariffs or the excess-capacity action on major questions or APA grounds.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Aug 2026 to Aug 2029
Calls made in The Summer the Dollar Blinked, July 2026. Graded in Diesel, Allies and the New World Order (October 2026).
US steel and metals tariffs (Section 232) would survive in court.
What happened
They have held. The only ruling sent 63 refused exclusion requests back for a fresh decision but left the tariffs standing.
Nvidia's H200 chip sales to China would either become real trade or stop.
What happened
The first shipments went out, but they were under 1% of Nvidia's quarterly data-centre revenue, and the company expects no data-centre revenue from China.
China would renew its pause on rare-earth export controls.
What happened
The arrangement behind the pause was extended to 10 January 2027. The July edition gave the end of the first pause as 27 November; it was 10 November.
The EU would adopt its 22nd sanctions package and a loan to Ukraine backed by frozen Russian assets.
What happened
The package is due for adoption on 12 October. The loan is being revived, but Belgium still objects.
The dollar's share of world reserves would hold above 57%.
What happened
It rose to 57.13% in the first quarter of 2026. Second-quarter figures are due around publication.
The first review of the US-Mexico-Canada agreement would move it to annual reviews.
What happened
It did, and has since turned into open conflict: Canada suspended talks and put counter-tariffs on $27.6 billion of US goods from 8 September.
Southeast Asia's lean towards China would widen in the 2027 survey.
What happened
The 2027 survey is not out. In 2026, 52% of respondents chose China over the US if forced to pick.
Calls made in Signal Scan Taxed by Passport: What the Two-Track Minimum Tax Does to Non-US Groups, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The global minimum tax will run as a two-track regime sorted by the parent company's nationality, with states answering through relief and digital levies, an EU Omnibus decision in 2026 to 2027 and an OECD review in 2029.
What will settle it
France or Germany publishes a national estimate of the accord's cost to Pillar Two receipts.
What would count against it
Effective tax rate disclosures show no widening gap between US-parented and European-parented peers through 2028.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jul 2032
Calls made in Signal Scan The Flag Comes Home: Russia Turns Its Shadow Fleet into a State Fleet, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Russia will turn its shadow fleet into an openly state-run fleet under its own flag, insurers and naval escort, with registry decrees and reflagging through 2026 and a settled two-tier shipping market by 2028.
What will settle it
Adoption of the Russian presidential decree on simplified ship registration now in draft on regulation.gov.ru.
What would count against it
The registration decree stalls, or monthly additions to the Russian register stay in the low dozens against the thousand-ship ambition.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Past the Chip War: Economic Security's Compliance Net Now Reaches Services, Hospitals and Sub-Suppliers, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Economic security will harden into permanent, widening state machinery pulling services, hospitals and lower-tier suppliers into compliance, with Japan's amendment moving through 2026, the US Affiliates Rule suspension lapsing in 2027 and widening toward 2030.
What will settle it
Japan's Diet enacting the ESPA amendment and adding the medical field as a critical-infrastructure sector.
What would count against it
A US-China settlement that rolls back export controls, tariffs and the Affiliates Rule rather than suspending them.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan Managed Trade Returns: How Market Access Became a Negotiated, Conditional Privilege, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US-led trade will be rebuilt as managed trade in which market access is bought with purchase and investment pledges, with deals signed through 2026, enforcement contested in US courts through 2027 and a reckoning by 2029.
What will settle it
New Agreements on Reciprocal Trade signed beyond the current nine, with China-exclusion clauses intact.
What would count against it
US courts durably restore broad tariff authority, removing the fragility, and the deals stabilise.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Made Where, Exactly: How Rules of Origin Became the New Front in US-China Decoupling, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Rules of origin and supply-chain provenance will replace the tariff rate as the binding control in US-China decoupling, with reciprocal-trade agreements signed through 2026 and the shift decisive across 2026 to 2027.
What will settle it
CBP publishing revised mitigation standards and a list of countries or facilities associated with circumvention schemes.
What would count against it
"Transshipment" left undefined in the agreements and unenforced in practice.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Two Backstops, Not One: The Quiet Bifurcation of the Global Lender of Last Resort, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The global lender of last resort will split into a conditional IMF track and alignment-based Chinese swap lines and Gulf deposits, sorting crisis finance by alignment, with IMF unconditional cuts biting from 2027 and sorting visible by 2029.
What will settle it
New PBoC swap lines or expanded draws disclosed by distressed-borrower central banks beyond Pakistan and Argentina.
What would count against it
Bilateral swap volume falls back toward 2023-2024 levels as 2025 proves a one-off spike.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The State as Shareholder: How Ownership Became a Lever of Economic Statecraft, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
State ownership through equity stakes, golden shares and sovereign funds will become a standing lever of economic statecraft, fragmenting global capital along security lines, with deal-making through 2027 and norms and reciprocity settling in 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
A formal U.S. sovereign or “Public Wealth Fund” vehicle authorised by Congress, or the Development Finance Corporation's new equity authority used at scale ( CFR , 22/04/2026).
What would count against it
Courts or Congress constrain executive-branch equity deals, and existing stakes are unwound rather than expanded.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2030 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Screening the Outflows: How Outbound Investment Controls Became Fragmentation’s Self-Propagating Instrument, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Outbound investment screening will spread from a US experiment into a networked norm mirrored by China, with EU reviews reporting through 2026, US implementing rules due by about March 2027 and propagation through trade deals by 2028.
What will settle it
Treasury issues COINS Act implementing regulations (due by ~March 2027) operationalising the six covered countries and the new technology sectors.
What would count against it
COINS Act implementing rules delayed or narrowed, with covered-country expansion quietly confined to China in practice.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan Custody, Not Just Composition: How Gold Repatriation Is Fragmenting the Reserve System, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Central banks will keep moving gold out of US custody, fragmenting the settlement, lending and repo plumbing of the reserve system along jurisdictional lines, with relocation under way and a reserve-architecture reset in 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
A third advanced-economy central bank announces or executes a New York or London repatriation on the Banque de France template.
What would count against it
Net gold buying falls sharply for two consecutive quarters and net selling becomes the norm across emerging markets.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Jun 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Third Front: How Global-South Tariffs on China Are Becoming the Durable Layer of Trade Fragmentation, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Tariffs and antidumping duties on Chinese goods written into law by Mexico, Brazil and India will become a durable layer of trade fragmentation, with further Global-South measures expected through 2026 to 2027 and India's safeguard running to 2028.
What will settle it
Indonesia, Vietnam or Turkey adopting Mexico-style multi-line tariff legislation against non-FTA Asian suppliers.
What would count against it
Mexico, Brazil or India unwinding their tariff or antidumping measures in response to a US-China detente.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2030
Calls made in Operating Where Consensus Is Gone, May 2026. Graded in The Summer the Dollar Blinked (July 2026).
The July 2026 review of the US-Mexico-Canada agreement would confirm lasting change rather than a return to normal.
What happened
The US declined to extend the agreement, which now runs on annual reviews to 2036 rather than a renewal.
US export licences for Nvidia's H200 chips to China would stay tightly conditional.
What happened
Case-by-case licensing held as a conditional reopening, with a 50% sales cap and a 25% export fee.
The EU would fix new dates for its delayed AI Act deadlines.
What happened
Its Digital Omnibus deferred the high-risk deadlines to December 2027 and August 2028, with fixed dates.
The EU would adopt its 21st sanctions package against Russia.
What happened
It was adopted on 23 July, covering energy, finance and crypto, with 94 banks frozen and 632 shadow-fleet vessels listed.
China's controls on rare-earth exports would stay in force in some form.
What happened
They were paused to November 2026, but with new controls on magnets and defence uses and an entity ban on 22 June.
The US would build up its critical-minerals reserve and cut reliance on adversary suppliers.
What happened
Partly: a July executive action moves to end waivers for adversary sourcing from 2027, and a price floor anchors domestic supply.
Southeast Asia's lean towards China would hold.
What happened
It held in the 2026 survey, 52 to 48 for China when respondents were forced to choose. The 2027 survey is the next test.
Calls made in Signal Scan Suspended, Not Repealed: How Mirror Export-Licensing Regimes Became the Durable Instrument of Economic Fragmentation, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Mirror US and Chinese export-licensing regimes, suspended rather than repealed, will become the durable instrument of economic fragmentation, with the suspension expiring on 10 November 2026 and a structural reset in 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
US-China announcement on whether the 10 November 2026 suspension is extended, replaced or allowed to expire.
What would count against it
A US-China deal that durably replaces the suspended affiliates and FDP rules with narrower, multilaterally agreed controls.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Nov 2026 to May 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Two Stacks, Two Markets: The Connected Vehicle's Bloc-Level Software Split, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Connected-vehicle software will split into separate Western and Chinese supply chains, with US enforcement for MY2027 vehicles from late 2026, equivalent EU measures in 2026 to 2028 and a hardware prohibition reaching MY2030.
What will settle it
BIS publicly rejects a MY2027 Declaration of Conformity from a major OEM, forcing disclosure of Chinese-software components.
What would count against it
BIS issues broad General Authorizations effectively diluting the rule's MY2027 enforcement.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Beyond the G20 Fracture: How Coalition-of-the-Willing Mini-laterals Are Becoming the Default Venue for Global Rule-Making, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Coalition-of-the-willing mini-laterals will become the default venue for global rule-making, consolidating in 2026 to 2027, splitting rules between rival blocs in 2027 to 2028 and forcing compliance and supply-chain rerouting in 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
The 2027 AI Impact Summit institutionalises a binding compliance or capability-disclosure mechanism rather than another voluntary framework.
What would count against it
The 2026 G20 Miami summit produces a substantive joint communiqué with all 20 members participating.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Institutional Ratchet: Why the Far Right's Decisive Effect Is No Longer Measured at the Ballot Box, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The far right's decisive effect will come through captured courts, regulators and media bodies that outlast its time in office, with contested repair attempts and ratchet effects in 2026 to 2030 leaving durable institutional residue beyond.
What will settle it
Hungary's new government attempts removal or replacement of Fidesz-appointed heads of the Constitutional Court, prosecutor general's office or Media Authority, and the resistance it meets.
What would count against it
Hungary's inherited institutions cooperate with or are cleanly reformed by the new government within one parliamentary term.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2030 to May 2033
22 graded so far
The 25 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Signal Scan EU Compliance Dates Now Outrun National Law, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between December 2026 and 2028 EU directive application dates keep running ahead of national law, so firms face a country-by-country patchwork rather than one rule.
What will settle it
Fewer than half of the 27 Member States have notified full transposition of the Product Liability Directive when its 9 December 2026 deadline passes.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Fewer Rules on Paper, More Paperwork in Practice, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
The Cyber Resilience Act reporting duty runs without fines until 11 December 2027, and no national authority fines a manufacturer for a missed report before then.
What will settle it
ENISA and national authority statements on Cyber Resilience Act enforcement through 2027.
Most member states miss the 9 December 2026 deadline for the Product Liability Directive.
What will settle it
National transposition laws and their start dates, as recorded in law-firm trackers and national official journals by mid-December 2026.
By 2030 AI assistants are regulated as a channel to customers in the EU and UK, with access to them governed by the Digital Markets Act and UK conduct requirements.
What will settle it
The UK choice-screen decision, any Commission gatekeeper designation of an AI assistant, and the next review of the Digital Markets Act.
By 2030 the main US rules on AI and climate disclosure are written by states, with no federal law overriding them.
What will settle it
Congressional action on preemption, court rulings in the Justice Department's cases, and the number of state AI and disclosure laws in force.
By 2030 Asia has several distinct AI regimes, none of them a copy of the EU's.
What will settle it
China's AI law drafting, Korea's first fines, Japan's review of its AI Promotion Act and India's data-protection enforcement.
By June 2027: The Commission designates an AI assistant as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'AI assistants become regulated gatekeepers themselves'.
By December 2028: An AI assistant provider is required to share data or interoperate with rival assistants.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'AI assistants become regulated gatekeepers themselves'.
By December 2027: ENISA publishes its first figures on reports received through the Single Reporting Platform.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Europe's vulnerability reports become the evidence in liability cases'.
