William J. Kole, author of “The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging”

As the number of people living to 100 years old is expected to increase eightfold to 3.7 million by 2050, the United Nations reports all countries are undergoing a “longevity revolution.” This has in turn generated interest around supercharging healthspans and ways to navigate living a longer life.

William J. Kole is editor for American news outlet Axios and author of “The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging” his debut book, exploring exceptional longevity. His research and expertise in super-agers sees Kole featured in publications including The Guardian and The Future 100: 2025. Kole joins VML Intelligence to discuss the rise in centenarians, how brands can positively contribute to the longevity era, and paints a vision of 2050.

The conversation around longevity and healthspans have surged in the past few years. Are we heading towards a super-aging era?

We're in it. If you feel like you're seeing and hearing more about more people living to 100 it's not your imagination. More people are living to 100 and there are two key factors that are driving this. One is just demographic. The baby boomer generation, my generation is very large, and the oldest of those folks right now are in their late 70s. Over the next quarter of a century, the fittest of those people will hit their triple digits, and because there's so many of us, that alone is going to drive the numbers of centenarians sharply higher. The Center on Longevity, at Stanford University is projecting that one in every two five-year-olds alive right now will live to 100 and that is based on scientific breakthroughs and new ways of treating the things that kill us.

Do you think brands could and should be helping human beings to live longer?

I think it depends on the brand. There's no magic longevity elixir. It boils down to two broad factors. One is our genetics and the other is our behavior. Our genes only account for about 25% of what gets us to 90-years-old, the other 75% is our behaviors. Such as our diet, whether we exercise, whether we smoke, and how much sun exposure we allow ourselves, etc. This is where we see brands stepping up. We talk a lot about life span, but that conversation is incomplete without talking about healthspan, meaning the number of years that we're in good shape, both physically and mentally. In the in the brand space there's a lot of innovation happening. There's a company called Life Biosciences that is making headway on treating some age-related disease. And for me, I feel like that's kind of the best focus for brands, not necessarily to find ways to extend our lifespans, but to ensure that we live healthy as long as possible.

Kole Big 100 book cover — "The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging" by William J. Kole

In our global survey, 74% of respondents say they like the idea of living a long and healthy life beyond the age of 100. Living longer is desired and many believe it’s possible. Do you?

Absolutely. It might be helpful to think about what the definition of a super ager is. It is someone who lives to at least 80 years of age in good physical condition and without cognitive impairment. And by that measure—where do I sign up?

The younger generation are already focused on lifestyle habits that will help them live longer and age better. What are your thoughts on this?

I think it's fascinating that Gen Z are leaning into the idea that they want to live long and healthy lives. I honestly think Gen Z is the smartest and the most self-aware generation that I have experienced in my lifetime. We're seeing certain characteristics of younger people drinking less alcohol, which we now know is very harmful to us. Young people are interested in wellbeing, and I think that's not just even their bodies, but their minds. I see much more of a commitment to mental health, selfcare, therapy, things like that.

Gen Z has grown up with a phone in their pocket and all this information is just a click away. One piece of the longevity conversation we don't talk about very much is climate change. Gen Z and millennials are really invested in trying to slow, stop, or, if ever possible, reverse the effects of global warming. Afterall, who wants to live to 100 on a planet that's ravaged by horrible storms? What kind of planet am I going to live to 100 on? So I appreciate the care and the interest of this generation in all of this.

What would you say are some of the positives and some of the pitfalls to living in a world where people are living longer lives?

There are upsides and downsides, and the downsides are numerous. In the United States an appalling number of people are unprepared for their later years and many have almost nothing saved. If we're going to live to 100 we're probably not going to stop working at 60 or 65, the classic time to hang it up. Then there's loneliness, which in the United States has been declared a public health crisis. We know it’s not just impacting older people, there are young Americans who are desperately lonely. Our Surgeon General says that loneliness will potentially take 15 years off our lives and compares it to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And there's ageism. The World Health Organization has studied this extensively. It's appalling.

As I go through this list people often wonder, well, why the heck do I want to live to 100? Here's a perfect example. Julia (Hurricane) Hawkins, who recently died at 108 years of age, she started running competitively very late in life, I think in her mid 90s, and holds world records on the track for the 100 meters. She was living fully right up to her last days. Another person who personifies the good aspects of a long and healthy life is Dr Jane Goodall, I interviewed for the book, she's 90 now. She's still got a decade to go to hit 100 but she told me she's working harder now than she ever has in her entire career, and that that includes being a young woman in Tanzania, working with Louis Leakey and chimps in the field and so forth. She travels extensively. I'm actually thinking, given more time and health, what can't we do?

If more of us are living to 100 we're going to be purchasing more goods and services for a longer period of time. And that cohort will represent a collective economic engine that will pour billions into our economy. So are aging people a break or an engine? We're not sure yet, but maybe both.

Can you paint me a 2050, future vision of super ages? So how people would be living their lives differently as a result of prolonged life spans?

We're certainly going to be working longer in 2050 because we'll be living longer. I think very likely we will have to undergo retraining, because the job market is going to change, and we're going to have to be able to adapt to new technologies and so forth. So perhaps we work at a job for a large portion of our careers, and then we get into midlife, which is at this point could be 60 and then we retrain.

As I contemplate the year 2050, I'm thinking that it will be a time when 100 is the new 80. A good many 80-year-olds are golfing and playing pickleball and traveling and engaging with their grandchildren and swimming and doing all kinds of things, taking cooking classes, learning a language. This is our world, even now we're seeing some people do these extraordinary things. I think that this will mark the super aging era.

And technology will be very, very present in our lives, even more than it is now. I think we could find ourselves wearing some sort of kind of a smart skin that will monitor our vital signs and keep close tabs on, our blood pressure and our brain and muscle function and send that biometric data in real time to our doctor, who can monitor for any problems and quickly address things.

AI, of course, is going to be front and center. There are apps and devices that are helping keep lonely elders company in their homes, playing games with them and so forth. I think we could end up having an Android companion in our homes, to cook for us, do the cleaning, and to provide company. Japan has done some incredibly innovative work in this area, and you know, that's great, but I don't think there's any substitute for the milk of human kindness.

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