5 Artificial Intelligence Trends to Watch in 2025

Over the past decade, every major industry has found a way to wield the incredible power of artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their output. From healthcare to industrials, consumer and retail, and even financial services, AI has proven itself to be a formidable tool with continuously expanding applications and capabilities. 

The limitless opportunities of AI, ranging from autonomous vehicles and healthcare wearables to smart factories and robotics, have opened the doors for investors and tech enthusiasts to realize the untapped potential of AI technology and its ability to revolutionize sectors.

Using the AlphaSense platform, we’ve searched through our vast universe of expert calls and earnings transcripts to see how company leaders and industry insiders forecast AI integrations in the coming quarters. Discover these insights, as well as the top AI trends set to shape the 2025 landscape—including new AI applications, human-AI collaboration, cybersecurity, ethics, and more.

Take a look back at AI trends from 2024 here.

AI-Human Collaboration

It’s a widespread fear expressed by workers around the world: AI will replace human workers. A 2023 Gartner study found that 22% of employees expect AI to replace their job in the next five years. However, experts do not predict this to be the case, as AI is more likely to lead to the restructuring and revamping of job responsibilities rather than total replacement.

Gartner predicts that in 2025, 75% of CFOs will be utilizing AI to enhance decision-making. The intent is not for AI to replace the CFO, but rather for the CFO to leverage AI-generated insights for a data-driven, strategic, ethical plan. AI excels at rote tasks, data analysis, and extraction of critical insights. Where it needs human help is in leveraging data and insights for forward-thinking plans and strategic initiatives.

According to a Fusion article found in the AlphaSense platform, AI has several critical strengths: speed and scalability, consistency, cost-effectiveness, and 24/7 operation. It also has serious weaknesses: context blindness, false flags, mishandling of sensitive topics, and training data dependency. 

Human intervention is integral for mitigating these risks, as well as elevating AI’s strengths. Humans complement AI with emotional intelligence, cultural sensitivity, problem-solving capability, and more trustworthiness.

In 2025, more and more companies will be embracing a hybrid approach to AI integration, as illustrated by Fusion CX:

The Winning Combo

1. Accuracy and Efficiency: AI filters out obvious violations, while humans handle the gray areas.
2. Scaling with Precision: AI ensures scalability, and humans add the final layer of accuracy.
3. User Trust: Knowing there’s a human touch behind moderation decisions builds community trust.
4. Continuous Learning: Human insights help refine AI, creating smarter systems over time.

“‘AI might be the fastest learner in the room, but it takes a human touch to understand the heartbeat of a community.”’

– Manish Jain, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer, Fusion CX”

Expansion of AI Applications

Generative AI

Perhaps one of the biggest and most impactful trends shaping the future outlook of AI is the meteoric rise of generative AI (genAI). This technology has already taken over every industry—including healthcare, manufacturing, financial services, consumer and retail, and consulting—and has numerous applications for individual use, as well as market research and other business needs.

Having recently entered the cultural zeitgeist in 2022, generative AI is now a top-of-mind topic for most organizations, due to its potential for accelerating growth and meeting consumer needs more effectively. In 2025, we will continue seeing new genAI applications sprout up across industries, such as the introduction of speech and real-time interactions in genAI chatbots, more personalization and improved customer service in retail, improved content production in entertainment and marketing, and enhanced design and productivity tools for creators.

Agentic AI

Agentic AI is shaping up to be one of the hot topics of 2025. In 2024, we saw the beginnings of the transformation from LLMs to foundational models for agentic AI. Unlike LLM models, agentic AI models are focused on decision-making, rather than creating content. They are also not reliant on human prompts, but rather are set to optimize particular goals or objectives. Finally, they can carry out complex sequences of activities, rather than just one task at a time. All of this together makes agentic AI a highly valuable tool that is already proving its ability to dramatically enhance productivity in the workplace and enhance everyday life. 

During CES 2025, agentic AI was a major topic of conversation, with Nvidia releasing a new foundation model called Cosmos that is designed to understand the physical world by processing data. 

In 2025, Gartner predicts that 25% of companies that are already utilizing generative AI will launch agentic AI pilots, and this number is expected to go up to 50% by 2027. Agentic AI will become more ubiquitous in business workflows and in daily life, and its capabilities are expected to expand and improve as time goes on.

Smart Vehicles

Innovation of smart vehicles was another key trend discussed at CES 2025, regarding the transition from traditional electric vehicles to AI-powered autonomous vehicles. In the U.S., Waymo has been leading the fray in autonomous driving, while Tesla and Uber are actively developing new driverless taxis.

