Gartner's Strategic Predictions for 2025: AI's Expanding Role and Emerging Technologies

Riding the AI Whirlwind: Gartner's Top Strategic Predictions for 2025

What should the tech world expect in 2025? At the company's annual expo, Gartner Fellow Daryl Plummer outlined the firm's predictions for the coming year, and he expects us all to be "riding the AI whirlwind." These predictions are meant to be more speculative than the strategic trends Gartner presents each year. Plummer said Gartner has a 75-80% accuracy, which he suggested is too high because it means they're not trying hard enough. (Here are the predictions for 2024 and 2023.) Everything on the planet is influenced by AI today, Plummer said. AI agents have negotiated contracts, helped baseball teams manage their staffs, and helped manage sewage. "AI is a combinatorial disruption," he said, suggesting that organizations not try to separate them out, but instead create a strategic AI competency or discipline. Here are this year's predictions, which he divided into three categories: challenges to privacy or personas, operational risks, and management structure. The Corporate LLM Wants Your Persona By 2027, 70% of new contracts for employees will include licensing and fair usage clauses for AI representations of their personas. Plummer noted that Gartner made an AI avatar of him that can be in multiple places and speak more languages than he can and suggested this may happen to us all. This could create ownership challenges and questions about royalties if you ever leave a company. Organizations Adopt Antidigital Policies By 2028, technological immersion will impact populations with digital addiction and social isolation, prompting 70% of organizations to implement antidigital policies. He noted that so many people are immersed in and addicted to digital devices, which is resulting in more isolation, such as falling in love with an AI. Companies will work on this, promoting things like digital time-outs. Unregulated Emotional AI Harms Financial Health! By 2027, 70% of healthcare providers will include emotional-AI-related terms and conditions in technology contracts or risk billions in financial harm. "What if you could sue your healthcare provider because AI didn't catch your depression?" Plummer asked. He said emotional AI can facilitate clinician-patient interactions, but then we'll get to a situation where the lack of emotional AI might harm patient outcomes, leading to more lawsuits. Nudge Employees with Persuasive Analytics By 2028, 40% of large enterprises will deploy AI to manipulate and measure employee moods and behaviors, all in the name of profit. He talked about how AI psyops may be used on workers to motivate them or to get them to do things they may not otherwise want to do. There will be both good and bad outcomes of this, but AI analytics will help act on key decision-making processes. GPT Brands New Business By 2028, 30% of S&P Global companies will use gen AI labeling, such as "xxGPT," to reshape their branding while chasing new revenue. He noted that companies will start to use AI labeling to create new revenue streams and adapt more easily, but we need to make sure it doesn't dilute brand differentiation. Agents Under Attack By 2028, 25% of enterprise breaches will be traced back to AI agent abuse from both external and malicious internal actors. Plummer said insider threats might increase exponentially as a result of AI. The same thing is true for external threats. He talked about how the attack surface will get bigger with new agent technologies. He said organizations should not wait to implement new security and risk solutions. Guardian Agent Overseers By 2028, 40% of CIOs will demand guardian agents be available to autonomously track, oversee, or contain the results of AI agent actions. The "human-in-the-loop" can't scale because there will be more agents than people, so we will need to have AI watching AI. This will be necessary to ensure agents don't do bad things, like hallucinating or releasing private information. Bypass the Utility Company Through 2027, Fortune 500 companies will shift $500 billion from energy operating expenditure to microgrids, mitigating chronic energy risks and AI demand. Plummer discussed how much energy AI uses and noted that you might not be able to get as much power as you want. As brownouts and blackouts become more frequent, he said, large companies will focus on generating their own energy, citing how some of the largest AI firms are contracting for nuclear power plants. AI De-layers Middle Management Through 2026, 20% of organizations will use AI to flatten their organizational structure, eliminating more than half of current middle management positions. "What if AI can eliminate middle management?" Plummer asked, saying this trend is really about using labor more efficiently. He noted that flattening the hierarchy drives flexibility and work-life balance. We need to think about what we need to do next that is more valuable for people. He said we need to craft employment contracts for machine workers and for people, letting them do more things only humans can do. AI Guidance Shifts Decision Making By 2029, 10% of global boards will use AI guidance to challenge executive decisions that are material to their businesses. Similarly, Plummer asked, "What if AI replaced the C-suite?" but said instead, it was more likely that boards would use AI to make judgments about their CEOs. Corporate consolidation will accelerate, and decision data requirements will expand significantly.

