The longer you’ve been working in tech media, the easier it is to see what’s coming. Predicting the biggest tech trends for the coming year doesn’t involve consulting a crystal ball or a psychic. I prefer to go with my instincts, which are based not only on what happened in the previous 12 months, but during the 37 years before that in which I’ve been writing about tech.
Technology and innovation don’t simply spring out of the ether. Even with the advent of AI, which some might think would bring incredible, generative shortcuts, companies still have significant development cycles and they build based on signals from within their organization, and many others that come from the market and competition. Perhaps the biggest difference between the tech cycles of the early oughts and today is the transparency; companies develop products and services before our eyes, with open and public betas that make us part of the process.
What I’m saying is that you don’t have to be extraordinary, or psychic, to know what’s coming in the new year. If you, like me, have been paying attention, much of what follows will probably elicit, “Oh, right, I knew that” or “That’s what I was thinking.”
Of course, I’m far from infallible and, as I often do, I like to bounce my ideas off some of my trusted industry friends. In this case, I chose Tim Bajarin. Tim and I have known each other for more than 20 years, and his industry experience extends deep into the last century. He’s seen most of the industry’s key developments and known many of its major movers and shakers, including the late Steve Jobs, and keeps his finger on the pulse of the technology with his Creative Strategies analyst group, of which he is the founder and chairman. As always, Bajarin has thoughts regarding my 2025 predictions. I’ve included many of them here.
With that, let’s get started on my predictions for the biggest tech trends of 2025. Please feel free to share them with your friends, telling them, “See? Lance agrees with me.”
An AI explosion
I know, it’s a fairly obvious suggestion two years into our AI revolution, but I do suspect a critical turn of events in 2025. Expect more AI in everything, but also a codification of the concept that people understand how it will work for them as consumers and as businesspeople, and for a wide variety of tasks and sectors. In other words, less wondering, “What was this made for?”
Bajarin more or less agrees with me, but reminds me that companies introducing AI apps still have their work cut out for them. “[They] need to be clearer on what it does and then add a short tutorial,” he says. “There is too much confusion, and we are still in the hand-holding phase of AI.”
It’s a good point. Consumers won’t tap into AI’s full potential until they understand exactly how to use it and how it will benefit them. In 2025, I expect to see more consumer guides on how to build the best launch prompt and, especially, how to converse with an AI to get the results you want.
Enter the agents
2025 will be the breakthrough year for AI agents. For those unfamiliar with them, AI agents are bits of artificial intelligence that can analyze the environment and other interactions, and perform narrowly defined tasks on your behalf.
Their prevalence will be intertwined with emerging conversational AI wars, in which all the major digital assistants finally migrate to generative AI chat systems: Alexa gets Claude, Siri gets another brain transplant, Google Gemini fully consumes Google Assistant and becomes a conversation-first platform.
While I think Bajarin and I see eye-to-eye on this, he sees agents’ development in 2025 a bit differently.
“Building agents will be the biggest thing in AI in 2025,” he says. “The last three years gave us the groundwork for an agentic-driven world, and next year will see great strides made in creating and applying agents to all AI apps.”
So, it’s building and application. I wonder how many consumer apps will have a set of pre-built AI agents, and if consumers will feel comfortable using them. At the very least, I do expect to see the broad deployment of AI agents in business throughout 2025.
Bye, AI wearable
You know what, I do know who needs to hear this: every AI wearable maker who wrongheadedly tried to sell us a standalone AI device in 2024. Their collective failure proves that while artificial intelligence is a powerful feature inside other larger applications and products, it isn’t a sufficient basis for a dedicated product.
The ChatGPTs, Copilots, and Geminis of the world arguably work better when integrated into our favorite mobile devices, not yet another device we need to carry around or wear.
The Humane AIs, Rabbit R1s, Friends, and Plauds of our world will not survive 2025. But their brains, the beating AI hearts inside them, will likely live on as apps on, naturally our iPhones and Androids.
