The new digital age by Eric schmidt |Jared Cohen

Book Summary

The New Digital Age offers a sweeping, informed vision of how global connectivity—from smartphones to artificial intelligence—will transform individuals, governments, and societies over the coming decades. With staggering technological changes anticipated, the book explores how five billion more people coming online will reshape domains like privacy, identity, diplomacy, terrorism, revolution, and state power. Drawing on interviews conducted in over 30 countries with world leaders, activists, and digital figures such as Julian Assange, the authors probe both the promises and the risks of a hyper-connected planet.

They argue that while connectivity can empower citizens—expanding access to information and enabling new forms of political engagement—it also risks amplifying surveillance, state control, cyber conflict, and a growing “digital caste system” where benefits and vulnerabilities vary sharply by socioeconomic status.

The book’s tone is realistically optimistic: possibilities like driverless cars, holographic meetings, and smartphones lifting developing communities coexist with warnings about erosion of privacy, the threat of Balkanization of the Internet, and the rise of cyber‑enabled warfare and authoritarianism.

While widely praised for its ambition and scope, some reviewers noted the book underplays corporate power—even from Google—and occasionally repeats familiar ideas, making it less groundbreaking than hoped by some critics.

About the Authors

Eric Schmidt, who served as CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011 and later became Executive Chairman, brings deep tech leadership experience to the book. With prior roles at companies such as Sun Microsystems and Novell, he also serves on advisory councils for governments and research institutions and leads philanthropic initiatives through Schmidt Sciences and Schmidt Futures.

Jared Cohen is the founder and director of Google Ideas (later Jigsaw) and a former advisor in the U.S. State Department under Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. A Rhodes Scholar with a background in international relations and counter-terrorism policy, he is also a bestselling author of several books that blend politics, technology, and global affairs