We were delighted to welcome so many friends old and new to our event, ‘Influencing 2025’, in our brand new offices.

Predicting where tech will take us next year proved a lively topic, but we started the evening gathering the collective wisdom of the brilliant minds in the room.

You heard it here first – Arsenal is going to challenge Man City to win the Premier League, Prince Harry won’t be making an appearance on the royal balcony any time soon, Kamala Harris will win the US presidential election, and Gary Oldman will be cast as Dumbledore in HBO’s new Harry Potter reboot.

From a social media perspective, the group overwhelmingly felt Threads doesn’t have a future, whilst X is – tentatively – here to stay.

Two speakers offered their take on the AI hype, and where it will take us in 2025.

Nigel Gwilliam, Director of Media Affairs at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, advised that what is normal now won’t be normal in the future – so marketing practitioners should ‘get their hands dirty and keep their minds open.'

Meanwhile Professor Deb Leary OBE, Scaleup Director at Innovate UK, was confident that the hype will die down and applying AI strategically rather than using it on a surface level for practical application is key.

Ultimately, the view was optimistic – Debs felt AI will upskill people and cut out some of the noise. Just as the Internet has become so woven into daily life it isn’t given a second thought, so too will AI. Nigel made reference to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s recent confirmation that “2025 is when agents will work” – that is, independent artificial intelligence models capable of making decisions and performing a range of tasks without human input.

Here at Leopard Co, whilst we’re excited by the possibilities AI presents and are consistently trialling new roll-outs, the notion that we’re close to agents seems a little far-fetched. Artificial general intelligence (AGI) entails replicating human rationale, which is a huge ask.

AI as it currently exists has been in development for far longer than people realise, and is able to carry out specific tasks well – but only when given clear instruction.

That being said, we’re hopeful 2025 is the year that sees businesses getting real value from AI – rather than just adding chat boxes, as Deb alluded to.

The ongoing post-truth narrative will drive the emphasis on urgent ethical and legislative conversations and – as with GDPR – the onus on business to ensure their AI efforts are above board will become a hot topic. Our PR Director Laura Rudolph recently gave a talk on communicating in the age of misinformation and offers six tips to help brands to battle this.

So how does all of this apply to us marketers? Optimizely recently found that whilst two-thirds of marketers (65%) in the UK use AI within their experimentation approach, they find a lack of resources, time and focus is also a barrier for 39% of respondents.

It’s safe to say AI won’t just become the new norm – it is already the new norm – and 2025 will see developments explode as tech giants plough hundreds of billions into stretching its mind-blowing capabilities.

With that in mind, we echo Nigel’s advice – embracing change and ongoingly trialling the increasing number of AI tools on offer will allow your business to adapt and grow with AI as it evolves.

To find out more about how Leopard Co could help your business, get in touch.