Robots, Human-Machine Synergy, and (More) AI: Gartner's Top Trends for 2025

As it does every year, Gartner used part of its annual IT symposium this week to run down its list of top strategic trends for the coming year. This year's list, presented by Gartner analyst Gene Alvarez, focuses on AI imperatives and risks, new frontiers in computing, and human-machine synergy. It's more focused on specific technologies than in recent years, but it started with a few AI themes, of course. Agentic AI We all have lists of things we need to get done, so "everybody needs an agent," Alvarez says. He describes agents as goal-driven systems that can complete tasks with or without us. They can make decisions and act using memory, planning, sensing, and tooling. They may even make websites and applications unnecessary. Alvarez asked attendees to create a list of things they would like agents to do for them. Software vendors are adding agentic capabilities to their packages, and developers are starting to create them. He urged the audience not to let agentic AI become the next generation of shadow IT or to think of it as just another flavor of Robotic Process Automation (RPA). AI Governance Platforms Over the next two to four years, we need to implement platforms that create trust through transparency, ensure AI serves everyone equally (such as checking for bias), and pave the way to build ethics in every AI that gets created, Alvarez said. He predicts a surge in AI regulations, which will require platforms that ensure compliance. Alvarez warned against "ethics washing" by adopting superficial ethical AI practices as a marketing strategy; AI systems will need to be pressure-tested to make sure they are not biased. "Responsible AI will be as standard as cybersecurity and just as critical," Alvarez said. Disinformation Security Misleading information -- such as the bad information posted on social media about how to get help after the recent hurricanes in the Southeast -- has become ubiquitous. Generative AI has given bad actors the technical means to bypass controls and cause significant harm to enterprises. To combat this, Alvarez suggested looking at disinformation security solutions, which he positioned as an emerging category of technologies aimed at discerning trust, assessing truth, and tracking the spread of misinformation. We're seeing synthetic media acting to bypass things like biometrics and phishing controls. So we'll need things like deepfake detection to identify synthetic media, as well as controls to authenticate real users, such as watermarks. Post-Quantum Cryptography The next section of Alvarez's presentation was on new frontiers in computing. Because quantum computing can break every asymmetric encryption, every organization will have to protect itself over the next two to three years. "This could be bigger than Y2K," he said. This involves implementing post-quantum cryptography, a new set of algorithms designed to resist attacks from both classical and quantum computers. He told attendees to beware of "harvest now, decrypt later," which is already happening. The solution is not a simple patch, so organizations will have to inventory and replace all their encryption. He noted that postquantum cryptography algorithms may impact performance and are generally not budgeted. He suggested companies update or replace hardware and move sensitive data to postquantum cryptography ASAP. Ambient Invisible Intelligence We've been talking about ambient intelligence at least since RFID tags were first introduced, but cost has held it back. We're now seeing ultra-low-cost, tiny wireless tags, devices, and sensors. Alvarez expects to see 20-cent tags in the near term, dropping to 10 cents in the next five years. In the long term, this will result in deeper integration of computing into all aspects of life, creating "smart everything," he said. You'll need to prepare your infrastructure for millions more objects being tracked and set it up for privacy (e.g., tracking ice cream cartons when they are on a truck or in a store but not at home). Energy-Efficient Computing We're seeing increased demand for energy, driven by AI workloads and rich media content. As a result, energy consumption is rising in an unsustainable manner, so we'll need innovative technology to address this, Alvarez said. For the long term, IT executives need to monitor new technologies that promise 10 to 100x improvements for things like AI. In the short term, we should adopt things like green cloud providers, rewrite some algorithms to save energy, and consider shifting the load of some applications to different times of the day. Hybrid Computing New computing paradigms are coming, including neuromorphic, quantum, optical computing, and DNA computing, Alvarez said, noting that these will become more important over the next 10 years. But he said that we never switch completely to a new paradigm, noting that mainframes are still in use decades after the introduction of the client-server model. Instead, we'll use these new technologies along with classical computing for different tasks. He suggested attendees start looking at integration and orchestration platforms that can support the development and deployment of applications across a hybrid paradigm. Spatial Computing The final three trends fit into what Alvarez called human-machine synergy. Pointing to things like the Apple Vision Pro and other mixed reality headsets, Alvarez discussed spatial computing, which he described as a computing paradigm that combines physical and digital objects in a shared frame of reference. This allows users to interact with digital content in a 3D space, making it a more immersive and intuitive experience. In the next one to three years, Alvarez expects new opportunities (such as a virtual workroom) that enable more inclusivity and offer just-in-time contextual information. Gartner estimates this is a $35 billion market in 2024 and growing. Polyfunctional Robots Alvarez said his favorite trend is robots that can do a variety of tasks for humans. Such robots will need to be instructed in what to do but not how to do it. We're now seeing humanoid or canine-style robots, he said, and by 2030, Gartner predicts that 80% of humans will engage with smart robots every day. These are going to become economically viable in environments where a single application would not provide a sufficient ROI, such as private homes. He said that human-robot relationships ("rob otology") will be increasingly critical to business success. Neurological Enhancements The final trend Alvarez mentioned was enhancements that read into your brain and understand what's going on in it to enhance its functions, like a device that could reduce Parkinson's tremors, but he said this is more than 10 years out. There are a variety of approaches, including neuromodulation, cognitive training, neurofeedback, and neuroagents, but what's important now is to watch for bidirectional brain-machine interfaces integrated into earbuds or other wearables.

