Future of AI: Insights from CES 2025

At CES 2025, I had the opportunity to share my vision for the future of AI during a fireside chat with Dora Cortinas, data, analytics and AI leader at Keurig Dr Pepper. This year’s event showcased remarkable advancements, but what excites me most is the direction AI is headed in the years to come. From agentic AI to the rise of AI-native workplaces and beyond, here are the key themes discussed:

Agentic AI: We’re moving into an era of agentic AI, where systems act autonomously, not just responding to commands but proactively achieving goals. This shift means AI agents will take on roles like monitoring, decision-making, and optimization across industries, fundamentally changing how we work and interact with technology.

Specialized Agents: We’ll see a variety of AI agents tailored to specific functions, including operator, voice, browser, and workflow agents, each designed to optimize distinct areas of our lives and businesses.

Agentic Ecosystems: Since 2017 (3:41 highlights my prediction), I’ve been discussing the rise of AI agent-to-agent interaction, a concept I referred to at the time as the Proxy Web. Fast forward to 2025, and this vision is on the cusp of becoming reality through agentic ecosystems or AI mesh systems. These advanced networks of intelligent agents can seamlessly represent user preferences across every aspect of life and commerce, interacting autonomously across platforms to create a truly interconnected and personalized experience.

AI-Native Workplaces: The workplaces of tomorrow will be designed with AI at their core. These AI-native environments will seamlessly integrate AI agents into daily workflows, augmenting human capabilities, streamlining processes, and enabling new levels of productivity and creativity. This isn’t just about tools; it’s about redefining how organizations operate with human and AI collaboration at the center.

The Path to Causal AI: While current AI systems excel at pattern recognition and prediction, the future lies in causal AI, where machines understand and act on cause-and-effect relationships. This leap will unlock deeper insights and more reliable decision-making more in-line with the real world, driving innovation in fields like healthcare, finance, and logistics. I gave an example during the session about an umbrella and rain to further demonstrate the differences. (Timestamp 1:11 for the video above).

Beyond the trends I shared at CES 2025, other areas I am tracking bridge the digital with the physical. The intersection of AI and humanoid robotics will be another key inflection point that will change how we live and work.

Humanoid Robotics: Humanoid robots will continue to advance quickly over the next twelve to twenty-four months. I am constantly tracking the latest from Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Figure AI, 1X and others. From household assistants capable of cooking, cleaning, and caregiving to industrial robots that can collaborate with human workers in dynamic environments, the integration of AI into robotics is revolutionizing how we will interact with machines.

Generalist Models for Physical Robotics: Foundational AI models like π0 (pi-zero) are set to bring artificial intelligence into the physical world, enabling humanoid robots to tackle a wide range of tasks with generalist capabilities. While most robots today are narrow specialists, generalist robot policies will empower them to navigate complex, real-world challenges. This development shows a significant step toward a personal dream I have held since first experiencing the original Star Wars in the 1970s with C-3PO.

Infinite Memory: Soon, AI systems will feature infinite memory, essentially, any interaction you have had with AI will be available to recall and respond. Today, models keep conversations distinct from one another. This ability will revolutionize how AI understands and interacts with the world, creating deeper, more personalized experiences and opens the door for AI to be a lifelong enabler as it's memory could be infinite to recall, remind, and recommend.

AI is evolving at an unprecedented pace. The convergence of agentic AI, causal reasoning, and humanoid robots will redefine what’s possible. The future of AI is about creating systems that not only learn and adapt but also predict and act on our behalf both in digital and physical realities.