The AI revolution accelerates, the quantum explosion looms
The promised potential of AI and quantum technologies has been touted for decades, but the actualization of those promises has never been closer than it is now.
The transformative capabilities of these exponential technologies are becoming more real each day – early understanding and adoption of these technologies is key for mature IT organizations forging future strategies.
In this year’s Tech Trends report, we examine three trends in simulated futures with new possibilities and three trends in knowledge assurance that must be considered to mitigate risks.
Big risks. Bigger opportunities. Six tech trends to watch in 2025.
Exponential AI: AI will accelerate into more aspects of the organization's operations.
Trend #1
Expert Models: Create advantage with specialized AI training
Trend #2
AI Sovereignty: Maintain control while harnessing AI
Pre-Quantum Foundations: Quantum computing promises great opportunities but brings a clear new threat.
Trend #3
Quantum Advantage: From quantum utility in the cloud to true advantage
Trend #4
Post-Quantum Cryptography: Migrate to quantum-resistant encryption
Digital Humans: Digital simulations will mimic humans in text, audio, and visual channels.
Trend #5
AI Avatars: Simulate human interaction across channels
Trend #6
Deepfake Defense: Counter AI-powered attacks
INTRODUCTION
The summer blockbuster and Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer details the classified Manhattan Project and efforts led by J. Robert Oppenheimer to develop the first atomic bomb in a race to win World War II. What it doesn't detail are the efforts of scientists John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam as they created a new statistical method necessary for the safety of the scientists during the tests conducted in the desert – a memorable scene in the movie.
The scientists needed to identify what materials would protect them from the radiation of the blast while they observed it from a distance. This required an estimation of how neutrons propelled by the blast would shoot through different materials. Calculating this with existing deterministic models wouldn't work – there were just too many neutrons. So, the scientists created a brilliant new approach that calculated the probability based on a random subset of neutrons instead. As with everything developed during the clandestine project, the new approach was veiled in secrecy with a codename – the Monte Carlo method.
The scientists saw similarities between the probabilistic method and the games in the Monte Carlo casino in Monaco. Not only was it an effective way to simulate the movement of neutrons (no scientists were harmed during the bomb tests), but it's proven a useful statistical simulation approach in many industries, from finance to medical uses and supply chain operations (Virginia Tech). Developing the simulation capability provided the Manhattan Project one more slight edge over its competitors.
That advantage was maintained by the approach to knowledge assurance taken during the highly secret military project. Oppenheimer details the measures the project went to in order to maintain secrecy – building a temporary town in the desert so scientists and their families could be contained without contact with the outside. All communication in and out of the town was monitored and controlled, and even within the project itself information was compartmentalized on a need-to-know basis.
There are two lessons to draw from this for IT leaders looking ahead to 2025. Historically, chief information officers have been accountable for the recordkeeping at their organizations. Like a resident historian, CIOs maintained the integrity of an organization's past, making it verifiable and auditable. With digital transformation, CIOs were asked to do more to report on the current state of the organization – in as real-time as possible. The business intelligence and analytics required to drive decision-making couldn't be based on old information. Now, as firms push their investment into artificial intelligence (AI) and more specifically generative AI, the focus shifts to simulating the future. In a fast-changing and uncertain world, AI predicts different scenarios based on the probability of the outcome. Generative AI provides an output that aims to simulate a human response prompted by an input.
SIMULATED FUTURES
Evolution of IT from recordkeeping to forecasting probable futures
In 2025, CIOs need to graduate from being record keepers to being forecasters of probable futures. In Tech Trends 2025, Info-Tech will explore three trends along the theme of "simulated futures":
- AI Avatars
- Quantum Advantage
- Expert Models
KNOWLEDGE ASSURANCE
The imperative for IT to protect knowledge creation and curation
At the same time, CIOs must push to develop forecasts and advance the knowledge of their organizations in a way that carefully manages the integrity of the knowledge creation and curation process. Like the Manhattan Project, CIOs need to create a trusted environment that ensures knowledge assurance. Here we explore three other trends:
- Deepfake Defense
- Post-Quantum Cryptography
- AI Sovereignty
Altogether, our six trends reflect the opportunities ahead for organizations to seize upon with emerging technology capabilities and the risks they must mitigate along the way. Just like a player putting a bet down at the Monte Carlo's roulette table knows they may win or lose based on the probabilities, these three themes represent both risks and rewards:
- Digital Humans
- Pre-Quantum Foundations
- Exponential AI
Brian Jackson,
Report Author and Principal Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group.
METHODOLOGY
Info-Tech's Tech Trends 2025 report is based on the results of its Future of IT 2025 survey, conducted in May and June 2024. The online survey received 970 responses from IT decision-makers. Each chart included in the report will specify the sample size received for the specific question or respondent group.