By December 2028: A product liability claim in an EU court relies on a Cyber Resilience Act report as evidence of a defect.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Europe's vulnerability reports become the evidence in liability cases'.
By December 2027: Japan amends its AI Promotion Act to give the government powers to evaluate high-performance AI.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Asia's light-touch regimes end up controlling frontier AI more tightly than Europe'.
By December 2028: China submits a draft comprehensive AI law to its national legislature.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Asia's light-touch regimes end up controlling frontier AI more tightly than Europe'.
Calls made in Signal Scan Sandboxes Multiply as Exemptions Give Way to Discretion, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between 2027 and 2028 sandbox participants in the EU, UK and Australia remain exposed to the full rule set, because the new instruments give advice or discretionary relief rather than an entitlement to exemption.
What will settle it
A regulator enforces against a sandbox participant for conduct its sandbox advice covered, or a government legislates a power to waive rules for participants.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Competition Regulators Now Treat AI Assistants as Search Rivals Entitled to Google's Data and Android Access, October 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Competition remedies, not AI risk rules, will decide how AI assistants reach users, with a UK competition decision by end-2026, EU access to Google search data from January 2027 and Android access by August 2027.
What will settle it
The CMA's final user-choice conduct requirement, due by 31 December 2026, keeps AI assistants eligible without a core-and-central marketing test. If this happens: The UK route is open; assistant providers should start assembling eligibility evidence, and the posture moves from Prepare to Decide for UK-exposed products.
What would count against it
The EU General Court annuls or suspends either July order before January 2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Oct 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The EU Delayed AI Act High-Risk Rules Because Its Own Standards Were Not Ready, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The EU's delayed AI Act high-risk deadlines of 2 December 2027 and 2 August 2028 will stay gated by unfinished standards and certification bodies, so they could slip again, rewarding firms that build compliance capability early.
What will settle it
CEN-CENELEC publishing a second JTC 21 standard beyond prEN 18286.
What would count against it
CEN-CENELEC delivering all ten standards well before December 2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan US Bank Examiners Must Now Show Likely Material Harm Before Raising a Finding, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
From 2 November 2026, US bank examiners outside the Federal Reserve must show likely material harm before raising findings, with legacy criticisms mostly closed by year-end, a first contested finding likely in 2027 and two-speed supervision.
What will settle it
The FDIC or OCC publishing a count of supervisory criticisms closed, redesignated or retained under the new standard.
What would count against it
Examiners reproducing the closed criticisms as Management-rating downgrades at the next examination cycle.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Nov 2026 to Sep 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The AI Act's Simplification Package Moved Frontier Enforcement to Brussels, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Enforcement over frontier AI will be centralised in the Commission's AI Office, which can now fine providers directly, testing its credibility into 2027 and colliding with 27 uneven national regimes when high-risk duties apply in December 2027.
What will settle it
The first Article 91 documentation request to a Code of Practice signatory, and whether it goes to all signatories or to one.
What would count against it
A full year to August 2027 with no information request, evaluation or formal proceeding against any general-purpose model provider.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Aug 2027 to Sep 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Disclosure Before Design: The Cyber Resilience Act Binds Every Connected Product Already on the EU Market from 11 September, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The Cyber Resilience Act's 24-hour duty to report actively exploited vulnerabilities will bind manufacturers of every connected product on the EU market from 11 September 2026, fifteen months before the design rules apply in December 2027.
What will settle it
ENISA publishing the SRP URL and the full list of coordinating CSIRTs on or before 11 September.
What would count against it
The SRP slipping past 11 September, or the Commission granting a formal grace period for Article 14.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Deputised: EU Criminal Production Orders Now Land Directly on Service Providers, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Under the EU e-Evidence Regulation, live since 18 August 2026, service providers will carry the early costs and legal risk of criminal evidence orders, as the shared IT system phases in over 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
A first published Bundesamt für Justiz enforcement action or fine under §18 EBewMG.
What would count against it
A Commission grace period or enforcement moratorium tied to system readiness, as EuroISPA requested.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Nominal at the Border: The EU Routed More Rules Through Customs As Detection Rates Fell, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
EU border enforcement of product rules will shift from inspecting goods to auditing declaration data, with product identifiers binding from November 2026, Digital Product Passports from February 2027 and the Customs Data Hub taking e-commerce in 2028.
What will settle it
A first enforcement action or penalty under the new e-commerce customs regime naming a marketplace rather than a consignee.
What would count against it
The 1 November 2026 product-identifier deadline deferred or made voluntary beyond that date.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Nov 2026 to Aug 2034
Calls made in Signal Scan Regulation by Purchase Order: Simplified Procurement Rulebooks Come Back Carrying More Conditions, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Simplified EU and US procurement rulebooks will bind suppliers more tightly, with the EU proposal due 9 September 2026, US final rules from late 2026 and co-decision into 2028, making the contract notice the binding compliance regime.
What will settle it
The Commission's 9 September proposal keeps the Regulation form and the binding minimum quality weighting.
What would count against it
The published EU proposal reverts to a Directive, restoring national transposition margin.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Aug 2031
Calls made in The Summer That Enforcement Went Local, August 2026. Graded in Fewer Rules on Paper, More Paperwork in Practice (October 2026).
California approves its climate disclosure rules; first reports due 10 November 2026
What happened
Rules resubmitted for approval on 21 September; the 10 November date is not yet binding.
The appeals court rules on California's climate-risk law, SB 261
What happened
No ruling as of August; the law stays blocked.
The AI Act's grace period for marking AI-generated content ends on 2 December 2026
What happened
Unchanged; marking applies from 2 December 2026.
Member states transpose the Product Liability Directive by 9 December 2026
What happened
Uneven: only Hungary and Croatia had finished by September.
The remaining member states designate their AI Act authorities
What happened
The Commission's table still lists no authority for six states.
EU Court of Justice cases against four states over the NIS2 cyber security rules
What happened
Lump sum and daily penalties sought; no judgment yet.
France adopts its NIS2 law
What happened
Not adopted; the debate was postponed again on 6 October.
The second DORA register cycle, and appeals by designated IT providers
What happened
Registers filed on schedule; no appeal ruling found.
The Justice Department's case against Colorado's AI Act
What happened
Colorado replaced the law, removing most of the challenge; no other task-force case found.
The Obernolte-Trahan federal AI bill
What happened
Only a stand-alone frontier AI bill was introduced; the wider package was not.
Publication of the EU's simplified sustainability reporting standards
What happened
Published on 21 September 2026, for financial years from 1 January 2027.
Colorado's developer documentation duties from 1 January 2027
What happened
The replacement law takes effect on 1 January 2027.
Calls made in Signal Scan Detection, Not Deregulation: Why Simplified Rulebooks Are Getting Harder to Breach, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Simplified rulebooks will get harder to breach because supervisors' data and analytics detection will outpace rule change, with reporting coverage expanding to about 2028 and authorities moving from sampling to targeting from roughly 2029.
What will settle it
A national tax authority publishing yield attributed specifically to analytics, as HMRC has begun to do.
What would count against it
Compliance yield falling as check volumes fall, indicating the two move together after all.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2029 to Aug 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Regulating by Class: PFAS Rules Now Attach to the Whole Chemistry, Not the Substance, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
PFAS will be regulated as a whole chemical class rather than substance by substance, with state reporting and labels in 2026 to 2027, an EU committee's final opinion at end-2026 and near-total bans in 2029 to 2032.
What will settle it
SEAC adopts its final opinion by end-2026 with derogations narrower than industry sought.
What would count against it
The Commission shelves or guts the restriction, exempting fluoropolymers outright under the simplification agenda.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Aug 2032
Calls made in Signal Scan Deregulation Without Repeal: Why the Rules Are Still on the Books, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Because US deregulation has relied on non-enforcement and delay rather than repeal, suspended rules will stay legally live, with court tests through 2026 to 2027 and revival by successors, states and private plaintiffs in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
Commerce publishes the promised rulemaking rescinding and replacing the AI Diffusion Rule, or submits the non-enforcement policy to Congress as GAO requires.
What would count against it
Agencies complete formal notice-and-comment repeals for the major suspended rules, removing them from the Code of Federal Regulations outright.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jul 2032
Calls made in Signal Scan Rules Without Referees: The EU's Missing Certification Machinery, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Missing certification bodies and standards, not the rules, will bind the Cyber Resilience Act and AI Act, with bodies stood up through 2026, queues forming into 2027, and regulators then extending deadlines or admitting unassessed products.
What will settle it
The Commission's NANDO register lists its first designated notified bodies for the CRA and the AI Act.
What would count against it
Notified bodies are designated quickly and in numbers, and lead times stay short as deadlines approach.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Empty Sandbox: The EU's Flagship AI-Innovation Track Is Quietly Stalling, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The EU's AI regulatory sandboxes will fail to materialise on schedule, leaving a patchwork of a few working and many nominal sandboxes at the 2 August 2027 deadline, with evidence on whether they deliver in 2028 to 2029.
What will settle it
Member states beyond Spain bring operational AI sandboxes online ahead of the 2 August 2027 deadline.
What would count against it
A clear majority of member states have operational sandboxes by the 2027 deadline.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Aug 2027 to Jul 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Quantum Compliance Clock: Post-Quantum Migration Becomes Binding Law Before the Threat Arrives, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Post-quantum encryption migration will become binding law through procurement before the threat arrives, with a US federal procurement rule and guidance in 2026, EU national milestones at end-2026 and binding migrations in 2030 to 2031.
What will settle it
The FAR Council's proposed rule, due within 180 days, and its definition of covered contractors.
What would count against it
FAR rulemaking stalling, or a final rule exempting most contractors.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The Liability Handover: Strict Liability for Software and AI Arrives as Europe's Rulebooks Retreat, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Strict liability for software and AI will shift EU enforcement from regulators to courts for products placed on the market after 9 December 2026, with first claims in 2027 to 2028 and EU-level court references from 2028.
What will settle it
Member states with transposition laws in force by 9 December 2026, and the Bundestag's vote on the German bill.
What would count against it
An omnibus-style proposal deferring the Product Liability Directive's application date.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Removable Regulator: How Eroding Agency and Central-Bank Independence Reprices Policy Risk, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The Supreme Court will gut or sharply narrow removal protection for independent regulators in rulings due end June or early July 2026, tying rules and interest rates to elections and repricing policy risk over 2026 to 2030.
What will settle it
The Supreme Court's rulings in Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook, and specifically whether the opinion carves out the Federal Reserve.
What would count against it
The Court upholding for-cause removal protection, or limiting any change narrowly to single-director agencies.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Jun 2026 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan After Human-in-the-Loop: Regulators Concede Oversight Cannot Scale to Agentic AI, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Financial regulators will concede that human oversight cannot scale to agentic AI and shift control to objectives, guardrails and outcomes, with rules and guidance reset through 2026 to 2027 and accountability moving onto boards.
What will settle it
Final IOSCO and FSB AI texts moving from human-in-the-loop language toward outcome, guardrail and monitoring standards.
What would count against it
Regulators reaffirming strict human-in-the-loop review for high-stakes AI decisions with no outcome-based substitute.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan From Age Gate to Identity Layer: How Child-Safety Mandates Are Building the Internet's New Identity Infrastructure, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Child-safety age checks will standardise into reusable age attestations held in devices and identity wallets, through ISO/IEC 27566 and operating-system interfaces in 2026, then extend to gambling, lending and identity checks over 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
EU member states ship the age-verification app or fold it into national Digital Identity Wallets before end-2026.
What would count against it
US courts strike down state age-verification laws on First Amendment grounds and NetChoice's injunctions hold.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2030
Calls made in Compliance Becomes Strategy, June 2026. Graded in The Summer That Enforcement Went Local (August 2026).
The EU would formally adopt its AI Act changes before 2 August 2026.
What happened
The European Parliament approved the agreement on 16 June 2026, 423 to 57.
The European Commission would decide on Google Search and Play under its digital markets law by 27 July 2026.
What happened
It decided on 22 July, five days early: a fine of €890 million and 60 days to put remedies in place.
EU rules for general-purpose AI models and AI transparency would take effect on 2 August 2026.
What happened
Both took effect on schedule, and the EU's AI Office gained its enforcement powers.
California's first climate-emissions reporting deadline would hold at 10 August 2026.
