Predictions for 2025, and beyond!

Google Context Max*, AI Agents, Humanoid Robots and the first AI Content Scandal?

Hello and welcome to the first AI: Actionable Insights of 2025.

In a slight change to our usual programming, we’re kick starting 2025 with some predictions for AI - usually we'll only talk about things that are available right now that you can take action on but it's something I've been asked a lot about at recent workshops so grab a brew and let's go!

First, I want to start by saying: we're living in the future.

2025 is a space-age futuristic sounding date for anyone like me who remembers the year 2000 and a time before the internet as we know it now.

• Drones are everywhere, in swarms making incredible displays and also fighting wars.
• Self-driving cars are in many major cities in the US and already safer than human drivers per mile. (Confirmation bias and press attention might tell you otherwise, but the actual numbers are very clear).
• Humanoid robots are getting incredibly good, significantly cheaper and are starting to become more autonomous by the day.
• The "interconnectedness of all things"*2 is here, from Starlink satellites right down to embedded devices and the Internet of Things.

*2 bonus Douglas Adams reference.

A quick recap on the world of AI right now.

We saw so many releases in December it was dizzying! Most notable was the new reasoning model ChatGPT o3 which scored higher on benchmarks of intelligence, reasoning and understanding than anything before.

Read more on those in last month's newsletter here: 12 days of openAI...

Advanced Voice inches ever nearer to feeling like you’re talking to a real person, as does real time live video understanding – AI chatbots can see and understand the world around them in increasingly more useful ways.

And read more about Advanced Voice here: Look who's talking now...

That leads me to the first prediction:

#1 AI Agents* with Computer Use will be the killer app of 2025

Without a doubt we’ll see more things called agents coming out in 2025. I think this has been well covered by many places, and in announcements over the last few months.

*One description of an AI Agent is that you can give it a project, not just a specific task.

Also described by Paul Tansey in response to my LinkedIn post about what people expect to see in 2025: “I see the rise of AI agents in 2025. We'll see AI agents being given objectives and carrying out multiple tasks in multiple applications to achieve those objectives. “

I’d add one thing to this Agent prediction: the really transformational use case for many will come from Computer Use – that is the AI chatbot or Agent being able to see your screen or browser and take (or guide) actions on your behalf. ?

One of the challenges a lot of folks I speak to about using AI automation is that even “no code” sites still require specialist knowledge to setup and use effectively.

Connecting systems together often needs you to follow guides to find settings and variables deep in those systems or understanding how to format things like JSON.

Here's a taste of what's coming with Project Mariner from Google:

When you can just talk to your chatbot and it can take actions on your behalf, using its knowledge to complete that project we’ll see applied use-cases available to a wider group of people.

To do the task in the video with current automation tools would require a moderately complex setup, and you setting up each action in that process - for a one-time task that's not effective - for an AI Agent, that's not a factor.

#2 Google launches Context Max Ad Campaigns*

*Actual name may vary – please note this is entirely a Luke made up name.

As we see increased use of AI in search, tools like Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, SearchGPT etc we know people will use longer and more specific search queries (or prompts) to find what they’re looking for. The AI tool will then do the research for them.

As discussed in: Search is dead*, long live AI search!

Add to that, when AI Agents start being used to find products or services in a more complex multi-step way there’s a challenge for both the marketer, and folks like Google:

How do you market something, or sell paid Ads, when the target buyer isn’t a human?

“Find me a SaaS tool to perform XYZ function – I want to know a price for 5 users and 5000 actions a month”

How do you market or advertise for that prompt?

1) Technical specs and costs will need to be easily readable on-page – things like data sheets being hidden in a download or hiding prices behind a form submission and follow-up call may well put you at a disadvantage in this world.

There’s going to be a trade-off between the reasons you have for doing that today (lead generation, hiding prices from competition) vs the immediate availability of that information to these AI intermediaries.

2) AI Search tools will offer things like sponsored follow-on questions – like we're starting to see from Perplexity. Thinking in this way will need to be in the tool kit of anyone working in paid search soon.

3) Context Max* - I’m also sure we’ll see something from Google that matches longer search queries, via AI overview search results or their deepsearch tool. Likely where you build up a matrix of attributes for queries alongside a set of ad assets that are served back, via the AI to the user dependent on the context.

This would seem to me to be a logical AI query extension to Performance Max. You put a load of info in, alongside a set of ads and assets (video, text, product), and set the overall goal at the campaign level.

#3 The beginnings of useful humanoid robots hitting the mass market.

I don't know who'll the first big player will be to market - possibly the Unitree G1 which is going into mass production already and aiming at the $16k price point...

Maybe it’ll be the Figure 02 that BMW are starting to use...

Perhaps Tesla plugging in the things they've learned about autonomy in the real world via cars, turbo charges development of their Optimus robot...

Or perhaps it’ll be 1X and their Neo home robot which started trials in 2024?

In the same way Tesla and others have taught cars to be increasingly autonomous, via reducing supervised drives over time we’ll see the first instances of these robots being a mix of autonomous and tele-operated in the real world.

Bonus mini-prediction that a journalist somewhere will claim an exclusive “AI Robots are actually remote workers based in [country]!!!”. Although that should be obvious, I suspect it’ll be understated by the manufacturers.

And finally….

#4 The first notable AI content scandal.

As the quality of AI generated images and video continues to improve, and people are less able to distinguish these from the real thing I think it’s likely we’ll see the first big legal case in the coming year.

This could be in the form of a celebrity suing a news organization for publishing fake content or a corporate scandal based on a deep fake.

Imagine a modern Gerald Ratner scenario, except the video isn’t real!

We’re already seeing some scams using AI generated product images, where the actual product in no way reflects the AI image it was marketed with – exhibit A:

I’m sure existing legislation will catch up with these folks soon, but these are still very much for sale and being promoted across social media!

There's plenty to think about in the year ahead as these things unfold and I hope you can join me at a workshop or webinar to talk through these in more detail.

Upcoming workshops and webinars:

Campfire Workshop Jan 2025 - Dorset Chamber (paid workshop) - Jan 23rd 0900-1230 - Learn about a simple AI adoption framework, how to develop a roadmap for piloting and using AI in your business and see real world use-cases and examples.

(Next one is 27th Feb)

AI Trends for 2025 (free webinar) - Jan 16th 1000-1130 (Webinar) - Looking at the current rate of change, new tools and capabilities coming to market, and what to expect as a business from AI in 2025.

A chance to discuss the topics covered today - and apply them to your business planning.

If you have any feedback or topics that you’d like us to cover, please do let me know!

For more tailored help with anything we've talked about in this and past newsletters, please do get in touch.

Wishing you a happy, healthy and wealthy 2025.

Cheers,

Luke