Gartner Unveils Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2025 and Beyond

Gartner's Top Predictions Explore How GenAI Is Affecting Areas Where Most Would Assume Only Humans Can Have Lasting Impact Gartner, Inc. today revealed its top strategic predictions for 2025 and beyond. Gartner's top predictions explore how generative AI (GenAI) is affecting areas where most would assume only humans can have lasting impact. "It is clear that no matter where we go, we cannot avoid the impact of AI," said Daryl Plummer, Distinguished VP Analyst, Chief of Research and Gartner Fellow. "AI is evolving as human use of AI evolves. Before we reach the point where humans can no longer keep up, we must embrace how much better AI can make us." The top predictions for 2025 are: Through 2026, 20% of organizations will use AI to flatten their organizational structure, eliminating more than half of current middle management positions. Organizations that deploy AI to eliminate middle management human workers will be able to capitalize on reduced labor costs in the short-term and long-term benefits savings. AI deployment will also allow for enhanced productivity and increased span of control by automating and scheduling tasks, reporting and performance monitoring for the remaining workforce which allows remaining managers to focus on more strategic, scalable and value-added activities. AI implementation will present challenges for organizations, such as the wider workforce feeling concerned over job security, managers feeling overwhelmed with additional direct reports and remaining employees being reluctant to change or adopt AI-driver interaction. Additionally, mentoring and learning pathways may become broken, and more junior workers could suffer from a lack of development opportunities. By 2028, technological immersion will impact populations with digital addiction and social isolation, prompting 70% of organizations to implement anti-digital policies. Gartner predicts that by 2028, about one billion people will be affected by digital addiction, which will lead to decreased productivity, increased stress and a spike in mental health disorders such anxiety and depression. Additionally digital immersion will also negatively impact social skills, especially among younger generations that are more susceptible to these trends. "The isolating effects of digital immersion will lead to a disjointed workforce causing enterprises to see a significant drop in productivity from their employees and associates," said Plummer. "Organizations must make digital detox periods mandatory for their employees, banning after-hour communication and bring back compulsory analog tools and techniques like screen free meetings, email free Fridays, and off-desk lunch breaks." By 2029, 10% of global boards will use AI guidance to challenge executive decisions that are material to their business. AI-generated insights will have far-reaching impacts on executive decision making and will empower board members to challenge executive decisions. This will end the era of maverick CEOs whose decisions cannot be fully defended. "Impactful AI insights will at first seem like a minority report that doesn't reflect the majority view of board members," said Plummer. "However, as AI insights prove effective, they will gain acceptance among executives competing for decision support data to improve business results." By 2028, 40% of large enterprises will deploy AI to manipulate and measure employee mood and behaviors, all in the name of profit. AI has the capability to perform sentiment analysis on workplace interactions and communications. This provides feedback to ensure that the overall sentiment aligns with desired behaviors which will allow for a motivated and engaged workforce. "Employees may feel their autonomy and privacy are compromised, leading to dissatisfaction and eroded trust," said Plummer. "While the potential benefits of AI-driven behavioral technologies are substantial, companies must balance efficiency gains with genuine care for employee well-being to avoid long-term damage to morale and loyalty." By 2027, 70% of new contracts for employees will include licensing and fair usage clauses for AI representations of their personas. Large language models (LLMs) that emerge have no set end date which means employees' personal data that is captured by enterprise LLMs will remain part of the LLM not only during their employment, but after their employment. This will lead to a public debate that will question whether the employee or employer has the right of ownership of such digital personas, which may ultimately lead to lawsuits. Fair use clauses will be used to protect enterprises from immediate lawsuits but will prove to be controversial. By 2027, 70% of healthcare providers will include emotional-AI-related terms and conditions in technology contracts or risk billions in financial harm. The increased workload of healthcare workers has resulted in workers leaving, an increase in patient demand and clinician burnout rates which is creating an empathy crisis. Using emotional AI on tasks such as collecting patient data can free up healthcare workers' time to alleviate some of the burnout and frustration they experience with increased workload. By 2028, 30% of S&P companies will use GenAI labeling, such as "xxGPT," to reshape their branding while chasing new revenue. CMOs view GenAI as a tool that can launch both new products and business models. GenAI also allows for new revenue streams by bringing products to market faster while delivering better customer experiences and automating processes. As the GenAI landscape becomes more competitive, companies are differentiating themselves by developing specialized models tailored to their industry. By 2028, 25% of enterprise breaches will be traced back to AI agent abuse, from both external and malicious internal actors. New security and risk solutions will be necessary as AI agents significantly increase the already invisible attack surface at enterprises. This increase will force enterprises to protect their businesses from savvy external actors and disgruntled employees to create AI agents to carry out nefarious activities. "Enterprises cannot wait to implement mitigating controls for AI agent threats," said Plummer. "It's much easier to build risk and security mitigation into products and software than it is to add them after a breach." By 2028, 40% of CIOs will demand "Guardian Agents" be available to autonomously track, oversee, or contain the results of AI agent actions. Enterprises' interest in AI agents is growing, but as a new level of intelligence is added, new GenAI agents are poised to expand rapidly in strategic planning for product leaders. "Guardian Agents" build on the notions of security monitoring, observability, compliance assurance, ethics, data filtering, log reviews and a host of other mechanisms of AI agents. Through 2025, the number of product releases featuring multiple agents will rise steadily with more complex use cases. "In the near-term, security-related attacks of AI agents will be a new threat surface," said Plummer. "The implementation of guardrails, security filters, human oversight, or even security observability are not sufficient to ensure consistently appropriate agent use." Through 2027, Fortune 500 companies will shift $500 billion from energy opex to microgrids to mitigate chronic energy risks and AI demand. Microgrids are power networks that connect generation, storage and loads in an independent energy system that can operate on its own or with the main grid to meet the energy needs of a specific area or facility. This will create competitive advantage for day-to-day operations and derisk energy in the future. Fortune 500 companies who spend some of their operating expenses on energy should consider investing in microgrids which will offer a better return than continuing to pay rising utility bills. Gartner clients can read more in "Gartner's Top Strategic Predictions for 2025 and Beyond: Riding the AI Whirlwind." About Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo is the world's most important gathering for CIOs and other IT executives. IT executives rely on these conferences to learn how to amplify the impact of the technology, insights and trends shaping the future of IT and business. Follow news and updates from the conferences on X using #GartnerSYM, and on the Gartner Newsroom. Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo include: October 28-30 2024 | Tokyo, Japan November 4-7 2024 | Barcelona, Spain November 11-13 2024 | Kochi, India About Gartner for Information Technology Executives Gartner for Information Technology Executives provides actionable, objective insight to CIOs and IT leaders to help them drive their organizations through digital transformation and lead business growth. Additional information is available at www.gartner.com/en/information-technology. Follow news and updates from Gartner for IT Executives on X and LinkedIn using #GartnerIT. Visit the IT Newsroom for more information and insights. About Gartner Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) delivers actionable, objective insight that drives smarter decisions and stronger performance on an organization's mission-critical priorities. To learn more, visit gartner.com.

