How AI Will Change Personal Tech in 2025
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In today's Enterprise, how are CIOs creating more impact in the C-suite and with the board? What does it mean to be a blended executive? Learn more on the fourth episode of Tech Fluential, a podcast from Deloitte and custom content from WSJ. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Monday, December 30th. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal. We're hearing from our reporters and columnists about some of the biggest companies, trends, and people in tech, and what could be in store for 2025.

2024 was the year that artificial intelligence became entwined with all sorts of personal tech beyond chatbots. From smartphones to apps, tech companies are integrating AI into everyday tools in new ways, and the trend is going to continue into 2025. How will AI change everything from weather apps to fitness tools? And what happens when this tech falls into the hands of scammers? Our personal tech columnist Nicole Nguyen joins us to discuss.

Nicole, one thing you've been looking at lately is weather apps and specifically why they're not always accurate. But is that something that could change next year? Yes, definitely. Google's DeepMind Artificial Intelligence Lab just announced

GenCast, which is an AI weatherman, essentially. It's a machine learning model that uses similar technology to the generative AI that makes images, video, music, etc., but applies it to weather forecasting. So a typical 10-day forecast is only accurate about half the time, according to NOAA, which is the big weather governmental agency here in the U.S.,

Google's machine learning based weather model, GenCast, produce forecasts up to 15 days in advance that were at 97% better than one of these traditionally used models. And NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. How does GenCast provide more accurate forecasts? Like how far out can it predict the weather and how does it compare to current forecasting models?

So GenCast can predict up to 15 days in advance, and that's a leap beyond current predictions. There are current predictions that go out 15 days, two weeks essentially, but they're not nearly as accurate as GenCast. And that's because it's been fed recent historical data from the European model. There are basically two main weather models that weather apps look at. One is a European model, one is a US model.

And so GenCast was fed data from this medium range European model, and it also takes current observations. But the key to GenCast is that it runs on a Google Cloud TPU. And for those of you who don't know what a Google Cloud TPU is, it's a special AI computer chip.

that can crunch numbers really fast. How fast? These supercomputers, the ones that crunch the European model and the US model, take hours to complete a forecast. GenCast can make that prediction in about eight minutes. Wow, that's dramatically different. Is this something that members of the public will be able to use themselves?

DeepMind has released GenCast code. It is open source, which means anyone can take a look at it and use it. Though in 2025, next year, the public will see real-time forecasts from GenCast. Google plans on publishing that in the first few weeks of 2025.

All right. And aside from Google, who else is making new forecasting models? So every year, NOAA makes a prediction on how many hurricanes we will experience that season. And that allows the regions affected by hurricanes to prepare. This year, because of advancements in modeling and data,

Coming up, AI advancements might also be making life easier for scammers.

We'll discuss some ways to stay safe after the break. ADP imagines a world of work where smart machines become too smart. Copier, I need 15 copies of this. Printing. By the way, irregardless, not a word, Janet. Yeah, I know.

Page six should be regardless of or irrespective of. Just print them, please. If it were a word, Janet, it would mean without irregard, which is... Copier! Switch to silent mode. Let's put a pin in it. Anything can change the world of work. From HR to payroll, ADP helps businesses take on the next anything. Nicole, I think a lot of us are getting spam calls and texts nearly every single day. Tell me this is something that's going to get better in 2025.

Things are going to get worse before they get better, probably. I'm sorry to say. Generative AI has changed a lot of things in this world. And now fraudsters are using deepfake technology to recreate your boss's voice or their likeness on video. This actually happened this past year. One finance worker in Hong Kong paid out $25 million to fraudsters who use this kind of deepfake technology.

technology in what that employee thought was an internal company call. So that's a rare case. But on an everyday level, a lot of these criminals are using generative AI just to fix their language. So there are no more linguistics mistakes. And you can also ask these chatbots to spin up a legitimate looking website. What you think is your company payroll vendor is actually just sending money right to the fraudsters themselves. Oh, that's terrifying.

Are there any particular AI-powered scams that people should be especially on the lookout for? Enterprise corporate victims are going to be targeted, are targeted, and will be targeted even more in 2025 because that's where the big payout is. And especially dangerous are links to these legitimate-looking websites. So you'll get an email from someone posing as a colleague, or maybe you'll get a text from them, what you think is them, or a LinkedIn message from

And they'll say something like, oh, we forgot to pay this vendor. Can you submit that payment via this link? And you click on that link and it looks exactly like it should. And it's coming from someone up the chain who typically approves these kinds of things.

And so next year, we'll have to be even more vigilant and more skeptical of the type of messages we receive. Are there any ways that people can protect themselves from scammers like this? Folks are going to need a safe word with their boss. Is this really you? Yes. Maybe asking identifying questions if someone's sending you a message or contacting that employee, that manager directly via phone is one way to combat this.

But I always tell folks, strengthen all of your passwords, especially your most sensitive ones. So your bank account, your corporate account, your email account. If you don't have a password manager yet, it is a great time to get started with one. Gotcha. And people might be starting to think about New Year's resolutions and getting healthy.

Is there new tech coming out in the next year that could help people with those goals? The latest buzzword in the health tech world is healthspan, also known as biological age. So you're probably familiar with your lifespan, which is how long you will live. Your healthspan refers to how long you will remain healthy, free of diseases.

And one measure of this is your biological age. So you may be 60, but you have a healthy diet and a regular workout regimen. So actually, your biological age is closer to maybe a 45 year old. That's a best case scenario for anyone who's 60.

And more and more technology is measuring this age. Wearables such as Aura and Fitbit have a cardiovascular age estimate that's based on heart rate metrics, but there are lots of other fun tools too. Novo Labs has an AI face age test where you upload your selfie. This app called Death Clock works.

Next year, we'll have this tool that will show you what you will look like at 70 with good habits and with bad habits. You'll get two photos, two different scenarios.

So what are some trends that we might see from the longevity business in the year ahead? The longevity business is booming and there are many facets of it. Another trend is continuous glucose monitoring for those who do not have diabetes. That's that it may look like a sticker like stuck on your skin and it's continuing to measure your blood sugar levels. The longevity community has adopted this trend.

for those who do not have diabetes to identify elevated blood sugar. And that's because blood sugar spikes are linked to chronic issues like inflammation and vascular damage. And so there are a lot of new tools now that help you measure your blood sugar so that you can manage and regulate it. One is an app called January AI, which is going to be showcased at this year's CES and is an innovation honoree. And that lets you take photos of what you're eating and uses January

generative AI to predict what your blood sugar will be based on what you are eating. And there's also a needle-based sensor called Stello, which is from a company called Dexcom. And they just released a new platform powered by Google Gemini that gives you insights on how your blood sugar level is

connected to your sleep, your eating habits, and other aspects of your lifestyle. That was our personal tech columnist, Nicole Nguyen. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer, Catherine Millsap. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening.

AI could be the most transformative technology since the advent of the internet itself. So how can we start putting it to work? Find out in the latest episode of AI That Means Business, a new podcast from Google and custom content from WSJ.