What happened
It did not: California's air regulator withdrew its rules on 24 June and moved the deadline to 10 November 2026.
The EU's revised sustainability reporting standards would be published around the end of 2026.
What happened
They arrived early, on 3 July, but are not yet law: Parliament and Council are reviewing them, to apply from 2027.
The second round of EU financial digital-resilience reporting would follow in early 2027.
What happened
It was brought forward and narrowed: the 2026 exercise runs with a more limited scope.
The remaining EU member states would complete their cyber-security laws under the NIS2 directive.
What happened
Not completed: the European Commission took four member states to the EU Court of Justice on 8 July 2026.
Austria's new cyber-security law would take effect in October 2026.
What happened
No evidence either way was found this cycle. Austria was not among the four states taken to court.
The US would retaliate with tariffs against EU rules on technology firms.
What happened
No movement was found this cycle, so the milestone carries forward.
The EU would signal use of its Anti-Coercion Instrument.
What happened
It remains unused as far as this cycle's scan reached, but no source was gathered to show its position.
Calls made in Signal Scan Prove You're Old Enough: How Age-Assurance Mandates Are Becoming the Internet's Identity Layer, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Child-safety age-verification mandates will build the internet's identity layer, as national laws and enforcement land in 2025 to 2026 and checks migrate to devices, operating systems and government wallets in 2026 to 2028, eroding online anonymity.
What will settle it
An OS provider (Apple or Google) ships OS-level age attestation with an API for apps, or a US state or federal OS-level mandate is enacted.
What would count against it
Courts strike down age-verification mandates (for example on free-expression grounds in the US), halting the rollout.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Inside the Perimeter: Regulators Take Direct Oversight of the Cloud Hyperscalers, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Financial regulators will take direct oversight of the cloud hyperscalers, with the UK's first designations in 2026, examinations and first enforcement tests in 2026 to 2028, and the model then spreading to other sectors and AI providers.
What will settle it
HM Treasury making its first critical-third-party designations of named cloud or AI providers during 2026.
What would count against it
EU oversight stalls, with designations made but no substantive examinations or recommendations issued.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan After the Ratchet: How the EU's AI Act Rollback Reverses the Brussels Effect, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The EU's AI Act rollback will reverse the Brussels effect, with high-risk deadlines postponed to December 2027 and August 2028, a digital fitness check in the first quarter of 2027, and jurisdictions that copied EU rules stepping back.
What will settle it
Publication of the draft GDPR/Data Omnibus text and the scope of consent, purpose-limitation and data-subject-rights changes.
What would count against it
The harmonised AI Act standards are finalised in 2026 and the postponed high-risk obligations bind on or near the original 2026-2027 dates.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Mar 2027 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Preemption by Other Means: How "Managed Federalism" Is Quietly Reshaping Who Sets AI Rules, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Federal pressure will reshape who sets US AI rules without a national law, as the December 2025 executive order's broadband-funding threats and Justice Department litigation lead states to stall or narrow AI bills through 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
Commerce publishes its evaluation of "onerous" state AI laws and BEAD ineligibility determinations follow.
What would count against it
Congress enacts a national AI law that genuinely preempts state statutes, retiring the managed-federalism workaround.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Beyond the Coverage Gap: How Direct-to-Device Satellite Is Unbundling Mobile Spectrum, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Direct-to-device satellite will unbundle mobile spectrum from mobile operators, with a US regulatory reset in 2026 to 2027, spectrum transfers and commercial scaling in 2027 to 2029, and an international settlement at WRC-27 in late 2027.
What will settle it
A second constellation operator (Amazon's Leo, AST SpaceMobile) secures dedicated mid-band spectrum or space-based buildout waivers on terms comparable to the SpaceX-EchoStar transfer.
What would count against it
The FCC's EPFD repeal is stayed, narrowed on Congressional Review Act grounds, or reversed before its 13 July 2026 effective date.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jul 2026 to May 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Disclosure That Didn't Disappear: How the EU Omnibus Is Re-Privatising Sustainability Reporting, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The EU Omnibus will push sustainability reporting into private channels, as lenders, insurers and large buyers keep demanding the data, with revised standards adopted in late 2026 and the private regime consolidating in 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
The Commission adopts the revised ESRS and voluntary-standard delegated acts in H2 2026, fixing the content that defines the value-chain cap.
What would count against it
Banks and insurers visibly scale back ESG data collection in step with the CSRD scope cut rather than maintaining or expanding it.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Nature on the Supervisor's Desk: How Biodiversity Loss Is Being Re-Coded as a Prudential Risk, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Biodiversity loss will be re-coded as a prudential risk for banks, with supervisory toolkits forming through 2026, stress tests and prudential integration in 2026 to 2029, and repricing of nature-dependent lending in 2028 to 2031.
What will settle it
The ECB publishes its updated supervisory compendium with nature-related good practices in May 2026, as Elderson signalled.
What would count against it
The ECB's May compendium treats nature as optional or defers it, signalling supervisory hesitation rather than momentum.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: May 2026 to May 2033
7 graded so far
The 23 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Signal Scan Canada's Revised Count Doubles the Cut Still Ahead, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Canada's non-permanent residents are still above 5% of the population on 1 October 2027, because the federal target is relaxed or missed.
What will settle it
Statistics Canada's estimate for 1 October 2027 puts non-permanent residents above 5% of the population.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan German Job Growth Now Sits in Health, Care and Public Services, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
German employment keeps falling through 2027 while public services, education and health keep adding jobs, so net job growth stays confined to the sectors that ageing expands.
What will settle it
Destatis or the IAB show public services, education and health employment still rising on the year while total German employment is below its 2026 level.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan South Korea's Birth Rebound Is Real, and One Official Projection Has It Stalling Below 1.0, October 2026. Added from the scan as published.
South Korea's birth rebound will prove a window to test rather than a new baseline, driven by a finite cohort of women in their early 30s and catch-up marriages, with official projections disagreeing until 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
The full-year 2026 fertility rate is reported at or above 0.9, the Budget Office's projection for this year. If this happens: The cohort effect is still carrying births; the posture holds at Prepare with capacity staged.
What would count against it
The fertility rate for 2026 is reported at 1.0 or above.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Oct 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan India's Capability Centres Have Outlasted the H-1B Fee That Triggered Them, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The shift of technology and finance staffing to India's Global Capability Centres will keep growing whatever the legal fate of the $100,000 H-1B fee, with the renewed fee binding to 21 September 2027 and commitments extending to 2029.
What will settle it
A DC Circuit ruling on the US Chamber of Commerce's separate challenge to the H-1B fee.
What would count against it
The DC Circuit or Supreme Court permanently vacating the fee alongside a simultaneous slowdown in GCC hiring.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Sep 2027 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan States Withdraw the Enrolment Buffers and Set a Statutory Calendar for School Mergers, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
US states will replace enrolment funding buffers with statutory merger timetables, turning school decline into scheduled contraction, as Vermont's committees convene by 15 October 2026, report in September 2027 and face merger ballots in March 2028.
What will settle it
A second state adopting Vermont's design: compulsory study committees, a statutory reporting date and a fixed ballot date.
What would count against it
Vermont's committees reporting in September 2027 with few or no recommended mergers, and the 2028 ballots failing.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Oct 2026 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Britain Rations Work Visas by Sector Training Plan, on a Clock Shorter Than the Training, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Britain will ration mid-skill work visas by each sector's approved training plan through 18-month licences, with the interim list expiring on 31 December 2026, a licence window from January 2027 to June 2028 and review around 2029.
What will settle it
A Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules adopting the 28-occupation list and the 18-month term, with transitional cover for workers already sponsored.
What would count against it
The Home Office adopting the occupation list but restoring the standard three-year term, removing the renewal clock that gives the gate its force.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Legalised, Not Recruited: Spain's Job Growth Now Runs on the Workers It Already Had, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Spain's job growth will keep running on regularised workers it already had, with decisions on nearly 1.2 million applications through late 2026 and the durability of that supply tested as one-year permits convert from April 2027.
What will settle it
Monthly Social Security releases showing regularised affiliates still rising after the decision backlog clears in late 2026.
What would count against it
Funcas or the Bank of Spain estimating that most regularised affiliates were already in informal work, with underlying employment flat.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Exit as Retention: Europe Winds Down Ukrainian Temporary Protection and Keeps the Workers, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Europe will convert the 4.41 million Ukrainians under temporary protection into settled workers through national transition statuses legislated in 2026 to 2027, before protection ends on 4 March 2028, retaining them rather than returning them.
What will settle it
Formal adoption and Official Journal publication of the March 2028 extension with the military-obligations condition intact.
What would count against it
A ceasefire followed by sustained monthly declines in the Eurostat count of temporary protection beneficiaries across the EU.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Safeguards or Shortage Lists: Labour Visas Became Protection Policy While the Design Was Still Open, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Ordinary work, study and family visas will be counted as refugee protection, and unless safeguards or reserved places are written in while routes are designed in 2027 to 2030, employer shortage demand will decide who arrives.
What will settle it
A UNHCR or OECD publication reporting labour-pathway arrivals and resettlement departures in one total.
What would count against it
US refugee admissions for fiscal 2027 set well above the fiscal 2026 ceiling of 17,500.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2036
Calls made in Signal Scan Breakeven at Zero: The Denominator Now Moves More Than the Labour Market, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The population benchmark behind employment data will move more than the labour market itself, with US break-even payroll growth near zero, a US benchmark revision in February 2027 and the UK survey transition through 2027 breaking forecast series.
What will settle it
The BLS benchmark revision in February 2027 moves the employment level by more than the past five revisions averaged.
What would count against it
Break-even estimates from the Dallas Fed, Chicago Fed and Oxford Economics converge on a common figure for two consecutive quarters.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Feb 2027 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Priced Not to Stay: The Fiscal Test That Now Sets Britain’s Migrant Wage Floor, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Britain will set the pay floor for sponsored mid-skill work visas by a lifetime fiscal test that assumes workers never settle, with rules expected in autumn 2026 and shortage-list access from January 2027 to June 2028.
What will settle it
The autumn Statement of Changes lays a ten-year default with a longer band below degree level.
What would count against it
Impact assessments are published before the rules are laid, and the existing cohort is grandfathered onto five-year settlement.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Aug 2026 to Aug 2036
Calls made in Signal Scan Registered, Not Called: Germany Has Rebuilt Conscription's Machinery Ahead of Any Decision to Use It, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Germany will turn its rebuilt conscription register into a graded list of named young people through compulsory medical screening from July 2027, putting a demand-triggered draft within reach of a parliamentary decision if recruitment falls short.
What will settle it
The defence ministry opens the first screening centre and publishes a call schedule for the 2008 cohort.
What would count against it
Application and hiring growth holds above 20% year on year into 2027, closing the gap voluntarily.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jul 2027 to Aug 2035
Calls made in Signal Scan Shortage Without Mobility: Labour Supply Has Become a Property of Place, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
With worker mobility stalled, labour shortage and slack will sit side by side within countries, measurable in 2026 data, as firms move sites to workers in 2027 to 2028 and policy turns to regional visa quotas from 2029.
What will settle it
New regional visa quotas, provincial nominee schemes or depopulation-area work permits in the UK, Canada, Korea or Japan.
What would count against it
US Census geographic-mobility or ONS internal-migration estimates rising materially for two consecutive years.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan Work Visas as Return Leverage: How the EU Ties Legal Labour Migration to Deportation Diplomacy, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The EU will tie access to its new legal labour-migration channels to origin countries' cooperation on returns, with returns a de facto criterion for Talent Partnerships in 2026 to 2027 and visa conditioning in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
A Talent Partnership or accelerated-permit deal is announced with, or withheld from, a country on the basis of its returns cooperation.
What would count against it
Talent Partnership and permit decisions track only skills and shortages, with no link to returns cooperation.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Older-Worker Lever: Later Retirement Is Doing More Than Migration to Fill Europe's Labour Gap, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Older workers staying on and later retirement, more than migration, will fill Europe's labour gap, institutionalised by pension-age rises phasing in to 2028 and beyond and lasting as a feature through the 2030s.
What will settle it
A major euro-area economy or the UK legislates a further pension-age rise or fuller-working-lives package.
