10 (Realistic) Predictions for 2025

AI, Purpose, and the Future of Work

I know; I know. Every January brings with it a flood of predictions. Everyone is trying to catch the hype wave by making bold, often repetitive, claims about what the year ahead will hold. Letting you into my internal dialogue, I almost didn’t create my version of one. I went back and forth more times than I can count. Predictions typically are a mix of guesswork, fear-mongering, and catering to the algorithm, and I didn’t want to add to the noise.

However, one of the things I enjoyed most over the holidays was talking with people from all walks of life—friends, colleagues, leaders, even complete strangers. For some reason, many were curious about my take on what they should expect in the coming year. Through those diverse conversations, I started to see patterns. Questions kept surfacing, not about flashy tech breakthroughs or distant futures, but about the challenges and opportunities ahead.

I also observed a consistent sense of fear when people first asked that consistently calmed as we talked things through. It ultimately was that change in people that led me to move forward. Now, I think you’ll find my predictions aren’t abstract ideas or far-off scenarios. They’re realities I firmly believe will shape our work, our lives, and how we find meaning in a world increasingly driven by change. I’ll admit, some of these trends excite me while others worry me deeply. Either way, all of them will demand our attention in 2025.

Now, if you want to go deeper, my podcast and video dive further into everything, but this piece is your chance to get my 100,000 ft reflection on the bigger picture.

With that, let’s get to it.

Top 10 (Realistic) Predictions

Emotional AI Will See Exponential Growth

Emotional AI will absolutely transform how we interact with the world in 2025. Virtual therapists, empathetic chatbots, and AI assistants will begin rapidly changing things like healthcare and customer service, making it more accessible and even more personal. It’s easy to see the appeal for everyone: fewer frustrating wait times and systems that seem to truly “understand” our needs with greater operational efficiency.

However, it’s not all sunshine and puppies. The risks are significant. Trust will be a major hurdle. If, or more likely when, people feel deceived or become overly reliant on AI, the damage could vastly outweigh the benefits. And, while these tools can complement human interactions, replacing humans entirely will lead us down the same rocky path we saw with trends like offshoring: promising short-term efficiency but creating long-term issues. Emotional AI holds incredible potential, but only if used wisely.

Deepfakes Will Blur Reality

Deepfake technology is rocketing forward, and it’s not inherently nefarious. It’s opening up incredible possibilities. By the end of 2025, we could see content creation completely transformed with high-quality videos, voices, and digital assets produced faster and cheaper than ever before. With predictions that 90% of content will be AI-generated, it’s easy to see that everyone is banking on these tools streamlining everything from entertainment to education.

However, as always, with convenience comes risk. As deepfakes become completely indistinguishable from reality, trust will be the first casualty. Misinformation, fabricated reputation attacks, and manipulated media will erode our ability to believe what we see and hear. While the tools to detect deepfakes may improve, they’ll always lag behind the tech. With time, we’ll adjust, but for 2025, our best defense is slowing down, questioning sources, and choosing to think critically before we react or share.

The Mental Health Crisis Will Escalate

Even though I consider myself an optimist, I recognize not every trend comes with a silver lining, and the impending mental health crisis is one of them. I fully anticipate that in 2025, burnout, anxiety, and depression will rise at a frightening rate as the relentless pace of work and life pushes people far beyond their limits. The constant demand for innovation and efficiency, paired with a “do more with less” mentality, is taking its toll. Gallup reports that 75% of tech workers already feel burned out, and this problem isn’t confined to one industry. It’s literally everywhere.

