Gartner’s 2025 Strategic Technology Trends Are Just Right

Every year Gartner releases its list of technology trends. This year the list looks like this (organized in three buckets):

Bucket #1: AI Imperatives & Risks

• Agentic AI
• AI Governance Platforms
• Disinformation Security

Bucket #2: New Frontiers of Computing

• Post-Quantum Cryptography
• Ambient Invisible Intelligence
• Energy-Efficient Computing
• Hybrid Computing

Bucket #3: Human Machine Synergy

• Spatial Computing
• Polyfunctional Robots
• Neurological Enhancement

Thematic Trends

What’s good about this list is the buckets or “themes” that Gartner likes to call them. It’s impossible not to group them together to explain larger trajectories of the technologies likely to impact all aspects of business. So organizing the trends as themes makes sense.

The AI theme is right – and my students would agree. In our classes on AI, Machine Learning and Generative AI and Emerging Business Technologies at the Villanova School of Business, we also track technology trends. We’ve moved from large language models to generative pre-trained transformers to custom GPTs to proprietary LLMs to Agentic AI pretty quickly noting how “easy” it is to create agents with tools like Autogen, LangChain and CrewAI, among others. There’s no question that agentic AI is a major and significant trend in 2025 and beyond.

AI governance is necessary, but not always so easily defined or enforced. Gartner is correct to list this technology trend. But as it notes, “AI guidelines vary across regions and industries, making it difficult to establish consistent practices.”

One of the major challenges of AI is its ability to create and disseminate disinformation. “Disinformation security” is not only an important trend, it’s also a necessity.

The second theme – new frontiers of computing – maps nearly perfectly onto our Emerging Business Technologies course. Post-quantum cryptography – “data protection that is resistant to quantum computing (QC) decryption risks” – anticipates progress in quantum computing which we believe is inevitable and yet will at times be risky.

Our reaction to ambient invisible intelligence trends is “it’s about time” we started talking about using technology to create natural, intuitive experiences.

Energy-efficient computing is a requirement that’s exploding. While blockchain was the wake-up call about energy requirements, AI is the tsunami. Gartner is right to highlight this requirement regardless of how it’s satisfied.

The hybrid computing trend is obvious.

The third theme – human machine synergy – is another one that’s almost overdue. The first trend is spatial computing which resurrects augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) to solve some of the problems we expected it to solve five years ago. The enabling technology is now ready to exploit AR/VR in areas that Gartner identifies, like “gaming, education and e-commerce … healthcare, retail and manufacturing.”

While Gartner identifies the cost and unwieldy nature of head-mounted displays, we believe that these displays will shrink considerably in the next few years. The recent release of smart glasses from vendors like Meta and Viture Pro XR Glasses suggests how this will evolve.

Gartner identifies “polyfunctional robots” as an important trend and we agree. The marriage between robotics and AI has just begun and will soon create children capable of performing multiple tasks.

Over the years the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has invested in brain computer interfaces. In fact, decades ago, DARPA funded some of the earliest research in biocybernetics. Companies like Neuralink have already demonstrated significant potential here. Gartner correctly puts neurological enhancement on the list of technology trends.

Thematic Opportunities

Gartner’s themes and trends map closely with the trends we see at the university. Our AI, Machine Learning and Generative AI and Emerging Business Technologies courses overlap with many of Gartner’s trends.

We should follow Gartner’s lead and organize them into baskets or themes. The figure below from our Emerging Business Technology course is organized around infrastructure (the inner circle) and applications technologies (the outer ring). The next course in AI, Machine Learning and Generative AI will focus heavily on agentic AI and the course on Emerging Business Technologies will focus heavily on sustainability, human machine synergy and robotics.

The Technology Trends Business

Gartner is not the only company that focuses on technology trends. Forrester, Deloitte, IBM, IDC, PWC and McKinsey all track and predict technology trends. The challenge of course is the volatility of these trends. The courses we teach at the university are, for example, redesigned every single semester. Five years ago generative AI was unrecognizable as an application platform. Today it’s redefining industries. Where will it be five years from now? I’d like to see Gartner list the trends – and the industries most affected – 10 years from now. Or at least five years from now. It’s much easier to do them year by year. Same for my courses. I’m not sure I could teach a course on Emerging Business Technologies that focuses on where the technologies will be in five years.

In addition to all this, trends forecasters should identify where the technologies will land across the vertical industries and the processes and sub-processes that define them. They should also probabilistically identify the processes and sub-processes that will be automated, improved or eliminated as AI, machine learning and generative AI evolve. This would enable strategists and tacticians to leverage technology in some competitive ways. One thing’s for sure. No one can ignore technology trends this year, next year or any year.