What would count against it
Older-worker participation plateaus or falls as health or caring duties bite.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Jul 2036
Calls made in The Workforce You Can't Buy, July 2026. Graded in Nobody Is Recruiting Their Way Out of This Any More (September 2026).
Japan would decide this autumn on reforming its work permits for foreign workers.
What happened
It did not wait for autumn: a sector ceiling bound in April and intake closed, and a government panel on future intake opened on 7 August.
The EU would open sector-by-sector migration routes as it puts its Migration Pact into effect.
What happened
The instrument that moved was returns, not sector routes: a political agreement on the Return Regulation on 1 June.
The US labour statistics agency would revise its household survey methods in the third quarter of 2026.
What happened
No decision surfaced. A Chicago Fed study found the population estimate moves the jobs break-even figure by up to 66,000 a month.
The 2026 US midterm elections would set the direction of migration policy.
What happened
The vote falls in November, after this cycle, so the milestone carries forward.
The UK's Autumn Budget 2026 would signal changes to retirement age and care wages.
What happened
The Budget falls after this cycle. What landed instead was a new salary threshold for skilled worker visas.
The OECD would revise its projections for how many people work or look for work.
What happened
Not sourced this cycle. The European Central Bank found higher participation drove more than 90% of the rise in older workers' employment.
Getting more people at home into work had largely run its course as a way to fill labour gaps.
What happened
The evidence says it had not: workers aged 55 to 74 delivered 1.4 of the 1.7 point rise in the euro-area employment rate.
Calls made in Signal Scan The Young-Labour Reservoir Is Draining Before the Rich World Has Finished Ageing, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Fertility at or below replacement across middle-income sending and production economies will drain the young-labour pool rich economies rely on, visible in 2026 birth data, with the labour-supply bite in 2028 to 2035.
What will settle it
National statistics offices in Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico or Türkiye reporting total fertility at or below the 2.1 replacement rate in 2026-2027 releases.
What would count against it
A sustained fertility rebound above replacement in two or more major sending countries, not a single-year blip.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2041
Calls made in Signal Scan The Decade-Low Mirage: How a Record Care-Staffing Headline Hides a Pipeline Cut at Both Ends, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
England's decade-low adult social care vacancy rate will prove a lagging indicator, as overseas recruitment has collapsed and British staff keep falling, setting a care-staffing cliff for 2027 to 2030 as the 2022 to 2024 migrant cohort leaves.
What will settle it
Skills for Care's monthly tracker showing the vacancy rate ticking back up after stabilising at 6.7% in November 2025.
What would count against it
British-nationality posts stabilising or rising in the next Skills for Care report.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2030 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The Automation Mismatch: AI Arrives in the Offices, Not the Care Homes and Building Sites, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Cutting migration will open a labour gap in care, health, construction and frontline services that AI cannot fill, because its impact falls on white-collar work, with the sectoral gap biting hardest in 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
New sector-specific visa routes or salary carve-outs for care, health or construction reopening even as headline migration targets fall.
What would count against it
Bedside care or on-site construction robots reaching reliable, affordable deployment at scale before 2029.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Closing the Funnel: How Student-Visa Caps Are Severing the West’s Main Skilled-Labour Pipeline, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Student-visa caps will sever the West's main skilled-labour pipeline, as the onshore pool of convertible graduates thins in 2027 to 2029 and a structural skilled-labour gap opens in ageing economies in 2028 to 2032.
What will settle it
Canada and Australia reweighting points systems toward onshore conversion (Express Entry category-based draws; Australia’s onshore skilled allocations).
What would count against it
Student inflows rebounding to pre-2024 levels within two cycles of any policy reversal.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2032 to Jun 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan From Warning to Outflow: America's Science Brain Drain Crosses Into Structural Reallocation, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
America's science brain drain will become structural reallocation, as senior researchers and whole labs move abroad on multi-year packages, entrenching in 2027 to 2029 while the US pipeline thins as universities cut PhD admissions.
What will settle it
ERC and MSCA award (not just application) data showing US-based researchers actually taking up European grants and relocating laboratories.
What would count against it
Restoration of stable US federal science budgets (FY2027 enacted near prior levels) and reversal of indirect-cost and grant-freeze actions.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan After the Survey: How Collapsing Response Rates Are Rewiring Labour and Migration Statistics, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Collapsing survey response rates will push labour and migration statistics onto administrative data and models, with the UK's transformed labour survey targeted for 2027 and the US survey effects flowing through 2026 to 2027.
What will settle it
ONS confirms or slips the 2027 Transformed LFS headline transition date.
What would count against it
UK LFS response recovers to pre-2019 levels and the "in development" badge is lifted ahead of schedule.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan After the Precautionary Surge: How a Shrinking Sender Base Is Hollowing Out the Remittance Economy, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
A shrinking sender base will hollow out remittances to Mexico and Central America, as the precautionary surge fades, the US 1% tax on cash-funded transfers bites and flows plateau and decline over 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
Banco de Mexico monthly releases showing transaction-count declines extending beyond Q1 2026.
What would count against it
Sustained growth in transaction counts (not just value) across Mexico and Central America through 2026 and into 2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Anglo Mobility Reversal: How Restrictive Policy in Every English-Speaking Destination Is Redirecting Global Talent to Asia and Origin Countries, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Restrictive policy in every English-speaking destination will redirect global talent to Asia, Europe and origin countries, with Anglo policy hardening through 2027, Asian and European schemes ramping up in 2026 to 2028 and corridors reset by 2030.
What will settle it
India's GCC sector adds >500,000 jobs in 2026 with returnees making up >15% of senior hires.
What would count against it
US net migration returns above 200,000 in 2026.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan How Ageing Economies Are Quietly Out-Bidding Each Other for Migrant Labour, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Ageing economies will compete for migrant labour through bilateral labour-mobility pacts with sending countries, formalised in 2026 to 2027, operating at scale from 2028 and pushing migrant labour costs up in 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
OECD International Migration Outlook quarterly updates tracking bilateral-pact share of net flows through 2026-2027
What would count against it
Bilateral-pact growth slows materially or reverses through 2026-2027 under political-backlash pressure
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The Secondary City Pivot: How Climate, AI, and Demographics Are Restructuring Megacity Growth by 2030, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Climate, AI and demographics will shift growth from megacities to secondary cities, with capital reallocation visible in 2026 to 2027, corporate location moves cascading in 2027 to 2028 and infrastructure investment locked in by 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
UN-Habitat, OECD, and World Bank annual urbanisation updates tracking secondary-city growth share through 2026-2027
What would count against it
Megacity population decline reverses in 2026-2027 census revisions, particularly in advanced-economy capitals
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2033
The 25 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Signal Scan US Robot Curbs Turn Europe into the Open Market for Chinese Suppliers, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between 2027 and 2028 Chinese robot suppliers take a measurable share of EU installations as US rules close new mobile-robot models to them and the EU sets no matching origin or security test.
What will settle it
The IFR's World Robotics 2027 report puts a number on Chinese suppliers' share of EU installations, or the Commission tables an origin or security test for imported robots.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan AI Suppliers Now Fund the Customers Whose Orders Fill Their Backlogs, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
The quality of AI backlog, meaning who ultimately pays it, becomes the binding constraint on AI infrastructure financing between 2027 and 2028, priced in credit before it appears in revenue.
What will settle it
Oracle's five-year credit default swap closes above 250 basis points.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Frontier Labs Are Hiring Their Own Evaluators Before Any Standard Says What Evidence Counts, October 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Frontier AI safety assurance will organise inside labs' commercial relationships with embedded evaluators before any evidence standard exists, with pilots and accord audits in 2026 to 2027, a first contested incident in 2027, and a standard by 2028.
What will settle it
Anthropic or OpenAI publishes the access, funding and publication terms of a named embedded evaluator before 30 June 2027. If this happens: Terms become checkable, so vendor-risk files can grade the arrangement.
What would count against it
An embedded evaluator publishes an adverse finding about its host lab that the lab did not edit or delay.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jun 2027 to Oct 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Agentic Browsers Retreat From the Open Web Into Sandboxes, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Agentic browsers will retreat from the open web into sandboxed or remote execution, with vendors splitting through 2027 and procurement standards forming through 2027 to 2028, making a switch to a sandboxed vendor a migration project.
What will settle it
A second major vendor shifting from local, full-session browsing to sandboxed or remote execution by default, matching OpenAI's move.
What would count against it
A major vendor shipping broad local-session browsing with no sandboxing and no material incidents over the next two quarters.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan SEC Staff Put AI Data-Centre Bonds Outside the Asset-Backed Securities Regime, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI data-centre bonds will carry the build-out's credit risk outside asset-backed securities disclosure and 5% risk-retention rules after the SEC staff letter of 29 July 2026, with issuance through 2026 to 2028 and first anticipated repayments in 2031.
What will settle it
A Commission-level rulemaking or concept release on data-centre securitisations, rather than a further staff letter.
What would count against it
The SEC withdrawing or narrowing the July letter, or a court reading section 3(a)(79) to cover these structures.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan AI Load Is Sold as Flexible Before the Flexibility Was Measured, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI data-centre power will be sold as curtailable by contract before its flexibility is measured, with regulatory responses filed by November 2026, PJM's interim service applying from June 2027 and firmness priced into contracts in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
FERC accepting PJM's Interim Resource Adequacy Service, or a compliance filing in another RTO that copies its curtailment ordering.
What would count against it
FERC rejecting curtailment-ordered service and requiring firm treatment for all large loads regardless of self-supply.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Nov 2026 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Capability by Clearance: Frontier AI Releases Now Pass Through an Unpublished Government Gate, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Access to full-capability US frontier AI will be allocated by government clearance rather than by price, with a published process or statute in 2026 to 2027 and enterprise contracts tiering cleared from general capability in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
Treasury, NSA or CISA publishing the Section 3 review process, or another release described as reviewed without one.
What would count against it
A published review process that defines covered models and includes a route of appeal.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Who Pays When the Agent Errs: Agentic Commerce Ships Without Its Dispute Layer, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Agentic checkout will scale only as fast as its missing dispute layer is written, with merchants absorbing agent-error losses from a first dispute wave in the 2026 holiday season and network and statutory rules in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
EMVCo's agentic payments task force publishes a specification or liability rule covering agent-initiated disputes.
What would count against it
Networks extend existing tokenized-transaction liability rules to agent-error disputes by routine amendment, with no new evidence requirements on merchants.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Blocked by Default: Machine Access to the Web Now Has a Price and a Deadline, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Machine access to the web will become blocked by default and priced, starting with an infrastructure-layer default block on 15 September 2026, and per-use pricing that requires retrieval reporting normalised in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
Google separates its search crawler from its AI training and agent crawlers before 15 September, or publicly declines to.
What would count against it
Mixed-use crawlers keep default access past 15 September because the block is deferred or widely overridden.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Why AI Projects Now Die on Value, Not Capability, August 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Many agentic AI projects will be cancelled: the briefing relies on Gartner's forecast that more than 40% will be by the end of 2027.
What will settle it
Gartner's tracking of cancelled agentic AI projects.
AI agents will stay well short of completing most real paid work. The briefing would think again if the Remote Labor Index passed 40%.
What will settle it
The next Remote Labor Index readings, which stood at 15.8% of real paid projects in August 2026.
Few organisations will publish a controlled measure of what AI returns against their own financials.
What will settle it
Any large organisation publishing a controlled AI result, and any replacement for the productivity study METR withdrew.
Where the state is the buyer, AI use will keep rising without a value test, led by China's target of more than 70% agent use by 2027.
What will settle it
China's 2027 milestone and any restatement of its target, and Korea's first data on AI in public procurement.
Europe's automation supply base will keep shrinking in 2026, with German robotics revenue falling again as forecast.
What will settle it
The International Federation of Robotics' 2026 report and the German trade federation VDMA's figures.
By June 2027: A second research group reports that it cannot recruit an AI-free comparison group for a workplace trial.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Workers who have never used AI become too scarce to measure AI against'.
By December 2028: An auditor or regulator accepts a pre-AI historical baseline in place of a live comparison group when judging an AI programme.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Workers who have never used AI become too scarce to measure AI against'.