Bajarin was a bit less convinced of this prediction and would only reply, “Possibly.”
Chip wars
The convergence of mobile and desktop chips will move into overdrive in 2025, with all the big players vying for top honors in power, efficiency, AI, and battery life. Intel is entering a period of uncertainty, and Nvidia may make a desktop CPU play, but Apple is still going to set the bar. It’s remarkable how Apple set that bar with its M1 chip in 2020 and every chip company has been playing catchup on laptops (and to a lesser extent desktops) ever since.
In 2024 Qualcomm has offered the best answer to Apple silicon with its X Elite line, but it’s not clear that systems running it are flying off the shelves just yet. Still, what is clear is that Intel, Qualcomm, and Apple are finally offering laptop customers what they want: power and efficiency.
In 2025, battery life across Windows and Mac laptops will balloon to nearly 30 hours, while every new chip will support ever-larger local generative model work. It’s a new era for on-the-go computing, but I guarantee that Apple will continue to lead the way throughout 2025.
Here, Bajarin made it clear I nailed the landing, telling me: “Very true… Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Arm will be the key players, but Apple’s M-series chips will be hard to beat.”
Windows out of the spotlight
Microsoft’s hyper-vigilant focus on Copilot makes me wonder if 2025 is the year the Redmond software giant plants Windows in the backseat. It’s possible that Microsoft will focus on Copilot almost to the exclusion of Windows, as the platform continues its march into software as a service, where big upgrades matter less than shiny features like Copilot and Edge.
Props to Bajarin for keeping me real on this. I could tell that he sort of agreed, but with muted enthusiasm. “More or less,” he says. “[Microsoft] will continue to do more AI integration into Windows UI but make Copilot their most significant push in next two years.”
Exactly – the marketing dollars in 2025 and 2026 will, unless I’m very mistaken, be mostly for Copilot. For consumers it’ll feel inescapable, although I can’t tell if they will embrace it. Windows users on the ground have expressed some frustration to me about the sudden appearance of Copilot on the taskbar and on new laptop keyboards. Microsoft’s communication must be about Copilot’s consumer benefit above all else, and I’m not sure that it’s made the case yet. 2025 is Microsoft’s opportunity.
AR Wearables turn a corner
I think 2025 is the year we’ll see AR glasses achieve consumer availability (maybe the second half of the year), and the competition for dominance will be intense. Having now tried Meta’s Orion and Snap’s AR Spectacles, I think the race to consumer readiness is accelerating faster than most expected. Meta is clearly ahead, but Snap, which has access to the same silicon, should catch up. It could be a squeaker, but I think we’ll see consumer availability of at least one pair of AR glasses that finally make the tech-buying public say “I do” to wearable AR gear.
Apple might be part of that mix, but first it must contend with the fate of its Vision Pro. As a category, the Vision Pro can’t survive without a more affordable entry-level counterpart. Apple is supposedly working on that, but if it doesn’t deliver, 2025 may be the year Apple deprecates Vision Pro (it won’t discontinue it, at least not yet).
Here, I struck a Bajarin nerve. He had many thoughts, and not all of them were in alignment with mine. Here’s how he sees 2025 playing out:
“AR glasses will get more AI functionality, with Meta Rayban’s smart glasses, Snap Glasses, and others focusing on better audio and AI, as well as better cameras. However, there will not be breakthrough technology that delivers true in-lens data that is worth anything in 2025. Meta has Orion targeted for 2027, but I do believe Apple will introduce some form of AR glasses by the end of 2025. I don’t think we will see a slimmer Vision Pro at a cheaper price until 2026 at the earliest.”
I have to admit that Bajarin’s outlook seems more plausible than mine – but then I was surprised by the quality of Meta Orion glasses when I tried them, and I expect to be surprised again in 2025.
