This is a submission for the 2025 New Year Writing challenge: Predicting 2025.
The world's best creators and engineers have always needed editors and collaborators. From Da Vinci to J.R.R. Tolkien to Steve Jobs and beyond, every historic creative mind has needed help. An assistant, if you will. My prediction for tech in 2025 is that humanity is going to be more important than ever with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Why? There's a few reasons.
AI thrives on human guidance
AI systems are brilliant at executing specific tasks and can operate autonomously, while human input improves their effectiveness and application. Large Language Models like ChatGPT, or code-focused platforms like Cursor can maintain context across conversations while being driven from clear user direction and prompts. AI is only as powerful as the clarity of its instructions and the depth of its data sources.
In 2025, the relationship between humans and AI will deepen as we design custom integrations into specific technical processes, automate project management, and predict bugs before they happen. We will teach machines to augment our strengths while compensating for our weaknesses.
This collaboration aligns with a broader truth: writing by hand, for instance, enhances memory retention because it engages the mind and body in ways typing doesn’t. Similarly, interacting with AI stimulates strategic thinking, task prioritization, and decision-making—skills that are uniquely human.
With great power comes great responsibility
To leverage the great power of AI, it will be crucial for new processes to be guided by expert technical knowledge, and anchored in ethical oversight. Well-engineered AI tools excel at specific, focused tasks, from summarizing dense texts to debugging complex code. However, achieving these outcomes requires humans to provide context-rich prompts and strategic oversight.
But Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is still years away. In the meantime, humanity’s ability to operate and innovate with AI will create a new wave of expertise: people fluent in "speaking AI."
More professionals will be fluent in AI in 2025
This year, we’ll see more resumes with machine learning expertise, cognitive computing development, and algorithmic programming on them. Detailed discussion and sharing how we use AI on a regular basis will replace the question, “What do you think of AI?” In the last few years, these technologies have seen an uptick in popularity. I predict that this year they will become the norm.
AI cannot replace true creativity
AI lacks the spark of imagination that defines human creativity. It can remix existing ideas, but it cannot dream in the way a person might while brainstorming solutions or crafting a story. Humans can draw inspiration from personal history, cultural context, and abstract thought. Machine intelligence, for all its efficiency, does not carry these lived experiences.
Major investments in custom AI in 2025
We have already seen some major investments in out-of-the-box AI tools in 2024. Generative AI usage jumped from 53% in 2023 to 75% in 2024 according to Microsoft’s IDC study, and that is just the beginning. The study also reported that within 24 months, businesses already using machine intelligence to drive their productivity will expand to create their own solutions. It’s not just about a free, quick AI tool anymore.
I predict that in 2025 we will see major financial, media, and retail organizations launch innovative, custom, interactive technologies to the public that are based on artificial intelligence.
The potential for AI in 2025 is limitless
AI has already transformed how we work. 2025 is the year we learn how to use these tools more effectively. Picture an intelligent system integrated into your workplace, spotting errors in data or automatically debugging broken code on a pull request. These advancements aren’t distant dreams. They’re the reality we’re shaping for 2025.
An explosion of AI related jobs in 2025
It’s easy to deduce that if there will be more organizations building custom AI solutions, and if there are more experts in the workforce, there will be an explosion of related jobs. From creators comfortable with AI generated content, to programmers writing neural networks, the spectrum of AI-related jobs will expand and grow rapidly this year.
Many jobs will become augmented and we’ll be working with these new tools. Mundane tasks will be taken over by custom automations and helpful agentic workflows. I predict that there will be a huge opportunity in the market for experts who are needed to work with AI tools as well as develop, and maintain these custom technologies we’ll see arrive in 2025.
AI's potential lies not in replacing human efforts but in amplifying them. By combining the precision of machines with the intuition of humans, we can address challenges more efficiently and creatively than ever before.
Wrap up: AI will achieve greatness with our help
In 2025, success in technology will depend not on AI alone but on the people who guide and refine it. The fast-fail methodology will thrive as teams experiment with new workflows, learning what works and iterating quickly. Those who embrace this partnership of balancing the creative and the computational will drive the next wave of innovation.
Ultimately, AI will not achieve greatness unless we do. By leaning into our strengths as people, embracing collaboration, and continuing to try new tools, we can stay in tune as the symbiosis of human intelligence and artificial capabilities defines the future of technology.
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