By December 2027: An insurer offers cover for an agentic AI system only if it passes the insurer's own completion test.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Insurers, not benchmarks, decide which AI agents are fit to deploy'.
By June 2029: A public procurement rule requires an independent or insurer-set completion test before an AI agent is accepted.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Insurers, not benchmarks, decide which AI agents are fit to deploy'.
By December 2027: A court awards damages against a professional firm for loss caused by AI-generated material it did not check.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Courts, not regulators, set the rules for AI in professional work'.
By December 2028: A professional regulator makes checking AI output a written condition of practice, citing court decisions rather than legislation.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Courts, not regulators, set the rules for AI in professional work'.
Calls made in Signal Scan The Memory Queue: AI Supply Contracts Now Decide What Else Gets Built, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Memory, not processors, will ration electronics, as AI customers' multi-year supply contracts leave phones, PCs, cars and industrial equipment as residual claimants, with supply binding through the end of 2027 and availability normalising from 2028.
What will settle it
A second-tier electronics maker discloses a multi-year memory supply agreement of the kind previously confined to hyperscalers.
What would count against it
Contract prices fall quarter on quarter in any major DRAM category without a matching cut in output.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Steering by Drifting Instruments: AI Capex Has Decalibrated the Macro Data Boards Plan On, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI capital spending will keep distorting the growth, price and productivity statistics that central banks and planners use, with deflator and account decisions in 2026 to 2027 and the distortion widest in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
A national statistical office publishes a separate AI account or dedicated AI investment line.
What would count against it
Total factor productivity growth in the US or euro area rises durably above trend, resolving the demand-versus-supply ambiguity.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Rationed Discovery: Access to Autonomous Experiment Capacity Now Decides Who Discovers, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Access to instrumented, autonomous experiment capacity will decide who discovers, as first cohorts occupy the platforms in 2026 to 2027 and states and platform owners write allocation rules in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
DOE or NIST publishes allocation or scheduling rules for the Genesis Mission Platform and its autonomous-laboratory facilities.
What would count against it
Genesis award negotiations stall or are rescinded at scale, and the platform opens late with spare capacity.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan Compute Gets a Forward Curve: GPU Futures and the Repricing of the AI Buildout, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Exchange-listed GPU compute futures from CME and ICE will put a public forward curve on AI compute, with first listings late in 2026 pending regulatory review and the curve entering contracts and financing in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
CFTC clearance and a confirmed listing date for CME or ICE compute contracts in H2 2026.
What would count against it
Regulatory review stalls; neither exchange lists compute contracts by mid-2027.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Breadth Without Depth: Why AI's Adoption Numbers Diverge Four-Fold, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI adoption will prove broad but shallow, with the four-fold gap between US surveys showing a single adoption rate is unreliable, and depth of integration sorting leaders from the rest as 2026 to 2028 data accrue.
What will settle it
The Census BTOS supplement publishing function- and task-level intensity series, not one headline rate.
What would count against it
The three US surveys converging as question wording is harmonised, collapsing the four-fold gap.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Jul 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan AI’s Reported Profits Rest on an Accounting Guess About How Long GPUs Last, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Hyperscalers will most likely shorten the four-to-six-year useful lives they assign to GPUs across the 2026 to 2028 reporting cycles, a reset that would cut their earnings by roughly a fifth, USD 175 to 230 billion.
What will settle it
A second hyperscaler shortens its server or GPU useful life in an FY2026 annual or quarterly filing.
What would count against it
Hyperscalers publish tiered-utilisation data showing frontier GPUs still generating revenue at five to six years.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Consent Constraint: Why the AI Buildout Now Runs Through Local Politics, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Local political consent will become the binding constraint on the US AI infrastructure build-out, as states and regulators turn opposition into cost-allocation rules binding through 2026 to 2027, with the November 2026 midterms the escalation point.
What will settle it
Pennsylvania electric distribution companies filing utility-specific tariffs implementing the PUC model tariff, and copycat large-load dockets opening at other state commissions.
What would count against it
Blocked-or-delayed project value in Q2-Q3 2026 falling materially below the Q1 level for two consecutive quarters.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Upstream Capture: Why Physical AI Is Being Decided in Data, Components and Standards, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Value and control in physical AI will be captured upstream in training data, components and standards, which China consolidates in 2026 to 2028, shaping how Western robot makers source parts and certify robots in 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
IEC or ISO adoption of China-originated humanoid or embodied-AI standards as international defaults, beyond the elder-care robot working group.
What would count against it
IFR or Interact Analysis data showing humanoid real-world deployments staying negligible through 2027-2028.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Jun 2036
Calls made in Signal Scan The Value-Capture Divide: Why AI's Gains Are Concentrating Beneath the 88% Adoption Headline, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI's economic gains will concentrate in roughly a fifth of firms that have rebuilt workflows around it, as adoption saturates in 2026 to 2027 and the gap with the pilot-bound majority hardens in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
Census BTOS supplements showing sub-20-employee adoption rising toward the large-firm rate, or the gap widening further.
What would count against it
Census and Eurostat data showing small-firm and large-firm adoption converging.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The Inference-Cost Inversion: Why Cheaper Tokens Are Making Enterprise AI More Expensive, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Cheaper tokens will make enterprise AI more expensive as agentic use scales, pushing providers to metered pricing and buyers to multi-model routing and cost governance in a 2026 to 2028 reset, with projects cancelled on cost toward 2028.
What will settle it
More public software companies disclosing an inference-cost-to-revenue ratio as a separate line in quarterly filings.
What would count against it
AI-native gross margins converging toward the 75 to 80% SaaS norm within two reporting cycles.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Jun 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Beneath the Leaderboard: How Chinese Open-Weight Models Quietly Captured the Deployed AI Base, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Chinese open-weight AI models will become embedded infrastructure in the deployed AI base through cheap, often self-hosted workloads, with a procurement and provenance reset in 2026 to 2028 as the dependency becomes expensive to remove.
What will settle it
A US federal procurement rule or Department of War listing barring PRC-origin or PRC-derived models from government and contractor systems.
What would count against it
Chinese-origin token share on OpenRouter plateaus or reverses below roughly 35% through 2026.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Off the Books: How AI's Build-Out Quietly Became a Financing Risk, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The AI build-out will become a financing risk as spending moves into off-balance-sheet leases and private credit held by insurers and pension funds, with regulators engaged in 2026 and lease and refinancing stress in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
An IMF, FSB, ECB or BoE follow-up proposing disclosure or capital treatment for AI-linked data-centre leases or SPV-issued private credit.
What would count against it
Hyperscaler AI revenue prints above consensus across two consecutive quarters.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Underwriting Brake: How AI Exclusions Are Becoming the Real Constraint on Enterprise Automation, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI exclusions in standard insurance renewals will become the real brake on enterprise automation, as cover narrows and claims arrive looking for a home, across the 2026 to 2028 renewal cycles with a structural reset by year-end 2027.
What will settle it
A US state insurance department approves or disapproves the Berkley-style absolute AI exclusion at filing.
What would count against it
A US appellate court strikes a Berkley-style absolute AI exclusion as illusory.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Identity Before Capability: The Agent-Authorization Stack Quietly Restructuring Agentic AI by 2028, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
An identity and authorisation layer for autonomous AI agents will restructure agentic AI, with practice guides and open specifications maturing in 2026 to 2027 and becoming a procurement and compliance baseline in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
NCCoE publishes a draft practice guide on agent identity and authorization with named reference implementations by Q4 2026.
What would count against it
AWS, Google and Microsoft launch incompatible proprietary agent-identity stacks and procurement accepts the fragmentation.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Compute as Statecraft: How the Gulf-India Sovereign-AI Corridor Is Building the Third Pole of Multipolar Power, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
A Gulf and India sovereign-AI corridor will become a third pole of computing power, through build-out in 2026 to 2027, compute clauses in procurement and treaties in 2027 to 2028, and consolidation by 2030.
What will settle it
A second Gulf-led 5-exaflop or larger sovereign supercomputer deal closes in Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt or Brazil by end-2026.
What would count against it
US BIS reverses the Nov 2025 licensing reset and reimposes presumption-of-denial on Gulf-India advanced-chip exports.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Worlds for Machines: How the Immersive Computing Race Pivoted from Human Headsets to Embodied AI, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The immersive computing race will pivot from human headsets to generated 3D worlds for training robots and vehicles, with two to four world-model platforms consolidating in 2026 to 2027 and industrial deployment in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
A tier-one cloud hyperscaler (Azure, AWS or Google Cloud) launches a fully-managed world-model service with named industrial reference customers in 2026-2027.
What would count against it
Published embodied-AI benchmarks show no measurable closure of the sim-to-real gap for high-contact manipulation across 2026-2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Superconducting Hedge: How Atom-Based Qubits Quietly Took the Lead in the Race to Fault Tolerance, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Atom-based qubits will hold the lead in the race to fault-tolerant quantum computing, with leading players hedging across two substrates in 2026 to 2029 and winners for specific problem classes legible by 2028 to 2030.
What will settle it
A third major superconducting-first developer (IBM, Rigetti, or a national lab) announces a parallel atom-based or photonic programme, mirroring Google's hedge.
What would count against it
A superconducting processor demonstrates a verified logical-qubit count and below-threshold scaling that matches or exceeds the atom-based records.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2029 to May 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan Why "We Use AI" Is About to Stop Winning Contractor Tenders, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Contractor tenders will stop being won on generic claims of AI use, as sophisticated buyers revise pre-qualification frameworks in 2026 to 2027 to demand AI mapped to named cost drivers, a filter by 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
Sophisticated procurement body (Crown Commercial Service, Highways England, Network Rail, NHS Estates, hyperscaler programme procurement) pre-qualification framework revisions naming cost-driver categories
What would count against it
Procurement-framework revision timelines slip materially against the Q3 2026 Construction Leadership Council projection
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to May 2030
The 22 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Signal Scan EU Defence Transfer Licence Needs a Certificate, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
In 2028 and 2029 the EU's faster defence transfer routes reach only a minority of defence suppliers, because certification lags the licences.
What will settle it
The first national lists of certified suppliers and recipients show how many firms qualify.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2028 to Dec 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan UK Defence Funding Goes Flat at 2.7% of GDP, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between 2027 and 2028 UK defence funding stays at 2.7% of GDP with no dated route to 3%, so supplier capacity decisions are made against a plateau.
What will settle it
The 2027 defence spending review is held after spring 2027 or sets no dated route to 3% of GDP.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Europe Counts Shelters by Designating Basements, Not Building Them, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Governments that count shelter capacity by designating existing basements and car parks begin assigning upkeep, access or liability duties to private owners between 2027 and 2029.
What will settle it
A rule, grant scheme or regulation in Germany, Poland or Latvia names who pays for upkeep, signage or access at designated shelter points on private property.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The US Pays Retainers on 60 Ships While NATO Still Assumes Commercial Shipping Will Turn Up, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Standing paid contracts for commercial ships and crews will become the settlement for NATO's reinforcement shipping, as the US funds retainers and NATO makes pooled-contract choices in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
The FY27 NDAA conference text keeps the Maritime Security Trust Fund of up to US$20 billion.
What would count against it
Conference drops the trust fund and no replacement retainer money is voted.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Sep 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Germany's Reserve Bill Ends the Employer Veto and Books No Cost to Business, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Germany's Reserve Strengthening Act will pass with the employer's veto on call-ups removed and enter into force in early 2027, putting the absence cost of reserve duty on company payrolls unpriced.
What will settle it
The Bundestag lengthening notice beyond eight weeks or giving employers a legal right to query reservist status.
What would count against it
Parliament restoring employer consent, or confining compulsory call-up to a state of tension or defence.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan Guarding Europe's New Arms Plants Has Been Left to the Firms That Own Them, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Protecting Europe's new arms plants will stay the job of the firms that own them until protection standards are written into contracts or critical-entity duties, which the scan expects by 2028.
What will settle it
A Member State notifying a defence manufacturer as a critical entity, or a national law adding defence production to its CER sector list.