What makes this even harder is how much more disconnected we’ve become despite all the technology. AI-driven interactions and online echo chambers are replacing the real, meaningful relationships that ground us. Instead of wrestling through the complex but meaningful support that comes from a diverse community, many people are feeling isolated and overwhelmed. Honestly, there’s no quick fix here. We need a wake-up call to prioritize relationships and well-being because ignoring it won’t make the problem go away. And, I anticipate it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

AI Adoption Will Accelerate, AND Advancement Will Continue

Coming into the end of 2024, I’ll admit that I didn’t expect this one as I ended up writing it. Heading into the 4th quarter of 2024, I thought we were starting to hit some serious bottlenecks with AI advancement. The past few years have had massive breakthroughs, and it seemed like we’d reached a point where the technology needed time to catch up with its own potential. I really thought this year would mainly be about scaling adoption rather than new discoveries.

Well, it turns out the ceiling isn’t here yet. End-of-year advancements in quantum computing, energy production, and next-generation hardware mean AI will continue advancing at a breathtaking pace. At the same time, let’s not forget it won’t be just about what’s possible in research labs. I predict adoption will happen faster than ever across industries. Companies won’t just be testing AI; they’re fully embedding it into the fabric of their operations. It’s going to be a crazy year of breaking boundaries, both in how AI advances and in how widely it’s used.

Job Displacement Will Expand Into New Fields

In 2024 we began seeing companies publically acknowledging they were downsizing employees as a result of AI. It wasn’t just automation creeping into fields like software engineering. It was companies preemptively laying off workers, bracing for what AI might bring. I predict in 2025 this trend will rapidly accelerate as we see job displacement hitting industries many thought were immune. Complex fields like engineering, design, and even professional services will feel the pressure as companies figure out how to adapt to rapid advancements in AI.

Now, you might think this is another dismal prediction. However, it doesn’t have to mean elimination. The real variable for 2025 is whether organizations will choose to simply cut jobs or use this moment to transform them. While many of the decision will come this year, it is a choice. There’s opportunity to reimagine roles and create more meaningful work. The decisions companies make this year will set the tone—either moving toward a future of excitement and collaboration or one marked by fear and reactive cuts.

Employability Will Be Redefined

This prediction builds off the last but with a bit of a twist. Regardless of whether companies choose to lay people off or reimagine roles, 2025 will be the year when organizations can no longer kick the can of retooling jobs and skills down the road. It’s gone on too long, and those who have waited will finally have to face the music. The rapid evolution of AI and automation will force companies to face a hard truth: the old systems of employability simply aren’t enough anymore.

Companies will have to shift their focus to what people can do and how quickly they can adapt. This creates a pivotal moment for the workforce. Companies will need to take responsibility for reskilling and upskilling their people, while employees must embrace continuous learning if they want any hope of staying relevant. The safety net of conventional qualifications is disappearing, but for those willing to evolve, 2025 could open doors to new opportunities and a redefined sense of value in the workplace.

The Remote vs. In-Office Debate Will Intensify

While it may feel like a bit of a dead horse, I anticipate the battle over where work gets done will continue to heat up in 2025. We saw more fuel poured on the fire leading right up to the end of the year. I also have a subtle prediction this debate will intensify, not because proximity is truly the secret to success, but because for some companies, it’s a smoke-and-mirror exercise. Insisting on office attendance can be an easy way to avoid admitting that layoffs or restructuring are really driven by AI and automation. You also save yourself a pretty penny when you influence people to quit rather than show them the door.

However, it’s not all smoke and mirrors. There are many leaders who genuinely believe proximity is the secret path to collaboration and culture. As they continue clinging to these assumptions, the divide between companies embracing flexibility and those demanding a return to the office will only grow wider. The question I’m interested to see answered in 2025 is which organizations will double down on outdated ideas or face the hard truth: trust and adaptability matter more than location.

Cybersecurity Will Grow More Complex and Personal

The cybersecurity arms race will rapidly accelerate in 2025, with both attackers and defenders leveraging AI to outsmart each other. The sophistication of attacks—phishing scams, deepfake-generated fraud, and AI-driven hacking—will grow at an alarming rate, creating an endless escalation of complexity. Quantum computing may even bring challenges to our current encryption infrastructure. But ironically, as the digital battle intensifies, in 2025 we might see the solutions become simpler, and in some cases, even analog.

