What Is Gartner Predicting For Technology In 2025?
As we get towards the end of each year, it is natural to see what all the analysts are saying about the coming year. Personally I think we have seen a maturing of the use of AI in the past year and many new solutions are being launched without the hype that dominated 2023 – and 2024.
I usually look at the Gartner predictions in detail because they tend to think beyond what is being hyped today and they explore how technology is changing business operations – it’s usually a deep dive into the future.
Their latest strategic technology trends articles predicts ten important areas to watch in 2025. From the list, I am certainly going to focus on a few that I see as more urgent or important than the others. I think all the trends highlighted are certainly significant, but some are going to take more time to become ‘normal’ in business – I don’t see polyfunctional robots taking over the world in 2025 because there really are no agreed standards on how they should work.
So what are the Gartner trends where I think we will see some real activity in 2025?
AI Governance Platforms
Most companies have rushed to explore how AI can change and improve their business, but we need to stop and slow down. Large companies need to build frameworks that can manage the legal, ethical, and operational importance of their AI systems.
This is not to say that we should discourage innovation, just that we need to accept that as more and more tasks are performed by AI alongside human employees, we need more comprehensive guidelines. This will become even more important as safety critical functions are handled more and more often by AI – such as self-driving taxis.
Agentic AI
This is an area of AI that I have been talking about for years and is finally becoming a reality. Agentic AI is where humans use AI assistants to work on specific tasks and report back – almost like digital employees.
This has applications in general life as tools like Siri and Alexa are all about to be drastically upgraded. Instead of just asking Alexa to play some music you should be able to ask the device to look out for cheap flights to Paris and send you an alert if it is possible below a certain price – or other more complex tasks.
This also has a huge implication in professional tasks. Lawyers can ask agents to research case precedents, accountants can set their agents off on a set of accounts. It’s like having a team of digital assistants and will drive up productivity in many professional areas.
Spatial Computing
This is the growing use of tools such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). It’s not happening in the way that many people assumed just a few years ago – a widespread adoption of headsets and people enjoying their spare time in the metaverse.
This vision from 2021 has not happened, but there are more and more examples of companies finding that they can use spatial technology for real business solutions. Look at how Amazon is equipping delivery drivers with glasses that can guide them – so they don’t need to keep reaching for a handheld device.
It’s clear that many of these trends will be immediately important in 2025. Some of the Gartner trends will play out over several years, but they are still important to be aware of. You can read the complete list here.
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