What would count against it
Prosecutors closing the Skarżysko or Emco cases as accidents or ordinary crime with no foreign-intelligence link.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: May 2027 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Waiver Becomes a Plan: Defence Sourcing Turns on Funded Qualification from January 2027, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
From 1 January 2027, US defence contractors will need an accepted mitigation plan and funded qualification of domestic sources to keep non-availability waivers, turning sourcing compliance into a funded capital and record-keeping task.
What will settle it
Publication of the implementing regulations, and the definition adopted for acquisitions that support, implicate or relate to national security.
What would count against it
Implementing regulations exempting small businesses and new entrants from the bill of materials duty outright rather than easing it.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Deniable Sabotage Falls Between the War Clause and the Terrorism Pool, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Deniable state-linked sabotage will stay uncovered between war exclusions and terrorism pools, with Lloyd's wording decisions and the first claims disputes in 2026 to 2027 and the backstop redesigned around TRIPRA's expiry at the end of 2027.
What will settle it
The LMA publishes the revised Five Powers wording or constitutes the independent war-determination panel.
What would count against it
The LMA shelves the redraft and the Joint War Committee continues to manage grey-zone risk through listed areas alone.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Sep 2029
Calls made in You Don't Have to Be in Defence to Be Caught by It, August 2026. The next edition will grade them.
China's suspended export controls will return on 10 November 2026, catching civil products in which Chinese-origin controlled inputs reach 0.1% of value.
What will settle it
Whether the controls return on that date or the suspension is extended again.
Defence order books will keep growing faster than output, because capacity, not money, limits production.
What will settle it
Rheinmetall's order backlog against sales at its full-year results, and new munitions factories opening.
Shooting down drones over NATO's eastern members will remain routine through the autumn.
What will settle it
Interceptions and airspace violations over Romania and the Baltic states.
The EU's first defence-industry funding calls will turn into actual orders for suppliers.
What will settle it
Awards under the European Defence Industry Programme and the orders that follow.
By December 2027: A marine or aviation insurer introduces policy wording that separates jamming-induced loss from hostile action.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Losses caused by jamming become an insurance class of their own'.
By June 2029: A court or regulator in Europe rules on who is liable for a loss caused by navigation jamming.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Losses caused by jamming become an insurance class of their own'.
By December 2027: China requires licences for Chinese-origin rare earth content in finished goods exported to a G7 market.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Licences for Chinese rare earths become a permanent feature of trade'.
By December 2028: A G7 government introduces its own licensing rule for magnets made with Chinese-processed material.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Licences for Chinese rare earths become a permanent feature of trade'.
By December 2027: A Pacific cable outage lasts more than three months because no repair vessel can be contracted.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Cable repair capacity, not navies, decides Asia-Pacific connectivity in a crisis'.
By December 2028: A government in the region funds a dedicated cable-repair vessel or repair reserve.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Cable repair capacity, not navies, decides Asia-Pacific connectivity in a crisis'.
Calls made in Signal Scan The Missing Ledger: NATO's 1.5% Tier Goes Unmeasured While Its Perimeter Widens, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
What counts toward NATO's 1.5% defence-related spending tier, which has no agreed definition and no place in NATO's published figures, will be decided by contested definitional choices in 2026 to 2027.
What will settle it
NATO defence ministerials in late 2026 agree a definition or common reporting template for the defence-related tier.
What would count against it
NATO's next annual report publishes ally-by-ally defence-related figures under a common methodology, closing the gap without a contest.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan One Thousand a Day: The Casualty Plan That Lands on Civilian Hospitals, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
A duty to receive military casualties will be written into civilian hospital law in Europe, starting with Germany's draft bill in September 2026, and will bind in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
Publication of the German Referentenentwurf, and whether it names receiving hospitals and hub regions or defers both to secondary regulation.
What would count against it
The German draft slipping past 2026, or arriving stripped to a data-reporting statute with no distribution duty.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to Aug 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Booking the Range: Test Access Now Sets the Pace of Defence Delivery, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Access to test ranges and qualification approvals, not money or factory capacity, will set the pace of Western defence delivery, from US range access opening in August 2026 to wider recognition of test results by 2030.
What will settle it
The Army publishing actual request-to-access times against its 30-day commitment.
What would count against it
Request-to-access times for Army ranges settling well above the 30-day standard once vendor demand arrives.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Aug 2026 to Aug 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The €190 Billion Shortlist: Brussels Starts Picking Europe’s Defence Programmes, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The Council will establish the EU's five European Defence Projects of Common Interest, giving Brussels a programming role in defence capability, with the designation binding within one to three years.
What will settle it
A Council implementing decision establishing the five EDPCIs, with named participants and investment estimates, lands by early 2027.
What would count against it
The Council splits, trims or defers the list, pushing formal establishment beyond mid-2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Aug 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Repair Manual Is the Asset: Defence Data Rights Flip to a Government Default, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Government-purpose rights will become the default for technical data on US defence contracts, decided in conference late in 2026, with contract effects in 2027 to 2029 and sustainment repricing from 2029.
What will settle it
The FY27 conference report retains the government-purpose-rights default rather than substituting a study or a pilot.
What would count against it
The provision is stripped in conference a second consecutive year with no successor bill before the FY28 cycle.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Silence Means Yes: The EU Suspends Its Precautionary Default for Defence, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The EU's Defence Readiness Omnibus will make defence permits approve automatically when authorities miss their deadline, with formal adoption in 2026 to 2027 and the first tacit approvals in 2027.
What will settle it
Formal adoption votes in the European Parliament and Council on the three omnibus files, and their publication dates in the Official Journal.
What would count against it
Either co-legislator declines to endorse the provisional agreement, or formal adoption slips beyond early 2027.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Mar 2027 to Jul 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Authority Gap: Europe's Counter-Drone Defence Hinges on Who May Fire Over Domestic Airspace, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Authority to engage drones over domestic airspace will move from police alone toward a shared civil-military model, through national laws in 2026, EU coordination in 2026 to 2027 and a contested EU-level regime toward 2030.
What will settle it
More EU states granting police or military explicit drone-engagement authority over civilian airspace, after Germany and Poland.
What would count against it
The EU and NATO effort staying almost entirely procurement, with EDDI and Drone Edge kit advancing but no harmonised rules of engagement.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Manpower Before Materiel: Europe’s Rearmament Runs Into the Soldier It Cannot Recruit, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Trained people, not budgets, will govern European rearmament over 2026 to 2028, and policy will bend toward compulsion, including mandatory reserve call-ups in Germany from early 2027.
What will settle it
The Bundestag passes the Reservestärkungsgesetz with the abolition of “double voluntariness” intact, in force from early 2027.
What would count against it
German voluntary intake rises sharply toward the roughly 10,000 planned for 2026 and beyond, and compulsion is shelved.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Mar 2027 to Jul 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The Backup Nobody Owns: How GPS Jamming Is Making Timing Resilience a Civil-Infrastructure Duty, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
GPS interference will turn positioning and timing resilience into a budgeted duty on civil infrastructure operators, with regulatory deliverables through 2026 and obligations and backup procurement decided over 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
EASA publishing the minimum GNSS interference-monitoring requirements flagged as a 2026 deliverable, with compliance dates for operators.
What would count against it
Recorded interference plateauing or falling as Baltic and Middle East tensions ease.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan The Warm-Base Turn: How the West Pays Industry to Hold Capacity It May Never Fire, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The US and the EU will increasingly pay industry to hold standing, surge-ready capacity through multiyear demand guarantees signed in 2026 to 2027, with delivery and credibility tested in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
Definitised production contracts, not just capacity agreements, signed against the FY2027 PAC-3, THAAD and Tomahawk requests.
What would count against it
Capacity agreements lapse without follow-on production orders, and capacity goals are quietly dropped.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2032
Calls made in Signal Scan Flipping the Cost Curve: Europe's Quiet Pivot to Attritable Counter-Drone Air Defence, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
European air defence will buy down from expensive interceptors toward cheap, expendable counter-drone layers, with the procurement marketplace live in 2026 to 2027 and the supplier base shifting toward start-ups and Ukraine-tested systems in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
First NATO counter-drone marketplace contracts signed by summer 2026, with the prime-versus-start-up split visible in the award list ( Defense News , 12/05/2026).
What would count against it
Reliability failures at NATO ranges keep start-up interceptors out of frontline contracts, leaving primes and legacy launchers dominant ( Defense News , 03/06/2026).
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Aug 2026 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Mass Without Movement: How ‘Military Schengen’ Is Reclassifying Civilian Transport as Dual-Use Defence Infrastructure, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Military mobility will move into a binding EU framework that designates civilian ports, rail, roads and bridges as dual-use infrastructure, with the Regulation adopted by end-2026 and an operational framework by end-2027.
What will settle it
Conclusion of Council-Parliament trilogue and formal adoption of the Military Mobility Regulation by end-2026, with an entry-into-force date set.
What would count against it
The CEF military-mobility line slashed again in MFF negotiations toward the old ~EUR 1.7 billion, confirming the unfunded-aspiration thesis.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan Upstream of the Shell: The Energetics Chokepoint Beneath Europe's Rearmament, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Energetics feedstock, the raw materials for explosives and propellants, not budgets, will be the binding constraint on Europe's ammunition ramp until new TNT and nitrocellulose capacity lands in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
EDIP energetic-components call (EDIP-P-2026-LS-IRA-EC) awards announced and consortium leads named, with capacity-increase targets and end-dates.
What would count against it
Independent verification that Europe's cotton-linter dependence has fallen materially below 70%, via wood-pulp substitution requalified at scale.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jun 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Re-Rated: How EU Sustainable-Finance Rules Quietly Switched Defence from Excluded to Eligible, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Having been switched from excluded to eligible under EU sustainable-finance rules, defence will start to appear in sustainable funds and public investors' portfolios over 2026 to 2028.
What will settle it
A major European sustainable-fund manager files an SFDR Article 8 or 9 product including defence under an SDG 16 thesis.
What would count against it
A high-profile end-use controversy involving European-funded defence equipment forces the Commission to walk back the SFDR Notice.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Oct 2026 to May 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Resilience Mandate: How Europe Is Making Whole-of-Society Security a Binding Private-Sector Duty, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Whole-of-society security will become a binding legal duty on private companies in Europe, through critical-entity designations due on 17 July 2026 and Preparedness Union delivery through 2027.
What will settle it
Member-state publication of critical-entity designation lists at or before the 17 July 2026 CER deadline.
What would count against it
The Commission extends the 17 July 2026 CER deadline or withdraws referrals without sanction.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Jul 2026 to May 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Vulnerability Triage Era: How NVD's Retreat and the EU's CVE Repatriation Are Unbundling the Global Disclosure Pipeline, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The global vulnerability disclosure pipeline will unbundle as the US NVD retreats from enriching every CVE and the EU's vulnerability database becomes binding from September 2026, with a plurality of sources consolidating in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
FedRAMP PMO publishes formal guidance on alternative enrichment sources for unenriched CVEs by Q3 2026.
What would count against it
Congress appropriates dedicated NVD funding to restore universal enrichment by FY2027.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Sep 2026 to May 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Drones as First Responders: Policing's Vendor-Led Operational Reset, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Drone-as-first-responder programmes will spread across US policing under the FAA's Part 108 rule, bundled by a few vendors at city scale in 2026 to 2028, and extend into commercial security in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
FAA Part 108 final rule publishes on schedule in March 2026, or slips materially.
What would count against it
A high-profile DFR misidentification incident triggers state-level moratoria on police drone use.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2029
The 9 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Signal Scan EU Carbon Reform Writes a Surplus Into the 2030s, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between 2027 and 2028 the EU adopts a looser 2031 to 2040 carbon supply path, and the 2030 allowance price outlook settles well below the May 2026 baseline.
What will settle it
The adopted ETS Directive sets the 2031 to 2035 linear reduction factor at or below 3.7%.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Grain Cushion Sits in China as El Niño Peaks, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between 2026 and 2027 grain prices stay well above year-earlier levels despite adequate headline world stocks, because the stocks are held by China and exporters' reserves are shrinking into the El Niño peak.
What will settle it
The FAO Cereal Price Index stays more than 10% above its level a year earlier in the March 2027 index.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Nov 2026 to Sep 2027
Calls made in Signal Scan India Is Planning Its Winter Crop From Water Budgets, Though Fertiliser Stocks Are Ample, October 2026. Added from the scan as published.