I can’t help but wonder if the future of security will start to transition to low-tech methods like physical tokens, handwritten codes, or face-to-face verification. People and organizations are already overwhelmed by the complexity of modern security systems, and asking them to keep up with even more advanced measures isn’t realistic. As any of my cybersecurity friends will also tell you, the easiest thing to hack is a person. I predict the companies that succeed in 2025 will be the ones that strip away all unnecessary complexity and focus on accessibility, usability, and trust.

Public Awareness of Data Monetization Will Skyrocket

In 2025, people will continue waking up to how valuable their personal data is. They may also start realizing how often they’ve been giving it away without a second thought. Last year, I posted about a viral trend where a company offered users a trendy AI-generated image in exchange for full access to their LinkedIn data and the rights to use it however they wanted, forever. That kind of trade-off is becoming increasingly common, and people are starting to wake up to the imbalance. Why should companies profit off their data without offering meaningful value in return?

But awareness alone won’t solve the problem. As people push back, I’m confident we’ll see a rise in scams and unethical practices. Worse, some companies will position themselves as “fair” only to mask exploitative terms behind fine print and legal loopholes, so watch your back. The companies that stand out in 2025 will be the ones that genuinely embrace fair, value-driven exchanges for personal data. Building trust will no longer be optional; it will be a competitive advantage.

The Search for Purpose Will Take Center Stage

Now, I recognize this is a longer prediction at the end of a longer-than-usual post, but it’s the capstone prediction, the thread that I believe ties all the others together. In 2025, the search for purpose will emerge as the defining challenge of our time. With the rapid pace of change and the overwhelming uncertainty it brings, people are recognizing all this productivity, innovation, and even success is incapable of filling the deeper void. Burnout is everywhere, hopelessness is growing, and the impossible expectation to keep up is leaving many asking: What’s the point of it all? The number of conversations I have that go something along the lines of the book of Ecclesiastes is astonishing.

This prediction isn’t just an individual one—it’s a full-on societal reckoning. People are yearning for something real. Some will turn to community, creativity, or deeper relationships. Others will look to technology for answers, drawn to AI-driven “solutions” that make empty promises of clarity, connection, and even diety. But here’s the truth: real purpose doesn’t come from more crap, greater convenience, or advanced algorithms. It’s found in the messiness of life, in the things that require effort, vulnerability, and faith.

I’m not shy about my faith in Christ, so this is a prediction that feels strangely foreign to me. And yet, it’s not at all unfamiliar. Regardless of what your faith is in, I think many would agree we’re here for more than efficiency or ease—we’ve been built for connection, meaning, and a hope that transcends the chaos. So, whether you share with me where you put your hope, the message is the same: in 2025, the choice will be clear. Will we chase quick fixes, or will we lean into the harder, more rewarding path of finding purpose in what truly matters?

Concluding Thoughts

Alright. There you have it. Those are my most realistic and generally applicable predictions for 2025. Will they all come to fruition? Maybe; maybe not. I’ll be checking in throughout the year to confirm or adjust. However, that was only part of the purpose behind all this. More importantly, I wanted to provide a framework to think about where we’re likely headed, what’s at stake, and the decisions we’ll need to consider along the way. What did you think? I’d love to hear your perspective. Which one resonates the most with you? Are there any you disagree with, or would you add anything to the list? Let me know in the comments since this is a conversation worth having.

With that, as we step into 2025, my biggest hope is that whatever trends may come to fruition we don’t let them shape us. Instead, I hope and will continue encouraging us all to be intentional about taking the opportunity to shape them. That shaping will require us to be thoughtful about how we integrate technology, intentional about how we connect with others, and courageous enough to confront the bigger questions about what really matters.

I already know it’s not going to be easy. However, what meaningful things ever are? Purpose, connection, and progress should never be things we idly stumble into. They need to be things we choose, one thoughtful decision at a time. So let’s make our decisions count this year, for ourselves, for each other, and for the world we’re leaving to future generations.