Gartner has announced its list of the top 10 strategic technology trends that businesses should explore in 2025.
“The year’s top strategic technology trends encompass Artificial Intelligence (AI) imperatives and risks, new frontiers of computing, and the synergy between humans and machines,” said Gene Alvarez, Vice President and Analyst at Gartner.
“Keeping up with these trends will help IT leaders shape the future of their companies with responsible and ethical innovation.”
The main strategic technology trends for 2025 are:
Agentic AI : Agentic AI (Artificial Intelligence Agency) systems plan and take actions autonomously to achieve goals defined by users. Agentic AI offers the promise of a virtual workforce that can alleviate and empower human labor. Gartner predicts that by 2028, at least 15% of daily work decisions will be made autonomously through Agentic AI, compared to 0% in 2024. The goal-oriented capabilities of this technology will deliver more adaptable software systems capable of performing a wide variety of tasks. Agentic AI has the potential to fulfill Chief Information Officers’ desire to increase productivity across the enterprise. This motivation is driving both companies and suppliers to explore, innovate, and establish the technology and practices needed to deliver that intelligence in a robust, secure and reliable way.
Artificial Intelligence Governance Platforms: AI governance platforms are part of Gartner’s evolving Artificial Intelligence Trust, Risk and Security Management (TRiSM) framework, which enables companies to manage the legal, ethical and operational performance of their AI systems. These technological solutions have the ability to create, manage and enforce policies for the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence, explain how AI systems work, and provide transparency to build trust and accountability. Gartner predicts that by 2028, companies that implement comprehensive AI governance platforms will experience 40% fewer AI-related ethical incidents compared to companies that don’t.
Security against Misinformation: Security against disinformation is an emerging category of technology that systematically discerns trust and aims to provide methodological systems to ensure integrity, assess authenticity, prevent forgeries and track the spread of harmful information. By 2028, Gartner predicts that 50% of companies will begin to adopt products, services, or features specifically designed to address misinformation security use cases, compared to less than 5% today. The widespread availability and advanced state of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools being used for harmful purposes are expected to increase the number of disinformation incidents targeting companies. If this is left unchecked, misinformation can cause significant and lasting damage to any company.
Post-Quantum Cryptography: Post-quantum cryptography offers data protection that is resistant to the decoding risks of quantum computing. As developments in quantum computing have advanced in recent years, it is expected that several types of widely used conventional cryptography will become obsolete. It’s not easy to exchange crypto methods, so businesses should prepare in advance for robust protection of anything sensitive or confidential. Gartner predicts that by 2029, advances in quantum computing will make most conventional asymmetric cryptographies insecure to use.
Environmental Invisible Intelligence: Invisible environmental intelligence is enabled by very low-cost, small-sized smart tags and sensors that provide large-scale tracking and sensing at affordable prices. In the long term, environmental invisible intelligence will allow for a deeper integration of sensing and intelligence into everyday life. By 2027, the first examples of the technology will focus on solving immediate problems, such as retail inventory verification or perishable goods logistics, by enabling low-cost real-time item tracking and detection to improve visibility and efficiency.
Energy-Efficient Computing: IT impacts sustainability in a variety of ways, and in 2024, the top consideration for most IT organizations is their carbon footprint. Computation-intensive applications such as Artificial Intelligence training, simulation, optimization, and media rendering are likely to be the biggest contributors to companies’ carbon footprint, as they consume the largest amount of energy. It is expected that from the end of the 2020s, several new computing technologies, such as optics, neuromorphic, and new accelerators, will emerge for specific tasks, such as AI and optimization, which will utilize significantly less energy.
Hybrid Computing: New computing paradigms continue to emerge, including central processing units, graphics processing units, edge, application-specific integrated circuits, neuromorphic, and classical and optical quantum computing paradigms. Hybrid computing combines different compute, storage, and networking mechanisms to solve computational problems. This computing format helps businesses explore and solve problems, allowing technologies such as Artificial Intelligence to push current technological boundaries. Hybrid computing will be used to create highly efficient transformative innovation environments that operate more effectively than conventional ones.
Spatial Computing: Spatial computing digitally enhances the physical world with technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality. This is the next level of interaction between physical and virtual experiences. The use of spatial computing will increase the effectiveness of businesses over the next five to seven years, through streamlined workflows and improved collaboration. Gartner predicts that by 2033, spatial computing will grow to US$1.7 trillion, compared to US$110 billion in 2023.
Multifunctional Robots: Multifunctional machines have the ability to perform more than one activity and are replacing robots for specific tasks, which are designed to repeatedly perform a single initiative. The functionality of these new robots improves efficiency and provides a faster return on investment (ROI). The multifunctional robots are designed to operate in a world with humans, which will allow for quick deployment and easy scalability. Gartner predicts that by 2030, 80% of humans will interact with intelligent robots on a daily basis, compared to less than 10% today.
Neurological Enhancement: Neurological enhancement improves human cognitive abilities by using technologies that read and decode brain activity. This technology reads a person’s brain using one-way brain-machine interfaces or two-way brain-machine interfaces (BBMIs). This has huge potential in three key areas: human enhancement, next-generation marketing and performance. Neurological enhancement will improve cognitive abilities, let brands know what consumers are thinking and feeling, and augment human neural capabilities to optimize outcomes. Gartner predicts that by 2030, 30% of knowledge workers will be upskilled and reliant on technologies such as BBMIs (funded by both employers and themselves) to stay relevant with the rise of Artificial Intelligence in the workplace, compared to less than 1% in 2024.
The top strategic technology trends of 2025 highlight those that will cause significant disruption and create opportunities for CIOs and other IT leaders over the next 10 years.