India will set its 2026 to 2027 winter crop output by irrigation water rather than grain or fertiliser stocks, cutting its foodgrain target and shifting water-short districts to pulses and oilseeds during October to December 2026 sowing.
What will settle it
The India Drought Monitor shows more than 52.5% of the country's area dry or in drought in any reading before 31 December 2026. If this happens: The water shock is still widening beyond what the rabi plan assumed, so the posture moves from Prepare to Decide for Indian-origin sourcing and input commitments.
What would count against it
NOAA's November ENSO discussion no longer rates a very strong event as the likeliest outcome.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Apr 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan The ISSB Calls Its Nature Rules Voluntary While IFRS S1 Already Requires the Disclosure, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Nature disclosure will become a materiality duty with a published method wherever ISSB Standards apply, despite the voluntary label, with an exposure draft in October 2026, comments closing early 2027 and jurisdictional decisions in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
The ISSB publishes the exposure draft in October 2026, keeping the Practice Statement form.
What would count against it
The exposure draft slips beyond the fourth quarter of 2026 or is withdrawn.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Oct 2026 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Europe Certified Carbon Farming Before the Land Safeguards Were Written, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
EU carbon farming certification will push its value into land prices and tenancy negotiations before land safeguards are written, with the Buyers' Club carbon farming track launching in early 2027 and binding pressure in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
A member state legislating or formally consulting on ownership of soil carbon rights as between landlord and tenant.
What would count against it
Recognised certification schemes enrolling rented land at roughly its 46% share of the utilised agricultural area.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Mar 2027 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Europe's Farm Crisis Reserve Was Spent on Fertiliser Before the Drought Arrived, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Europe's 2026 drought will be absorbed by herds and nature land rather than new money, as the farm crisis reserve went on fertiliser relief, pointing to a tighter 2027 milk year and a 2028 to 2034 reserve redesign.
What will settle it
The autumn AGRIFISH Council replenishing the agricultural reserve or redirecting unspent fertiliser-scheme funds to drought relief.
What would count against it
A dedicated EU drought package funded outside the agricultural reserve before the end of 2026.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Oct 2026 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Europe Deregulated Gene-Edited Crops and Left the Patent Gate Standing, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Patent clearance, not biosafety authorisation, will become the binding constraint on breeding gene-edited crops in Europe once most rules apply on 17 July 2028, with the Commission's patenting study due by 16 July 2027.
What will settle it
The Commission publishing its patenting study by 16 July 2027 and proposing an amendment to Directive 98/44/EC.
What would count against it
The 2027 study finding no material effect on seed availability to farmers, with no legislative follow-up proposed.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jul 2027 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Climate Policy Has Started Taking Things Away, September 2026. The next edition will grade them.
The EU's 30 December 2026 deadline for deforestation-free supply chains will hold.
What will settle it
Any European Commission proposal to move the date.
Europe's 2026 drought will push up food prices, so flat food inflation in August is not the reassurance it looks like.
What will settle it
Euro-area food inflation in the monthly price figures, and further cuts to EU crop forecasts.
Fertiliser production will stay held back by high sulphur and ammonia costs.
What will settle it
Mosaic's third-quarter results and whether its Faustina plant stays idle.
Rights to water will keep moving to short terms that are re-set again and again, as in the Colorado basin.
What will settle it
The Colorado River operating guidelines for 2027 and 2028 and the next re-determination.
Calls made in Signal Scan Billions of Seeds, No Standard: The Uncertified Supply Chain Beneath Europe's Restoration Targets, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The EU's restoration targets for at least 20% of land and sea by 2030 will be met with uncertified seed and nursery stock through procurement rounds in 2027 to 2030, with soilborne pathogens expressing in 2030 to 2040.
What will settle it
An EU voluntary code of conduct or nursery accreditation scheme for restoration plant material moving to formal proposal.
What would count against it
Certified seed rising materially above 10% of the European market by 2028.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Sep 2034
Calls made in Signal Scan Water on a Two-Year Horizon: The Colorado River Decision Prices Out Long-Lived Assets, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The Colorado River decision's two-year operating blocks from October 2026 will price out long-lived farm and municipal assets, shortening lending tenors and pushing permanent retirement of irrigated land if later years stay unsettled through 2036.
What will settle it
Agricultural lenders shortening loan tenors or raising collateral haircuts on Lower Basin irrigated farmland.
What would count against it
A consensus agreement executed and incorporated into guidelines covering more than two years.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Oct 2026 to Aug 2036
Calls made in Signal Scan The Acid Auction: Why Battery Metals Now Outbid Fertiliser for Sulphur, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Battery-metals processors will keep outbidding fertiliser makers for sulphuric acid, so phosphate applications are deferred as 2027 crop budgets are set from late 2026, drawing down soil reserves with yield effects to 2029.
What will settle it
Phosphate prices holding or rising while urea stays at normal seasonal levels.
What would count against it
Sulphur's share of phosphate value returning toward its historic range as Gulf cargoes clear.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Aug 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan After the Retreat: Nature Risk Moves from the Sustainability Report to the Risk Register, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Nature risk will move from sustainability reporting into bank supervision and EU import due diligence even as disclosure law retreats, with the EUDR applying from 30 December 2026 and supervisory escalation through 2028.
What will settle it
An ECB supervisory decision or SREP commentary citing nature-risk deficiencies during 2027.
What would count against it
A further postponement of the EUDR application date agreed before 30 December 2026.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Aug 2030
7 graded so far
The 23 Signal Scans published before scans began recording their own calls on 7 October 2026 were added on 10 October 2026: one call per scan, taken from the scan as published, every scan included. Each window opens at the first dated milestone the scan named and closes at the end of its stated horizon. Inside the window a Change Tracker gives interim grades only, so a milestone met counts as On track, never as the call coming true.
Calls made in Who Gets Hired? Who Sets the Rules? Who Manages the AI?, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
By 2030 the bottleneck for young people has moved from getting a first job to gaining the experience that used to come with it.
What will settle it
Youth employment gaps in AI-exposed occupations (Stanford, Germany's labour research institute, HEC Paris) and graduate and internship hiring surveys.
By 2030 most progression happens inside organisations; the US quits rate does not stay above 2.4% for two quarters before 2028.
What will settle it
The US quits rate in the monthly job openings survey, and internal fill-rate surveys.
By 2030 the detailed rules on AI at work in much of Europe sit in sector and company agreements, with law setting the floor; no binding EU law on algorithmic management is in force before 2028.
What will settle it
The Commission's Quality Jobs Act proposal (expected December 2026), its progress through the Parliament and Council, and counts of collective agreements with AI clauses.
Most member states have still not transposed the Pay Transparency Directive by 7 June 2027.
What will settle it
Transposition trackers and national official journals.
By 2030 large employers report AI agents alongside staff.
What will settle it
Annual reports and workforce disclosures of large listed employers.
By December 2027: A listed company reports the number of AI agents it runs alongside its headcount.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Companies report their AI agents alongside their staff'.
By December 2029: A reporting standard or regulator asks for AI agents to be disclosed in workforce reporting.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Companies report their AI agents alongside their staff'.
By December 2027: A large employer creates a named management role for supervising AI agents.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Middle managers come back, to supervise the agents'.
By December 2028: A major survey finds average spans of control falling for the first time since 2022.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Middle managers come back, to supervise the agents'.
By June 2027: A major collective agreement includes profit-sharing or a productivity dividend linked to new technology.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Workers win a contractual share of AI productivity gains'.
By December 2029: A national government or EU measure encourages the sharing of AI gains in collective agreements.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Workers win a contractual share of AI productivity gains'.
Calls made in Signal Scan Employers Want Bargaining, Not Law, for Workplace AI, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Between 2027 and 2028 EU rules on AI at work rest on guidance and bargaining rather than a full binding directive, leaving workers in low-coverage Member States with thinner protection.
What will settle it
The Commission's Quality Jobs Act proposal, due December 2026, contains no binding article on algorithmic management or confines it to information duties.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Near-Zero US Payroll Growth Now Fits a Balanced Labour Market, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
US payroll growth runs at or near zero during 2027 and 2028 without a rise in unemployment, because labour supply has stopped growing.
What will settle it
The three-month average of US payroll growth is at or below zero in any month of 2027 or 2028 while the unemployment rate stays within half a point of its September 2026 level.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan Non-Compete Bans Leave Notice, Garden Leave and Retention Clauses Standing, October 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Non-compete bans in Australia and in Washington, effective 30 June 2027, will shift employer lock-in into notice periods, paid garden leave, retention pay and repayment terms, with the substitution visible in contracts in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
The Australian bill is introduced before 30 June 2027 with notice periods, fully paid garden leave and retention arrangements still outside the non-compete definition. If this happens: The substitution route is in statute text, and redesign should move to costed commitments.
What would count against it
The final Australian bill removes retention arrangements, notice periods or garden leave from the carve-outs.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jun 2027 to Oct 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The CIO Inherits Accountability for Agents HR Never Onboarded, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Accountability for AI agents will default to IT and the CIO rather than HR, as agent identity and authorisation standards are drafted through 2026 and the CIO accountability model consolidates by 2030.
What will settle it
NIST's identity and authorisation project moving from concept paper to published guidance.
What would count against it
The Cloud Security Alliance's visibility and decommissioning figures improving materially without new regulation forcing it.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Britain's Guaranteed-Hours Duty Makes the Rota, Not the Contract, the Source of Entitlement, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Britain's guaranteed-hours duty will make the rota rather than the contract the source of entitlement, with regulations expected in 2027 setting the threshold and reference period, and rota data becoming the evidential record from commencement.
What will settle it
Draft regulations naming the low-hours threshold, and whether it lands inside the 8 to 20 hour range the government preferred.
What would count against it
A threshold set at 8 hours or lower with a 52-week reference period, leaving the duty narrow enough to handle manually.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Certificates Without a Premium: More Than 40% of Certified Training Sits in Low-Return Topics, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Corporate training budgets will stay weighted toward low-return compliance topics, with the EU's recast AI literacy duty pushing new mandated training the same way through the 2027 and 2028 planning rounds unless employers measure return by topic.
What will settle it
A large employer reporting training split between mandated and discretionary spend, with topic-level outcomes attached.
What would count against it
A causal study finding that compliance-heavy training raises wages once selection into training is controlled for.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Sep 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Dividing the Dividend: Who Keeps AI's Gains Is Being Settled by Contract, Not by Statute, September 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Who keeps AI's productivity gains will be settled by contract rather than statute, with New York recommendations at end-2026, pay rounds fought over AI gains in 2027 and bargained template terms standard by 2028.
What will settle it
New York's FutureWorks Commission recommending notice, retraining or gain-sharing measures by end-2026.
What would count against it
Real hourly compensation rising for two consecutive quarters while unit profit growth normalises.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Sep 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The EU's Platform-Work Employment Presumption Falls Due in December, With Most National Laws Missing, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The EU platform-work employment presumption will arrive as a patchwork of national rules on different dates with different tests, as most states miss the 2 December 2026 deadline and reclassification disputes follow in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
Germany's labour ministry publishes its draft transposition bill, with criteria matching or diverging from the Dutch 2-of-5 model.
What would count against it
A majority of member states enact transposition laws before 2 December 2026, closing the gap the patchwork rests on.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Aug 2028
Calls made in Signal Scan The Apprenticeship Was the Codified Work: Firms Are Bidding Up Judgement They Have Stopped Manufacturing, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Firms cutting junior intake while bidding up experienced staff will drain the supply of tacit judgement, with a senior-supply shortfall binding in 2029 to 2036, hardest in pyramid-shaped professional services and safety-critical work.
What will settle it
A pyramid-model firm ring-fences graduate intake on capability rather than demand grounds.
What would count against it
The Stanford young-worker gap narrows across two consecutive quarterly dashboard updates.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2036 to Aug 2041
Calls made in Signal Scan Attribution Under Test: What It Costs to Say the Layoff Was AI, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Attributing layoffs to AI will become a contestable claim enforced by unions, EU rulemaking and investors, with EU rulemaking running through 2027 and employers retreating into vaguer language as precedent settles in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
An arbitrator or employment tribunal rules on whether an employer's AI attribution triggered a contractual duty to consult.