Expert interviews were conducted between March and July 2024 and provide additional context to the trends as well as specific case study examples of how organizations are responding to the trends. View the expert contributors section to see a complete list of external contributors. In total, ten expert contributors are listed.
In addition, the Future of IT survey and Tech Trends 2025 report were developed through discussions with many Info-Tech research advisors, practice leads, executives, workshop facilitators, and executive counsellors.
Further firmographic context on the Future of IT 2025 survey results is to the right.
ORGANIZATION SIZE
Please estimate the total head count of your entire organization. (n=820)
Choices | Response % | Response count |
0-250 | 26.46% | 217 |
251-1,000 | 24.02% | 197 |
1,001-2,500 | 13.17% | 108 |
2,501-5,000 | 15.00% | 123 |
More than 5,000 | 21.34% | 175 |
SENIORITY
What title best describes your position?(n=820)
Choices | Response % | Response count |
Owner / President / CEO | 6.22% | 51 |
CIO or other C-level officer | 20.49% | 168 |
VP-level | 8.66% | 71 |
Director-level | 22.80% | 187 |
Manager | 21.34% | 175 |
Senior individual contributor | 11.83% | 97 |
Entry-level individual contributor | 3.29% | 27 |
Contractor/consultant | 5.37% | 44 |
REGION
In which country or region is your organization's primary headquarters? (n=820)
Choices | Response % | Response count |
United States | 44.51% | 365 |
Canada | 14.76% | 121 |
Australia | 6.46% | 53 |
Africa | 6.10% | 50 |
Europe | 5.12% | 42 |
UK | 5.49% | 45 |
Central America | 0.12% | 1 |
South America | 2.32% | 19 |
Asia | 5.00% | 41 |
Other (Please specify) | 10.12% | 83 |
IT MATURITY
Throughout the report, analysis will use IT maturity as an independent variable to compare the most mature group to the average group. This comparison will be done by comparing respondents that choose "IT transforms the business" (Transformers) to a combination of respondents that select "IT supports the business" and "IT optimizes the business" (Average).
What best describes your current level of IT maturity? (n=702)
Choices | Response % | Response count |
IT transforms the business | 16.10% | 113 |
IT expands the business | 12.25% | 86 |
IT optimizes the business | 29.06% | 204 |
IT supports the business | 34.47% | 242 |
IT struggles to support the business | 8.12% | 57 |
INDUSTRY
What is your organization's primary industry? (n=820)
Choices | Response % | Response count |
Arts & Entertainment (including sports) |
0.61% | 5 |
Construction | 1.71% | 14 |
Education | 9.39% | 77 |
Financial Services (including banking & insurance) |
10.49% | 86 |
Gaming & Hospitality | 1.46% | 12 |
Government / Public Sector | 19.39% | 159 |
Healthcare & Life Sciences | 8.90% | 73 |
Manufacturing | 7.44% | 61 |
Not for Profit (including professional associations) |
4.76% | 39 |
Media, Information, Telecom | 10.61% | 87 |
Professional Services | 8.17% | 67 |
Retail & Wholesale | 3.17% | 26 |
Transportation & Warehousing | 1.59% | 13 |
Utilities | 2.20% | 18 |
Real Estate & Property Management | 1.34% | 11 |
Natural Resources | 1.95% | 16 |
Other (Please specify) | 6.83% | 56 |
Exponential AI
Pre-Quantum Foundations
Digital Humans
EXPONENTIAL AI
AI's acceleration into more aspects of the organization's operations.
Since generative AI entered into the business lexicon in 2022, the technology has worked its way into various enterprise-scale solutions from most of the market-leading vendors. From solutions that help organizations build with generative AI, marrying their own data and process with a large language model, to features embedded in larger productivity suites, AI seems to have spread its tentacles into many different business functions in a short amount of time.
Last year, we saw artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML) was the fastest growing technology in terms of net-new investment among all organizations. That trend continues this year, with AI or ML actually growing two points faster than last year. AI is now invested in by almost half of all organizations, so it remains in our "emerging tech" quadrant. With a growth score of 64, AI is the clear leader in this quadrant in terms of growth. Yet, it remains behind other more entrenched technologies that continue to see more investment planned: cybersecurity solutions, cloud computing, and data management solutions.
New this year, we've added "hardware to accelerate AI training" to our technologies list. Given the market demand for GPUs and neural processing units (NPUs) to support AI training and inference operations, we wanted to get a sense of how many organizations are investing in this area. Slightly more than one-third of organizations have already committed investment, and slightly more than half plan to invest. This places the technology just into the emerging category as well.
TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT INDEX FOR 2025
(n=682)
Methodology note: Data collected from responses across two questions covering infrastructure and hardware technologies as well as software and platform technologies. Respondents indicated if they were already invested, if they planned future investment, or neither. Index scores were created by subtracting negative sentiment from positive sentiment on both current investment (x) and growth (y) dimensions.
*Generative AI is a subset of AI or ML investment (n=589)