Gartner: 2025 will see the rise of AI agents (and other top trends)

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More The pace of AI continues to accelerate, with capabilities never before thought possible now becoming a reality. This is particularly true of AI agents, or virtual co-workers, which will work alongside us and, eventually, autonomously. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI (up from 0% in 2024). Further emphasizing the technology's potential, the firm has named it a top strategic technology trend in 2025. "It's happening really, really fast," Gene Alvarez, distinguished VP analyst with Gartner, told VentureBeat. "Nobody ever goes to bed at night with everything done. Organizations spend a lot of time monitoring things. The ability to create agents to not only do that monitoring but take action will help not just from a productivity perspective but a timing perspective." What else does Gartner predict for the coming year? Here are some trends the firm will explore at its Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2024 this week. AI agents both 'cool and scary' The entry-level use case for AI agents are mundane tasks that suck up human time and energy, Alvarez explained. The next level is agentic AI that can autonomously monitor and manage systems. "Agentic AI has the ability to plan and sense and take action," said Alvarez. "Instead of having something just watching systems, agentic AI can do the analysis, make the fix and report that it happened." Looking to even more complex scenarios, agents could one day help upscale the workforce. For instance, a new employee that would normally shadow a human can be instead guided by an AI co-worker. "You can have an agent be that mentor, to help them climb the learning curve much faster," said Alvarez. He acknowledged that all this is simultaneously "cool and scary," and that there is a fear of job loss. "But if the agent can actually teach me a new set of skills, I can move away from a job that's going away to a job that's needed," he pointed out. Systematically building trust in AI Moving on to the next top trend, Alvarez noted: "There's a whole new workforce out there, how do we govern it?" This will give rise to AI governance platforms, which enable organizations to manage their AI systems' legal, ethical and operational performance. New tools will create, manage and enforce policies to ensure that AI is transparent and used responsibly. These platforms can check for bias and provide information on how models were built, as well as the reasoning behind their prompts. Eventually, Alvarez predicted, such tools will become part of the AI creation process itself to ensure that ethics and governance are built into models from the start. "We can create trust through transparency," he said. "If people lose trust in AI, they don't use it." Not just one type of computing model There are seven computing paradigms "on our doorstep right now," Alvarez pointed out. These include CPUs, GPUs, edge, application-specific integrated circuits, neuromorphic systems, classical quantum and optical computing. "We've always had a mindset of moving from one to the other," said Alvarez. "But we've never done a good job of making that move complete." But the hybrid computing models of the future will combine different compute, storage and network mechanisms, he noted. Orchestration software will move compute from one to the other depending on the task and the method most suited for the job. "It's going to be about how to get them to work together," said Alvarez. At the same time, new, more specific compute technologies will use significantly less energy, he pointed out. This is important, as there is increased pressure to reduce consumption and carbon footprints. But "at the same time, demand for IT computing capabilities is increasing at an incredible rate." Incremental improvements won't be enough; enterprises need long term solutions, he said. New technologies -- such as green cloud providers or new, more efficient algorithms -- could improve efficiency by thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands orders of magnitude. Proactively addressing disinformation security AI is allowing threat actors to spread disinformation faster -- and more easily -- than ever before. They can push out deepfakes and craft convincing phishing emails; exploit vulnerabilities in workforce collaboration tools; use malware to steal credentials; and initiate account takeovers (among other tactics). This makes disinformation security critical; the emerging category seeks to assess authenticity, track the spread of harmful information and prevent impersonation. Elements include brand impersonation scanning, third-party content evaluation, claim and identity verification, phishing mitigation, account takeover prevention, social/mass media and dark web monitoring and sentiment manipulation. Deepfake detection will also be able to identify synthetic media, Alvarez explained, and watermarking tools will help ensure that users are interacting with real people. By 2028, Gartner predicts that half of all enterprises will begin adopting products, services or features specifically designed for disinformation security, up from less than 5% today. "Disinformation security is not going to just be a single technology," said Alvarez, "it will be a collection of technologies." Preparing security for the post-quantum world Right now, the web runs on public key cryptography, or asymmetrical encryption, which secures two points of communication. This encryption is difficult to break because it simply takes too long, Alvarez explained. However, quantum is rapidly advancing. "There's going to be a point where quantum computing is going to work and we're able to break that encryption because it has the mathematical power to do that in real time," said Alvarez. Red teams are already getting ready and waiting it out: Many are harvesting encrypted data and holding onto it until quantum is realized. That won't be long: Gartner predicts that by 2029, advances in quantum computing will make most conventional asymmetric cryptography unsafe. "We believe it's going to be bigger than Y2K, if not bigger," said Alvarez. Organizations must be prepping for post-quantum cryptography now, he said, to ensure that their data is resistant to decryption. Alvarez pointed out that it's not easy to switch cryptography methods and it's "not a simple patch." A good place to start is established standards from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Alvarez pointed out that the agency will be releasing the second version of its post quantum cryptography guidelines in spring 2025. "What do you do when all the locks are broken? You need new locks," said Alvarez. "We want to make sure we're updating our security before quantum becomes a reality." AI enhancing our brains Reaching more into the sci-fi arena, Gartner anticipates a rise in the use of bidirectional brain-machine interfaces (BBMIs) that read and decode brain activity and enhance human cognitive abilities. These could be directly integrated into our brains or made possible via wearables such as glasses or headbands, Alvarez explained. Gartner anticipates that, by 2030, 30% of knowledge workers will be using technologies such as BBMIs to stay relevant in the AI-powered workplace (up from less than 1% in 2024). Alvarez said he sees potential in human upskilling and next-generation marketing -- for instance, brands will be able to know what consumers are thinking and feeling to gauge sentiment. Alvarez ultimately compared it to the 2011 film "Limitless" or Apple TV's "Severance" (although, to be fair, neither of those portray the technology in the most positive light). "It can reach into your brain and enhance function," he said.

Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2025

The Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2025 Span AI Imperatives and Risks, New Frontiers of Computing, and Human-Machine Synergy Gartner, Inc. today announced its list of 10 top strategic technology trends that organizations need to explore in 2025. "This year's top strategic technology trends span AI imperatives and risks, new frontiers of computing and human-machine synergy," said Gene Alvarez, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. "Tracking these trends will help IT leaders shape the future of their organizations with responsible and ethical innovation." The top strategic technology trends for 2025 are: Agentic AI Agentic AI systems autonomously plan and take actions to meet user-defined goals. Agentic AI offers the promise of a virtual workforce that can offload and augment human work. Gartner predicts that by 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI, up from 0% in 2024. The goal-driven capabilities of this technology will deliver more adaptable software systems, capable of completing a wide variety of tasks. Agentic AI has the potential to realize CIOs' desire to increase productivity across the organization. This motivation is driving both enterprises and vendors to explore, innovate and establish the technology and practices needed to deliver this agency in a robust, secure and trustworthy way. AI Governance Platforms AI governance platforms are a part of Gartner's evolving AI Trust, Risk and Security Management (TRiSM) framework that enables organizations to manage the legal, ethical and operational performance of their AI systems. These technology solutions have the capability to create, manage and enforce policies for responsible AI use, explain how AI systems work and provide transparency to build trust and accountability. Gartner predicts that by 2028, organizations that implement comprehensive AI governance platforms will experience 40% fewer AI-related ethical incidents compared to those without such systems. Disinformation Security Disinformation security is an emerging category of technology that systematically discerns trust and aims to provide methodological systems for ensuring integrity, assessing authenticity, preventing impersonation and tracking the spread of harmful information. By 2028, Gartner predicts that 50% of enterprises will begin adopting products, services or features designed specifically to address disinformation security use cases, up from less than 5% today. The wide availability and advanced state of AI and machine learning tools being leveraged for nefarious purposes is expected to increase the number of disinformation incidents targeting enterprises. If this is left unchecked, disinformation can cause significant and lasting damage to any organization. Postquantum Cryptography Postquantum cryptography provides data protection that is resistant to quantum computing decryption risks. As quantum computing developments have progressed over the last several years, it is expected there will be an end to several types of conventional cryptography that is widely used. It is not easy to switch cryptography methods so organizations must have a longer lead time to ready themselves for robust protection of anything sensitive or confidential. Gartner predicts that by 2029, advances in quantum computing will make most conventional asymmetric cryptography unsafe to use. Ambient Invisible Intelligence Ambient invisible intelligence is enabled by ultra-low cost, small smart tags and sensors which will deliver large-scale affordable tracking and sensing. In the long term, ambient invisible intelligence will enable a deeper integration of sensing and intelligence into everyday life. Through 2027, early examples of ambient invisible intelligence will focus on solving immediate problems, such as retail stock checking or perishable goods logistics, by enabling low-cost, real-time tracking and sensing of items to improve visibility and efficiency. Energy-Efficient Computing IT impacts sustainability in many ways and in 2024 the leading consideration for most IT organizations is their carbon footprint. Compute-intensive applications such as AI training, simulation, optimization and media rendering, are likely to be the biggest contributors to organizations' carbon footprint as they consume the most energy. It is expected that starting in the late 2020s, several new compute technologies, such as optical, neuromorphic and novel accelerators, will emerge for special purpose tasks, such as AI and optimization, which will use significantly less energy. Hybrid Computing New computing paradigms keep popping up including central processing units, graphic processing units, edge, application-specific integrated circuits, neuromorphic, and classical quantum, optical computing paradigms. Hybrid computing combines different compute, storage and network mechanisms to solve computational problems.This form of computing helps organizations explore and solve problems which helps technologies, such as AI, perform beyond current technological limits. Hybrid computing will be used to create highly efficient transformative innovation environments that perform more effectively than conventional environments. Spatial Computing Spatial computing digitally enhances the physical world with technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality. This is the next level of interaction between physical and virtual experiences. The use of spatial computing will increase organizations' effectiveness in the next five to seven years through streamlined workflows and enhanced collaboration. By 2033, Gartner predicts spatial computing will grow to $1.7 trillion, up from $110 billion in 2023. Polyfunctional Robots Polyfunctional machines have the capability to do more than one task and are replacing task-specific robots that are custom designed to repeatedly perform a single task. The functionality of these new robots improve efficiency and provide a faster ROI. Polyfunctional robots are designed to operate in a world with humans which will make for fast deployment and easy scalability. Gartner predicts that by 2030, 80% of humans will engage with smart robots on a daily basis, up from less than 10% today. Neurological Enhancement Neurological enhancement improves human cognitive abilities using technologies that read and decode brain activity. This technology reads a person's brain by using unidirectional brain-machine interfaces or bidirectional brain-machine interfaces (BBMIs). This has huge potential in three main areas: human upskilling, next-generation marketing and performance. Neurological enhancement will enhance cognitive abilities, enable brands to know what consumers are thinking and feeling, and enhance human neural capabilities to optimize outcomes. By 2030, Gartner predicts 30% of knowledge workers will be enhanced by, and dependent on, technologies such as BBMIs (both employer-and-self-funded) to stay relevant with the rise of AI in the workplace, up from less than 1% in 2024. This year's top strategic technology trends highlight those trends that will drive significant disruption and opportunity for CIOs and other IT leaders within the next 10 years. Gartner clients can read more in the Gartner Special Report "Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2025." About Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo is the world's most important gathering for CIOs and other IT executives. IT executives rely on these conferences to learn how to amplify the impact of the technology, insights and trends shaping the future of IT and business. Follow news and updates from the conferences on X using #GartnerSYM, and on the Gartner Newsroom. Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo include: October 28-30 2024 | Tokyo, Japan November 4-7 2024 | Barcelona, Spain November 11-13 2024 | Kochi, India About Gartner for Information Technology Executives Gartner for Information Technology Executives provides actionable, objective insight to CIOs and IT leaders to help them drive their organizations through digital transformation and lead business growth. Additional information is available at www.gartner.com/en/information-technology. Follow news and updates from Gartner for IT Executives on X and LinkedIn using #GartnerIT. Visit the IT Newsroom for more information and insights. About Gartner Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) delivers actionable, objective insight that drives smarter decisions and stronger performance on an organization's mission-critical priorities. To learn more, visit gartner.com.