Meanwhile, in China, autonomous driving startup DeepRoute.ai recently announced that they are partnering with car manufacturer Smart to develop an AI-driven intelligent car.

However, according to an expert perspective sourced in AlphaSense, regulatory management and infrastructure development still pose significant hurdles for the widespread implementation of autonomous vehicles. Most likely, it is expected that companies like Tesla, Uber, Waymo, and Cruise will contend with these issues and compete against one another to gain market share and consumer trust.

Robots

CES 2025 also showcased a variety of novel robotic technology, including therapeutic pet robots and humanoid helper robots. These robots use a built-in edge model to learn and then apply decision-making logic through offline edge computing. After continuous training and learning, these robots develop their own characteristics and interaction abilities to become better and more useful companions for the humans they are helping.

According to broker research, Nvidia is making significant strides in the humanoid robot space, engaging with machine tool manufacturers in Taiwan to establish their supply chain. Samsung Electronics also revealed ambitious robotics plans at CES 2025, including potential applications in consumer electronics and smart home technologies.

AI-based robots are expected to find applications in drone technology, where they can be used for agriculture and defense, as well as in hospitality and delivery services.

Healthcare and Wearables

In the healthcare space, significant investment in AI and genAI technology is expected to continue, and applications are anticipated to expand. For example, AI platforms are expected to enable remote and fast analysis of medical images, making healthcare more accessible to a broader population. AI also will continue to bring new possibilities to medical imaging, as deep learning algorithms learn to predict disease progression, make personalized suggestions for treatment, and simulate the effects of various interventions on the human body.

AI is also projected to better integrate with other healthcare technology, such as electronic health records and patient monitoring systems. Overall, it will likely streamline healthcare operations by automating routine administrative tasks and giving healthcare providers more time to focus on their patients. 

Finally, AI-powered healthcare wearables and remote monitoring devices are expected to expand their market share. These devices enable more personalized medicine and also allow healthcare providers to identify and target health issues before they become too serious. Adoption of this technology will also likely grow significantly this year, driven by heightened awareness of preventative healthcare and advancements in technology.

Expansion in AI Hardware

Data Centers

With the expansion of AI capabilities comes the necessary expansion of AI hardware to make those functions a reality. Data center development has seen a tremendous surge, alongside growing demand for real-time data processing. In 2025, the data industry will need to come up with new solutions to address the issues of limited space, energy, and high complexity of operations, so as to continue meeting rapidly increasing demand.

Data center operators that succeed will treat energy and space like finite commodities, utilizing AI and modular design to achieve unprecedented efficiency.

Industry experts also expect greater specialization, as smaller players carve out niches that hyperscaler giants cannot easily serve. Eventually, this will result in more segmentation, where data centers become tailored instruments of the industries they serve, rather than catch-all warehouses of compute power.

A key development to watch is The Stargate Project, a joint venture with OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and investment firm MGX, to spend at least $100 billion on Big Tech infrastructure projects — with the hope of getting to $500 billion over the next four years. President Trump has stated that Stargate would build the “physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of advancements in AI,” including the construction of colossal data centers.

For more on data center trends, check out 9 Data Center Trends and Outlook for 2025.

Semiconductors

The semiconductor industry is intricately tied to AI advancements—semiconductors power data centers, AI systems, and cloud computing, to name a few. Similarly to data centers, the semiconductor industry has seen a massive surge coinciding with the rise in AI demand. 

Global semiconductor revenue is projected to grow by 14% to total $717 billion in 2025. AI focused chip architectures are expected to dominate the semiconductor market—including ASICs, GPUs, and TPUs—providing specialized solutions for training and deploying machine learning models.

Semiconductor manufacturers are also transitioning to smaller process nodes. Companies like TSMC, Samsung, and Intel are expected to mass-produce 2nm chips this year, with the goal of faster processing speeds and lower power consumption.

Finally, research in the AlphaSense platform suggests that the expanding applications for semiconductors—from data center accelerators to advanced power semiconductors—could diversify demand and reduce the risk of a severe downturn in the semiconductor industry. 

For more on the impacts of generative AI on the semiconductor industry, check out our blog How Generative AI is Transforming the Semiconductor Industry.

Architectural Innovations

A private Chinese AI company is causing a splash in both the stock market and the AI landscape at large. A direct competitor to OpenAI, DeepSeek differentiates itself through its cost-efficient approach. Despite being significantly cheaper to develop, the model’s quality is on par with OpenAI and Meta’s most advanced models. 

