Nufar Gaspar predicts that nearly every company will showcase agent-driven features or claim to have an AI agent at work by 2025 due to the increased feasibility and notable releases from major companies like Microsoft, Salesforce, and Google. These companies have already made significant announcements and releases, indicating a trend where AI agents will power operations behind the scenes across hyperscalers, SaaS, and vertical industries.
Vertical agents are specialized for specific use cases or functions within an organization, such as customer support or coding, and are deeply tied to business context. Horizontal agents, on the other hand, offer the ability to build agents for diverse use cases without specialization, like platforms from Microsoft or OpenAI. Nufar believes vertical agents will yield higher ROI in 2025 due to their practicality and specialization.
Nufar Gaspar predicts that AI agents will become ubiquitous in the workplace by 2025, acting as co-workers, personal assistants, and support functions. They will handle tasks like email management, HR inquiries, and IT support, often operating autonomously in the background. This widespread adoption will be driven by companies piloting agents across various workflows, embedding them deeply into daily operations.
Nufar Gaspar predicts that the number of active AI agents will surpass the global human population by 2025 due to the ease of creating agents and their widespread use in consumer and work life. Every company will deploy bots for customer support, and most online interactions will be agentic. This proliferation will lead to a future where humans are surrounded by more virtual workers than actual people.
Nufar Gaspar predicts that AI agents will become more cost-effective, faster, and more precise by 2025 due to optimized hardware, smarter algorithms, and additional capabilities that allow agents to learn on their own. The ecosystem will mature, and companies will introduce modular solutions, making powerful agents more accessible, efficient, and reliable for organizations.
Nufar Gaspar predicts a shift from co-pilot to agent paradigms by 2025, where early adopters will move from building custom GPTs to creating agents with greater autonomy and execution capabilities. Agents will handle open-ended tasks and automate processes, offering more business value than co-pilots, which primarily assist with strategy and drafting.
Nufar Gaspar believes that the most successful agents in 2025 will still require human oversight and pre-planning to ensure they act within predefined boundaries. Companies will implement rules, guardrails, and fail-safe protocols to prevent unintended consequences, especially in high-stakes industries like finance, healthcare, and legal. This control will be essential to maintain trust and reliability in agent operations.
Nufar Gaspar predicts that there will be increased focus on ethical considerations and responsible development of AI agents by 2025. Agents will need to be fair, privacy-aware, security-aware, and explainable to avoid biases and ensure transparency. This will require additional governance and policies to address the challenges posed by autonomous agents in various organizational functions.
Nufar Gaspar predicts that the dark side of AI agents will grow by 2025, with bad actors exploiting them for fraud, cybercrime, and military purposes. Agents could be used for phishing attacks, social engineering, and autonomous weapons, posing significant challenges for detection and security. This will require vigilance and countermeasures to mitigate the risks associated with malicious use of AI agents.
Agents are the most important trend in AI heading into the new year. NLW is joined by Nufar Gaspar to count down 25 predictions for AI agents in 2025.
Nufar Gaspar is a seasoned AI expert and leader with vast experience in incubating and growing AI products, verticals and communities. She is the Director of AI Everywhere and Gen AI for Intel Design, and consults and trains organizations and teams on the usage of AI and building AI products and companies.
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