Gartner's 2025 tech trends show how your business needs to adapt - and fast

Every year around this time, well-regarded analyst group Gartner releases its list of top 10 strategic technology trends for the upcoming year. Last year, among the 10 trends it identified for 2024 was AI-augmented development, and we've certainly spent a lot of time here on ZDNET discussing AI and programming. Now, just in time for its Orlando gathering of expense-account-wielding senior executives -- the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo -- Gartner is back with its 10 strategic trends for 2025. Also: The best AI for coding, and a bunch that failed miserably When reading these trend prognostications, it's important to put them into context. Gartner isn't saying these are all initiatives your company should be working on, or that you should feel somehow less than if your company doesn't have active initiatives in all of these areas. What they are saying is that these are trends and areas of innovation, activity, opportunity, and concern you should start becoming aware of. For example, if you're not familiar with the new computing technologies of optical, neuromorphic, and novel accelerators, it might not be a bad idea to learn more about them before we proceed to Gartner's trends, since the analyst firm refers to them as underlying technologies, particularly for energy-efficient and hybrid computing. Here's a quick rundown: Optical computing: Photons can travel much faster than electrons within typical computing materials. Because electrons often collide with the material they use for transport, they also generate teeny-tiny bits of friction that add up to a lot of heat. Optical computing uses lasers or photons to replace electrical signals in chips, potentially making them much faster and operate with less heat. This is ideal for any high-performance compute-intensive task. Neuromorphic computing: No, the tech industry is not planning on harvesting Spock's brain to drive computing technology. However, the idea of neuromorphic computing is that neuromorphic systems process many tasks in parallel rather than using sequential steps, which is much more of how the human brain works. This could be helpful in AI and in processing inputs from thousands of sensors. Novel accelerators: This is another buzzword to describe the special-purpose processing units that have become popular as ways to augment traditional CPUs. The best known of these, of course, is the GPU. Initially popular as a way for gamers to get higher quality graphics, GPUs have proven to be amazingly capable in crypto and AI calculations. Other custom augment processors like Tensor Processing Units (Google's machine learning engine) are also proving popular. Most people reading this article aren't going to run out tomorrow and invest in optical computing or any of the other technologies I will be discussing. But keep these technologies (and the ten trends below) in mind as you start to plan your own business' strategic initiatives. And with that, let's dive into Gartner's 10 trends for 2025. Agentic AI is corpspeak's way of saying AI with agents. I like how Microsoft describes this. They say "Think of agents as the new apps for an AI-powered world." Essentially, the idea is that AI will take the lead in some autonomous actions. Keep in mind that autonomous is not the same as automated. We've done "automated" for decades. Automated systems are those that follow specific instructions to perform tasks. Autonomous systems are those that operate independently, learn, make decisions, and adapt. Also: AI agents are the 'next frontier' and will change our working lives forever If you want a deep dive into this difference, read my, "From automated to autonomous, will the real robots please stand up?" While no decisions are coming out of AI agents today, Gartner predicts that a good 15% of "day-to-day work decisions" will be made by AI agents by 2028. This one is big -- and well worth the attention of every C-level executive. This is all about trust, accountability, and the legal and ethical underpinnings of AI systems. I have talked to several top executives at Lenovo, Adobe, and Deloitte about this topic: AI governance is an umbrella term used to describe frameworks for managing these challenges. Gartner uses the acronym TRiSM (for Trust, Risk, and Security Management). Also: How Lenovo works on dismantling AI bias while building laptops Now, here's the big takeaway from Gartner's future-looking predictions. The company predicts that within three years, "Organizations that implement comprehensive AI governance platforms will experience 40% fewer AI-related ethical incidents compared to those without such systems." Ethical incidents. Read that as lawsuits, employee complaints, and very bad PR. A 40% reduction can mean the difference between continuing a successful career or standing in the employment line. While this name sounds more like you're protecting your right to propagate disinformation, what Gartner is discussing is just the opposite: adding the fight against disinformation into your main security posture. I did another interview, this one with Trustpilot's chief trust officer Anoop Joshi, to explore this problem in depth. Trustpilot makes its name on providing trusted reviews, so disinformation is the bane of the company's existence. Gartner describes disinformation security as "an emerging category of technology that systematically discerns trust and aims to provide methodological systems for ensuring integrity, assessing authenticity, preventing impersonation, and tracking the spread of harmful information." Also: AI-powered 'narrative attacks' a growing threat: 3 defense strategies for business leaders Today, Gartner isn't seeing much formal work in this area, but predicts that by 2028, a full half of enterprises will have systems that fight against these attacks. With AI in the hands of bad actors, it's not hard to predict that there will be an even more serious rise in very credible-seeming disinformation. Here's my take on disinformation in the upcoming elections: Elections 2024: How AI will fool voters if we don't do something now. I'm not going to get into the nuances of what quantum computing is. (We have an excellent explainer for that.) For the purpose of this article, think of quantum computers as insanely faster than our current machines. Now, think of cryptography. There are lots of encryption methods that don't respond well to brute force attacks, but instead can take thousands of years to decipher. But what happens when you have a computer a million times faster than you did last year? Suddenly a problem that takes a thousand years to solve can be cracked in about eight hours. Also: IBM promises a 4,000 qubit quantum computer by 2025: Here's what it means We do have a few years before your run-of-the-mill crook gains access to quantum computing tech. But nation-states? You can bet enemy and rogue nations are looking into this stuff right now. So what happens to all your encryption when the enemy has a way of compressing time? Gartner estimates that by 2029, most current forms of cryptography will be unsafe to use. They