Since 2022, artificial intelligence has dominated conversations in tech-forward circles, often to the detriment of other technologies. This puts early-stage companies that cannot convincingly link themselves to AI at a competitive disadvantage, not only in competition for customers but in the even more crucial race for investor capital.
Let’s be clear: The AI boom is very real, and few would take the bet that AI is underhyped in the long run. However, it’s not the only tech trend seasoned tech-industry observers like European VC firm Target Global are watching closely in 2025.
“We may look back on 2025 as the year that the business case came together for consumer and business AI applications,” says Target Global co-founder Yaron Valler. “However, the technology industry is bigger than the AI segment, and there’s a great deal of excitement elsewhere as well.”
Valler and other tech experts will be closely watching these five trends in the months to come.
1. The First “Real” Signs of Thoughtful AI?
We can’t be sure yet, but in hindsight, we may come to the conclusion that the AI industry is caught in a trough between the initial hype cycle of the early 2020s and the first real wave of “productive” applications.
2025 may be the year that these applications make their presence felt through real, sustainable productivity gains. More exciting still, near-future applications could be built on models that exhibit limited but unmistakable reasoning capability. That would be a crucial signpost on the road to artificial general intelligence, no doubt spurring a fresh wave of investment and innovation.
2. Renewed Growth in Consumer Apps
Consumers are expected to download nearly 3 trillion apps between 2021 and 2030, according to SensorTower. That’s a mind-boggling figure — nearly 50 for every person on the planet — and it speaks to the tremendous resilience of the software economy.
The AI boom is almost certain to spur new consumer-app functions and create entire segments, with the real possibility that forecasts like SensorTower’s appear conservative by the back end of the decade. But for now, it’s full steam ahead in 2025.
3. Continued Innovation in the Fintech Space
Fintech is emerging as an important driver of the consumer app segment. Boston Consulting Group expects total fintech sector revenue to reach $1.5 trillion in 2030, a shocking scale for an industry that barely existed 20 years ago.
Here, too, AI is likely to play an increasingly important role in the development, deployment, and expansion of fintech solutions. We may be approaching an inflection point where AI, in concert with sensible regulatory reforms in key markets, facilitates a “fintechization” of traditional banking.
4. A Reawakening of the Metaverse Play
In a recent interview, CCI Insight principal analyst and director Leo Gebbie described the metaverse craze of a few years ago as one of many “false dawns” to hit the virtual reality industry since the 1990s.
“There was a bit of a sense in 2020 and into 2021 that this was a technology that was ready, that it was finally going to hit the big time,” said Gebbie.
But the state of the art is advancing quicker than anticipated at the outset of the current “metaverse winter,” and as in the AI space, value-creating consumer and business applications could be surprisingly close at hand. Look for renewed investment in 2025 and 2026.
5. All Crypto, All the Time
We can’t talk about the tech industry in 2025 without spending a moment on crypto. This feast-or-famine segment is currently in “feast” mode, with Bitcoin at all-time highs, long-overdue respect from major financial institutions, and the prospect of a lighter-touch regulatory regime in the all-important U.S. market. How far things go, no one knows, but 2025 won’t be the year the momentum abates.
A Fresh Start in the New Year?
The turning of the calendar is a bittersweet experience for most of us. There’s so much to be grateful for, of course, but time marches on.
So too does the technology sector. And in 2025, venture capital firms like Target Global expect to be busier than they’ve been in years. From an increasingly dynamic AI environment that’s closer than ever to turning a profit to a crypto boom that could reinvigorate the fintech space, it’s an exciting time indeed.
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