Bluesky will dominate and battle Threads for a heat lead (that’s the hottest, though not necessarily the biggest platform), though X will hold the active user numbers crown for the foreseeable future. That’s even as people looking for a sunnier social media conversation head for the exits. A Luddite movement may depress Gen Alpha’s entry onto any platform. Broadly, the bloom is off the social media rose. Most platforms are introducing stricter controls, whether because some government is requiring it or they’re seeking to get ahead of future regulation and, perhaps, change the conversation on social media.
Oh, and as for the future of TikTok and that potential ban, it might skate on through in the new year but a real reckoning on Jan. 19 now seems far more likely. Either way, I will continue using it until someone stops me.
Bajarin and I are mostly in sync here.
“I do see X losing more users in 2025 and Bluesky and Threads gaining significant ground. [X owner and Tesla CEO Elon] Musk will be too distracted by his other projects, and X will continue to lose users and momentum.”
I like how Bajarin is too cool to spell out exactly which Musk “projects” will distract him. In 2025, Musk will be co-running a sort of US Government omnibus tasked with sucking a lot of money and people out of the bureaucracy. That could definitely be diverting, to say the least.
Low-energy EVs
EVs and self-driving cars will stall as the industry recalibrates and slumping trailblazer Tesla deals with the fallout of not delivering a sub-$30K EV to the market (while also delivering the least reliable EV, ever – the Cybertruck). Electric trucks and other cars are not flying the way big auto thought they would, and the US the incoming administration will be steering the market back toward a combustible engine future.
Bajarin didn’t offer comment on this prediction, which I’ll take as an automatic win.
Folding rises
Folding phones are on sale from Google, Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, and others, and yet they have only a collective 1.5% of the smartphone market. Maybe that changes next year.
I think folding phones will make a slow rise to 3% of the market in 2025, but it will be Apple teasing a folding iPhone that sets the market on its ear. It won’t ship until 2026, but it will generate renewed interest in the sector, and put competitors on notice.
Okay, my winning streak collapsed here. Bajarin is not on board with this last idea.
“I am not optimistic about Apple doing a folding phone at all. I wrote about this last week.
“The tablet market has room for innovation and I would not be surprised to see Apple point their foldable research at tablets. I can’t say Apple will never do a foldable, but my article shows why I don’t think Apple believes there is a market for foldable.”
Bajarin’s post points to concerns about durability, utility over traditional phones, and, for Apple, a lack of interest in such a tiny market. He’s not wrong, but I think Apple could be the spark that ignites a frenzy. Let’s say Apple only shows us a folding tablet. It could be one that opens to the size of an 8-inch tablet, which is essentially the same interior screen size as the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and the iPad mini. I have to believe that if consumers saw that they might want what Apple’s created, but because it’ll naturally be more expensive than other folding devices they’ll look for cheaper alternatives, and that would grow interest across the market.
I know, it’s just one dream scenario, but it could happen in 2025.
Tariffs cascade
I fully expect tariffs to destabilize the tech industry. Companies will scramble to get exemptions (there’ll be a revolving door at the White House as companies march in and out of President Trump’s office), and consumer electronics prices will rise preemptively in early 2025. We should also brace for shortages in key product categories as trade wars kick off and supply chains get squeezed. The free flow of, say, silicon between other countries and the US could slow to a trickle.
Bajarin is no more optimistic than I am about this.
“This is an important point. If Trump goes through with tariffs, it will impact all tech companies that make products in China… The reasoning around tariffs is to bring more manufacturing back to the US. That boat sailed 15 years ago and will never happen. Instead, any new manufacturing will go to India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, and other regions where labor is cheaper.”
Companies like Apple have tried to diversify manufacturing outside China for years, but very little of that manufacturing has returned to the US. If the Trump administration focuses all its tariffs on China (and some on Mexico and Canada) it will only accelerate that process as companies seek to reduce their Chinese exposure. In the end, American workers and consumers won’t be the benefactors in 2025. I don’t know what 2026 will look like.
Oh, and robots. Lots and lots of robots
The humanoid robot revolution is upon us, and 2025 will see an explosion in capabilities and styles. Unfortunately, none of them will be ready to come home with you.