strongly recommend deeper research into building cryptography techniques that can survive in a world where quantum computing is available. Here's another trend that can give you a bit of a queasy feeling, but also can prove to be enormously helpful. The principle behind ambient invisible intelligence is that your home, work environment, retail environment -- any place, really -- is filled with smart tags and sensors, and then managed by AI. The idea is to infuse systems with awareness, whether that's awareness of buying behavior, traffic flow, or simply turning on the light as you walk down a dark hallway at night. Through 2027, Gartner sees this as mostly focused on practical retail and warehouse applications, although smart home geeks like me will undoubtedly deploy all sorts of neat autonomous gadgets that annoy our families and freak out the dog. Alphabet (Google's parent) chairman John Hennessy told Reuters that a query into a large language model AI like ChatGPT or Google's Gemini costs 10 times as much as a typical Google search. According to a study published in the academic journal Joule, AI-related energy is expected to use between 85.4 and 134.0 TWh of electricity annually by 2027. For comparison, Finland only uses 81.0 TWh, and Norway less than 132.0 TWh. It's no wonder Gartner contends that sustainability will be a big focus in the coming year. The analyst firm says that new technologies such as the aforementioned optical, neuromorphic, and novel accelerators may use substantially less memory. Also: Making GenAI more efficient with a new kind of chip There is one statement in Gartner's announcement that I just don't find fully credible. They say, "In 2024 the leading consideration for most IT organizations is their carbon footprint." Nope, I don't think so. Not the leading consideration. With the boom in AI, the ongoing extreme nature of cyberthreats, and just the need to get solutions deployed, it's unlikely that IT organizations can be characterized as making their carbon footprint their top priority. I just don't buy it. Maybe it should be. But it isn't. Ten years ago, when we talked about hybrid computing, we were referring to some mix of on-premises computing and cloud computing. Today, what Gartner is referring to is again those new technologies I introduced at the beginning of this article, along with mixes in processor types, different storage and network approaches, and other specialized considerations. Going forward, Gartner is saying, data centers won't simply look like racks of basic servers, but will be a mix of a wide range of technologies, deployed based on need and performance requirements. There is no doubt spatial computing, VR, AR, mixed reality, etc., is becoming a thing. Meta is blasting out its low-cost Quest headsets to consumers. Apple's Vision Pro, while not a success at its over-the-top price point, is still a powerful concept prototype for the future of spatial computing. Gartner sees spatial computing exploding in the next ten years, jumping from a $110 billion market to over $1.7 trillion by 2033. Also: XR, digital twins, and spatial computing: An enterprise guide on reshaping user experience Expect to see adoption in vertical solutions, where the headsets solve specific professional problems. Then there's the whole virtual monitor and entertainment center application, which could replace peoples' needs for large TVs (especially those who travel or live in tight quarters) and for big monitors for computing use. Stay tuned. It's still not comfortable to wear the big heavy goggles. But if Meta's Orion project reaches fruition sometime soon, AR could suddenly become really compelling. Today, most robots do one task, and do it well. I have an army of 3D printers in the Fab Lab, and they create plastic objects. I have another set of robots that move cameras on arcs (one robot) or linearly (another set of robots). Many of us have little robots that vacuum our floors. But I still don't have a robot that will bring me a cup of coffee. Also: From automated to autonomous, will the real robots please stand up? While Gartner is seemingly loathe to describe humanoid robots, their description of polyfunctional robots is simple: machines that have the capability to do more than one task. They don't really define the form those robots will take, or what kinds of tasks they will perform, but they estimate that 80% of people in 2030 will "engage with smart robots on a daily basis." No. Not a chance. I don't buy this one at all. Gartner claims that one of the trends to watch is the use of technologies that "read and decode brain activity" to improve human cognitive abilities. This will be done with BBMIs (bidirectional brain-machine interfaces). They look at these as neurological enhancements and claim that, by 2030, 30% of knowledge workers will be "enhanced by, and dependent on, technologies such as BBMIs (both employer-and-self-funded) to stay relevant with the rise of AI." Also: AI desperately needs a hardware revolution and the solution might be inside your head Yeah, no. The closest we might get is hanging VR bricks off our faces, and even that has a very low uptake compared to most other productivity technologies. It's far less likely that users will use electrodes to implant or detect brain signals. Not going to happen. Did we cover all the future trends you expect for 2025? I was surprised to find no mention of smart cars or smart cities, little about programming automation, no real mention of biotechnology or healthcare, and little detailed focus on anything related to green energy. What trend are you most excited by? What worries you the most? What did Gartner leave out? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2025 By Investing.com

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gartner, Inc. today announced its list of 10 top strategic technology trends that organizations need to explore in 2025. Analysts presented their findings during Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, taking place here through Thursday. This year's top strategic technology trends span AI imperatives and risks, new frontiers of computing and human-machine synergy, said Gene Alvarez, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. Tracking these trends will help IT leaders shape the future of their organizations with responsible and ethical innovation. The top strategic technology trends for 2025 are: Agentic AI Agentic AI systems autonomously plan and take actions to meet user-defined goals. Agentic AI offers the promise of a virtual workforce that can offload and augment human work. Gartner predicts that by 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI, up from 0% in 2024. The goal-driven capabilities of this technology will deliver more adaptable software systems, capable of completing a wide variety of tasks. Agentic AI has the potential to realize CIOs' desire to increase productivity across the organization. This motivation is driving both enterprises and vendors to explore, innovate and establish the technology and practices needed to deliver this agency in a robust, secure and trustworthy way. AI Governance Platforms AI governance platforms