What would count against it
AI falls below other stated reasons in the monthly announcement data for three consecutive months.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2029
Calls made in The Summer the Careers Ladder Came Apart, August 2026. Graded in Who Gets Hired? Who Sets the Rules? Who Manages the AI? (October 2026).
The pay premium for changing jobs will not keep widening. Three widening quarters in a row would prove the briefing wrong.
What happened
One widening quarter: switchers 4.7% against stayers 3.4% in September, a wider gap than in June.
Workers will keep quitting at low rates, so a rebound in job-hopping after rate cuts stays off the table.
What happened
The quits rate was 1.9% in August, unchanged from July.
AI will not cause a general wave of youth job losses across Europe.
What happened
EU youth unemployment was 15.4% in August, with overall unemployment flat.
There will be no dedicated EU law on algorithmic management before 2028.
What happened
A proposal is still planned for later this year; the leading option is guidance on existing rules.
Pay Transparency Directive transposition, four member states complete at 7 June 2026
What happened
Still slow: Greece became the fifth member state to pass its law.
The AI Act's rules for high-risk AI in employment apply from 2 December 2027
What happened
Now law: the simplification regulation keeps 2 December 2027.
The first organisation to report its AI agents alongside its headcount
What happened
None found: Accenture's annual report counts about 814,000 people but no agents.
Calls made in Signal Scan The Reallocation That Isn’t: AI’s Labour Shock Lands on Places, Not on Movers, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI's labour shock will fall on places and new entrants rather than on workers who move, making employer siting and place-based policy the binding levers, with policy decisions in 2026 to 2028 and cohort scarring through the 2030s.
What will settle it
A national government replaces place-neutral skills funding with an explicitly place-based programme.
What would count against it
Displaced-worker surveys show rising cross-sector transitions rather than exits into non-employment.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2028 to Aug 2034
Calls made in Signal Scan The Aggregation Trigger: Why Dispersed AI Job Cuts Stop Being Cheap in 2027, August 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Dispersed AI job cuts will stop being cheap, as the UK's doubled penalty already applies and an organisation-wide consultation trigger counting cuts across sites within a rolling 90 days comes into force in 2027.
What will settle it
The government publishes its consultation response, naming a figure and a commencement date.
What would count against it
The threshold is set at the top of the canvassed range with generous exclusions, leaving most employers unaffected.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Aug 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan When Switching Stops Paying: America's Churn Collapse and the Forced Rebuild of Internal Mobility, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
With US hires, quits and the job-switching pay premium at decade lows, attrition-led workforce plans will break in the 2026 to 2027 planning cycles, forcing redeployment and internal mobility, with progression-in-place replacing counteroffers from 2027.
What will settle it
Monthly JOLTS hires and quits rates through H2 2026: any sustained move off current levels.
What would count against it
Hires and quits rates returning to pre-pandemic norms across consecutive JOLTS releases.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan Same Title, Different Pay: The AI-Fluency Divide Opening Inside Occupations, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI fluency will displace job title as the main predictor of pay and progression within occupations, as roles split into AI-fluent and standard variants over 2026 to 2028 and two progression tracks harden toward 2029.
What will settle it
Compensation surveys (Mercer, Payscale, Radford) adding an explicit AI-skills pay differential within job families.
What would count against it
The AI-skills wage premium flattening or falling in successive PwC or Lightcast readings as tools diffuse.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2029 to Jul 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan Europe Deferred Its Workplace-AI Rules to 2027; the Duty to Consult Workers Still Binds, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Although the EU deferred its workplace AI rules to 2 December 2027, workplace AI governance will be set earlier, through worker consultation duties, national law, the Platform Work Directive and collective agreements binding across 2026 to 2027.
What will settle it
A member state transposes or tightens national law requiring worker consultation or human oversight for workplace AI ahead of December 2027.
What would count against it
The high-risk deferral is extended again or watered down, and national duties stay dormant and unenforced.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Second Workforce: AI Agents Enter the Employment System of Record, July 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Enterprises will manage AI agents as a second workforce in their HR systems, with worker types, managers and mandates decided in 2026 to 2027 and EU AI Act obligations on HR uses binding in 2027 to 2028.
What will settle it
Major HCM vendors (Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM) shipping AI-agent worker types or agent registries as generally available features.
What would count against it
ILO or national statistics through 2027 showing no translation of agent adoption into output, earnings or employment change while adoption plateaus.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jul 2029
Calls made in Signal Scan The Headcount Reset: Why Firms Are Decoupling Jobs From Growth Before the AI Payoff Is Proven, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Firms will pre-commit to decoupling revenue growth from headcount before AI productivity is proven, spreading no-backfill policies beyond tech in 2026 to 2027, with the gains verified or reversed in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
Major employers outside tech issuing explicit multi-year flat- or declining-headcount guidance tied to AI.
What would count against it
Gartner-style reversals materialising: firms that cut deepest visibly rehiring through 2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The Reskilling Treadmill: Why Skills Now Decay Faster Than Training Can Refresh Them, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Skills in AI-exposed jobs will decay faster than employer training can refresh them, shifting the burden of staying employable onto individuals, with the renewal gap biting hardest in 2027 to 2029 and pay splitting by AI fluency.
What will settle it
The AI-skills wage premium rising further above 62% in successive PwC or labour-market readings.
What would count against it
The AI-fluency wage premium flattening or narrowing as AI skills become commoditised.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2029 to Jun 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan Competence Debt: The Hidden Human-Capital Liability Beneath AI’s Productivity Gains, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI's productivity gains will build a hidden competence debt, as juniors review AI output instead of building skill in 2026 to 2028 and thinned human judgement surfaces when AI fails in high-stakes settings in 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
Firms reporting measurable drops in employee performance during AI outages or tool-access restrictions.
What would count against it
Longitudinal evidence that AI users’ unassisted capability holds or improves over months of use.
Probability band: Medium (40 to 60%) · Window: Dec 2030 to Jun 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan The Manager in the Machine: Algorithmic Management Went Mainstream Before Its Guardrails Arrived, June 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Algorithmic management will entrench as the system of record for hiring, performance and dismissal decisions before its guardrails arrive, with binding EU oversight under the AI Act landing only in December 2027.
What will settle it
A discrimination ruling or regulatory action against an employer or HR-AI vendor over algorithmic screening, monitoring or termination.
What would count against it
OECD or follow-on surveys show algorithmic-management adoption plateauing or worker-reported harms easing materially.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to Jun 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Vanishing Middle: Why Management-Layer Compression Is Structural, Not Cyclical, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Management layers will compress structurally as AI absorbs coordination work, normalising spans of 15 to 20 staff per manager, thinning leadership development, and producing a leadership-pipeline shortfall around 2028 to 2029.
What will settle it
Gallup's 2027 reading on US span of control and manager engagement: a further rise above 12.1 with engagement below 22% would confirm structural drift, not a one-off.
What would count against it
Gallup's next reading showing US average span falling back below 11 with manager engagement recovering above 25%.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan The End of Pay Secrecy: The EU Directive Forcing a Structural Compensation Reset, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The EU Pay Transparency Directive will force a structural compensation reset, with late transposition after the 7 June 2026 deadline, public pay ranges, and first joint assessments of pay gaps of 5% or more in 2027.
What will settle it
Number of Member States completing nationwide transposition by 31 December 2026, and the count of Commission infringement proceedings opened.
What would count against it
The Commission grants formal extension or quietly tolerates non-transposition in a majority of Member States through 2027.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Hiring Verification Crisis: How AI Is Breaking the Credential Layer of the Labour Market, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
AI-generated fraud will break hiring verification in 2026, driving verifiable credentials, in-person final rounds and identity checks in 2026 to 2027, and a rewiring of hiring away from remote-only roles in 2027 to 2029.
What will settle it
A Fortune 500 company publicly discloses a material insider-threat or data-breach incident traced to a synthetic candidate via 10-K or 8-K filing.
What would count against it
Survey rates of fraudulent hires plateau at <10% of enterprises in 2026 follow-on benchmarks.
Probability band: High (over 80%) · Window: Dec 2026 to May 2031
Calls made in Signal Scan After Whim: How the Employer-Paid Mobility Budget Replaces Consumer MaaS, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
Employer-paid mobility budgets will succeed the failed consumer mobility model, as Belgium's mandate starts a one-year transition, the Netherlands, France and Germany follow in 2026 to 2028, and company-car benefits are rewired over 2027 to 2030.
What will settle it
The Belgian federal mobility-budget legislation is published with a firm enforcement date and exemption scope.
What would count against it
The Belgian federal mobility budget is delayed past 2027 or softened to "voluntary with incentives" rather than a true mandate.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2027 to May 2030
Calls made in Signal Scan The Broken Rung: How the AI Hit to Entry-Level Work Is Hardening a Generational Divide, May 2026. Added from the scan as published.
The AI hit to entry-level white-collar work will harden into a generational divide, with cohort, wage and political effects compounding over 2026 to 2030 and either a lost-rung cohort setting or mobility re-forming by 2028 to 2032.
What will settle it
The age divergence widens again in the next Stanford AI Index or Dallas Fed update, with young AI-exposed employment falling while workers aged 30 and over hold steady.
What would count against it
Peer-reviewed evidence that entry-level hiring recovers as interest rates fall, mirroring the post-dot-com rebound.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Dec 2030 to May 2033
Calls made in Signal Scan IKEA Buys a Driverless Lane as the Rulebook Arrives by Exemption, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Driverless truckload lanes become a live procurement option that US shippers and carriers must price in the 2027-2028 contract cycles.
What will settle it
Kodiak's Dallas to Houston IKEA lane runs unsupervised and at least one further named national shipper or top-50 carrier contracts a driverless lane.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2029
Calls made in Cheap Freight Is Back. With a Catch, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Container rates fall through 2027 as fleet growth outpaces demand.
What will settle it
Drewry's World Container Index and the Shanghai export index through 2027, with scrapping and idle-fleet data.
European port congestion stays tight until new terminal capacity opens later this decade, keeping storage and delay costs on cargo owners.
What will settle it
Yard use and on-time arrivals at Rotterdam and Antwerp, terminal storage-fee revenue, and Rotterdam World Gateway's expansion timetable.
Europe's carbon rules, not a global price, set the carbon cost for ships and aircraft through 2027.
What will settle it
The International Maritime Organization's decision from 30 November 2026, the EU carbon-price review, the 2027 revision of Europe's aviation fuel rules, and offset supply for the UN aviation scheme.
By 2030 Asia-Europe trade runs on several priced routes, with Suez still carrying most of it.
What will settle it
Suez transits, Arctic season volumes, China-Europe rail and Middle Corridor volumes.
By 2030 driverless freight is still confined to a few corridors and depots while Europe's driver gap widens.
What will settle it
The US five-year exemption decision, German and Chinese permits and corridor programmes, and IRU's driver-shortage data.
By June 2028: Airlines report their first-phase purchases under the UN's aviation offset scheme, and eligible supply falls short of their obligations.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Airlines find fuel mandates cheaper than global offsets'.
By December 2028: An airline group argues publicly that a fuel mandate is cheaper to meet than its offset obligations.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Airlines find fuel mandates cheaper than global offsets'.
By December 2027: A European retailer or port runs a driverless depot or yard service without an escort vehicle.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Driverless freight takes over depots and ports before highways'.
By December 2028: Driverless vehicles at a major port outnumber the driverless trucks on that country's highways.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'Driverless freight takes over depots and ports before highways'.
By December 2028: Container-ship scrapping reaches its highest level in a decade.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'The surplus of ships turns into a shortage'.
By December 2029: New container-ship orders fall to their lowest level in ten years while carbon rules tighten.
What will settle it
Signpost for the Potential Surprise 'The surplus of ships turns into a shortage'.
Calls made in Signal Scan Carriers Dismantle the War Premium They Ask Shippers to Lock In, October 2026. The next edition will grade them.
Far East to North Europe container spot rates fall to or below their pre-crisis 28 February 2026 level during 2027.
What will settle it
Xeneta or Freightos average Far East to North Europe spot rates print at or below their 28 February 2026 mark in any week of 2027.
Probability band: Medium-High (60 to 80%) · Window: Jan 2027 to Dec 2027