This is raising questions about whether Silicon Valley is currently overspending on AI development. DeepSeek’s success at a fraction of the cost of its competitors has negatively impacted semiconductor companies like Nvidia, ASML, and Broadcom and caused their stocks to plummet.

In 2025, competition is expected to heat up in the global AI market, as new companies emerge that challenge beliefs around AI and the perception of what’s possible for the future.

Role of AI in Cybersecurity

Tech leaders like IBM have been continuously investigating AI’s role in cybersecurity. This year, they predict a rise in “shadow AI,” the unauthorized use of AI tools by employees in an organization, which can introduce various security risks. Relatedly, threats from quantum computing, generative AI, and hybrid cloud adoption are continuously evolving. In order to mitigate them, organizations will need to come together to develop and implement standardized cybersecurity strategies for this new era of business.

While AI introduces new threats, it also brings new solutions to those threats. Companies that harness AI to develop better threat detection systems and prevent future attacks will fare better in the battle against cybercriminals.

Of course, the other angle is threat intelligence. I would say that’s probably the largest use case for gen AI that you can search and hunt for threats but, of course, then about understanding your identity management, what kind of access different people have in your organization. That’s usually part of identity governance technologies so that you really are able to run reports and understand what level of access different people have. Do they have the right access? How do you maintain the right level of access when people change their SOC roles so that you don’t just accumulate the access of people within the organization? That’s one example, I think, where there are a lot of benefits of AI.”

“I would say that if you don’t have AI capabilities in your cybersecurity solutions, nobody will buy it from you in a couple of years’ time. I would say that it will be a mandatory capability almost in every cybersecurity solution there is. Whether it’s machine learning or whether it’s gen AI, that varies on the use cases, of course.”

– Cybersecurity Expert and Director at OpenText | Expert Call

Ethics and Regulation of AI

The outlook for AI ethics and regulation in 2025 is different in the US versus internationally. Domestically, with Trump’s return to office, AI regulation is expected to lessen. In late 2023, the Biden administration issued an executive order establishing safety, privacy, and ethical standards for AI. In his first week in office, President Trump rescinded this order, stating that it “hinders AI innovation.” While it’s too early to tell what sorts of AI policies we can expect from the Trump administration in the future, it appears they may favor innovation over restrictions. 

Meanwhile, Europe is expected to tighten regulatory oversight over AI this year. The European Union’s AI Act is expected to be one of the most influential frameworks, establishing clear rules for AI deployment in Europe. This act aims to protect users from AI-related risks, such as biased algorithms and data misuse. 

With increased scrutiny, companies will also face increased regulatory compliance costs, which may slow down the rapid deployment of AI tools, particularly in sectors like finance, healthcare, and autonomous systems. The emphasis on ethical AI is expected to drive innovation in tools like bias detection, algorithm transparency, and ethical oversight.

Overall, 2025 presents a host of new opportunities in the AI space to be balanced with the need to address ethical concerns and comply with evolving regulations, particularly abroad. 

Staying Ahead of New AI Developments With AlphaSense 

Whether you’re conducting research on how your competitors are implementing AI or searching for the next big investment in artificial intelligence, you need a tool that can help you sort through the noise and uncover opportunities. 

AlphaSense is a leading provider of market intelligence, including 10,000+ private, public, premium, and proprietary content sources from more than 1,500 leading research providers—all in a single platform. 

Our external content sources include trade journals, news, and SEC and global filings. AlphaSense users also have access to two premium and proprietary content offerings. 

These are:

• Wall Street Insights® – A collection of broker research from Wall Street’s leading firms, covering global sector themes, industries, and companies from 1,000+ sell-side and independent firms, available within the AlphaSense platform. Research professionals can even preview the contents of a broker report, saving them wasted time and money on potentially fruitless research.

• Expert Insights – 150,000+ transcripts of one-on-one calls with industry experts, competitors, customers, professionals, and former and current executives, with the ability to conduct your own 1:1 expert calls for less.

The AlphaSense platform also delivers unmatched AI search capabilities and features for analyzing qualitative and quantitative research, and can mine unstructured data for the most critical insights, including:

• Automated and customizable alerts for tracking regulatory filings, companies, industries, and potential investments
• Table export tools that support M&A workflows like target lists and due diligence
• Smart Synonyms™ technology that ensures you never miss a source important to your research
• Sentiment analysis, an NLP-based feature that parses through content and identifies nuances in the tone and subjective meaning of text
• Generative Search, our genAI-powered chatbot that instantly summarizes key insights from our content sets and delivers critical insights in seconds
• Smart Summaries, our generative AI feature that summarizes key insights from earnings calls for faster analysis