are a part of Gartner's evolving AI Trust, Risk and Security Management (TRiSM) framework that enables organizations to manage the legal, ethical and operational performance of their AI systems. These technology solutions have the capability to create, manage and enforce policies for responsible AI use, explain how AI systems work and provide transparency to build trust and accountability. Gartner predicts that by 2028, organizations that implement comprehensive AI governance platforms will experience 40% fewer AI-related ethical incidents compared to those without such systems. Disinformation Security Disinformation security is an emerging category of technology that systematically discerns trust and aims to provide methodological systems for ensuring integrity, assessing authenticity, preventing impersonation and tracking the spread of harmful information. By 2028, Gartner predicts that 50% of enterprises will begin adopting products, services or features designed specifically to address disinformation security use cases, up from less than 5% today. The wide availability and advanced state of AI and machine learning tools being leveraged for nefarious purposes is expected to increase the number of disinformation incidents targeting enterprises. If this is left unchecked, disinformation can cause significant and lasting damage to any organization. Postquantum Cryptography Postquantum cryptography provides data protection that is resistant to quantum computing decryption risks. As quantum computing developments have progressed over the last several years, it is expected there will be an end to several types of conventional cryptography that is widely used. It is not easy to switch cryptography methods so organizations must have a longer lead time to ready themselves for robust protection of anything sensitive or confidential. Gartner predicts that by 2029, advances in quantum computing will make most conventional asymmetric cryptography unsafe to use. Ambient Invisible Intelligence Ambient invisible intelligence is enabled by ultra-low cost, small smart tags and sensors which will deliver large-scale affordable tracking and sensing. In the long term, ambient invisible intelligence will enable a deeper integration of sensing and intelligence into everyday life. Through 2027, early examples of ambient invisible intelligence will focus on solving immediate problems, such as retail stock checking or perishable goods logistics, by enabling low-cost, real-time tracking and sensing of items to improve visibility and efficiency. Energy-Efficient Computing IT impacts sustainability in many ways and in 2024 the leading consideration for most IT organizations is their carbon footprint. Compute-intensive applications such as AI training, simulation, optimization and media rendering, are likely to be the biggest contributors to organizations' carbon footprint as they consume the most energy. It is expected that starting in the late 2020s, several new compute technologies, such as optical, neuromorphic and novel accelerators, will emerge for special purpose tasks, such as AI and optimization, which will use significantly less energy. Hybrid Computing New computing paradigms keep popping up including central processing units, graphic processing units, edge, application-specific integrated circuits, neuromorphic, and classical quantum, optical computing paradigms. Hybrid computing combines different compute, storage and network mechanisms to solve computational problems. This form of computing helps organizations explore and solve problems which helps technologies, such as AI, perform beyond current technological limits. Hybrid computing will be used to create highly efficient transformative innovation environments that perform more effectively than conventional environments. Spatial Computing Spatial computing digitally enhances the physical world with technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality. This is the next level of interaction between physical and virtual experiences. The use of spatial computing will increase organizations' effectiveness in the next five to seven years through streamlined workflows and enhanced collaboration. By 2033, Gartner predicts spatial computing will grow to $1.7 trillion, up from $110 billion in 2023. Polyfunctional Robots Polyfunctional machines have the capability to do more than one task and are replacing task-specific robots that are custom designed to repeatedly perform a single task. The functionality of these new robots improve efficiency and provide a faster ROI. Polyfunctional robots are designed to operate in a world with humans which will make for fast deployment and easy scalability. Gartner predicts that by 2030, 80% of humans will engage with smart robots on a daily basis, up from less than 10% today. Neurological Enhancement Neurological enhancement improves human cognitive abilities using technologies that read and decode brain activity. This technology reads a person's brain by using unidirectional brain-machine interfaces or bidirectional brain-machine interfaces (BBMIs). This has huge potential in three main areas: human upskilling, next-generation marketing and performance. Neurological enhancement will enhance cognitive abilities, enable brands to know what consumers are thinking and feeling, and enhance human neural capabilities to optimize outcomes. By 2030, Gartner predicts 30% of knowledge workers will be enhanced by, and dependent on, technologies such as BBMIs (both employer-and-self-funded) to stay relevant with the rise of AI in the workplace, up from less than 1% in 2024. This year's top strategic technology trends highlight those trends that will drive significant disruption and opportunity for CIOs and other IT leaders within the next 10 years. Gartner clients can read more in the Gartner Special Report Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2025. About Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo is the world's most important gathering for CIOs and other IT executives. IT executives rely on these conferences to learn how to amplify the impact of the technology, insights and trends shaping the future of IT and business. Follow news and updates from the conferences on X using #GartnerSYM, and on the Gartner Newsroom. Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo include: October 28-30 2024 | Tokyo, Japan November 4-7 2024 | Barcelona, Spain November 11-13 2024 | Kochi, India About Gartner for Information Technology Executives Gartner for Information Technology Executives provides actionable, objective insight to CIOs and IT leaders to help them drive their organizations through digital transformation and lead business growth. Additional information is available at www.gartner.com/en/information-technology. Follow news and updates from Gartner for IT Executives on X and LinkedIn using #GartnerIT. Visit the IT Newsroom for more information and insights. About Gartner Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) delivers actionable, objective insight that drives smarter decisions and stronger performance on an organization's mission-critical priorities. To learn more, visit gartner.com.