Vendors talk 2025 technology bets

Experts from Zoom, Lenovo and Cisco talk about their 2025 predictions – AI, security, sustainability and more

As we step into a new year, channel professionals and industry leaders will be keen to know the big technologies set to lead the agenda in 2025.

While the big topic of AI isn’t going anywhere, experts believe that the headlines this year will be far more diverse.

Here’s what four technology lights had to say on the topic.

Mary Jacques, executive director, global ESG and regulatory compliance, Lenovo

Sustainable PC design

"With e-waste generation outpacing the rise in formal recycling by a factor of almost five, enabling increased repair, refurbishment and recycling of electronics will become critical for achieving net-zero goals and addressing raw material scarcity.

“In 2025, businesses will increasingly seek devices designed for longevity and maximum upgradeability, driving a stronger shift toward a more circular economy and sustainability in the tech industry.

“Next year, sustainable laptop design will focus on modularity for easy repair and upgrades, durable materials to enhance longevity, and increased use of recycled or recyclable components to reduce product carbon footprints and improve overall recyclability.

“Energy-efficient hardware and extended software support aim to further mitigate environmental impact.

“Repairable designs with accessible instructions and simplified disassembly will become more widespread, alongside take-back programmes for material recovery and reuse."

Helen Hawthorn, head of solutions engineering EMEA, Zoom

AI is all about user adoption

“AI-first user interfaces (AIU): The next wave of innovation will blend conversational AI with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to create intuitive, AI-first user interfaces.

“These interfaces will streamline workflows by prioritising personalised, action-oriented interactions that adapt to user behaviours and needs.

“As AI assistants get smarter, they will have a bigger impact on our personal lives, becoming our first stop in starting new endeavours or brainstorming ideas.

“These AI agents will evolve beyond simply automating tasks and will perform more complex work for us, offering personalised, emotionally intelligent guidance that strengthens our interactions with others.”

Federated AI models to the fore

“Federated AI models will lead: The performance gap between open- and closed-source AI models is rapidly decreasing.

“In response, more platforms will embrace a federated AI model, where multiple language models (LLMs) are used together, providing engineers and users with more choice and best-of-breed experiences.

“This shift will enable AI systems to offer more tailored and collaborative solutions across different platforms. As LLM competition heats up, first-mover advantages will become less significant, making federated models the preferred approach for many organisations.

“AI agents driving action-oriented information flows: AI agents will move beyond task automation to orchestrate actionable insights across entire organisations.

“These agents will focus on identifying inefficiencies, optimising workflows, and ensuring that critical actions are prioritised in real-time.”

Liz Centoni, chief customer experience officer, Cisco

Agentic AI will take centre stage

“In 2025, AI won’t just be a tool; it will be a collaborator.

“Many AI-powered tools in use today are based on static rules or datasets.

“Agentic AI differs in that it can continuously learn from user inputs and integrate contextual information (think: account history, network environment, user behaviour patterns and preferences), and make decisions with little to no human oversight.

“In other words, unlike today’s approaches that require user prompts or predefined rules, agentic AI will operate proactively.

Imagine a customer service AI that predicts user needs before a query is made, or a network management AI that identifies potential issues and resolves them autonomously, ensuring uninterrupted service.

“These AI agents will not just interact with humans or devices directly, but will also be able to discover, learn, and collaborate with each other to form complex workflows and/or chains of operations to automate even advanced business functions.

“For instance, multiple AI agents could automate supply chain management by coordinating with each other to forecast demand, optimise inventories, coordinate deliveries, and even negotiate with suppliers.”

AI will surface tough reality checks for companies

“AI will continue to captivate businesses, promising unprecedented innovation and efficiency, and companies will continue to invest in AI-powered solutions.

“This is hardly a prediction. But as AI journeys progress, so too will the understanding that the path is fraught with hurdles.

“Despite billions of dollars invested into AI models and AI-powered solutions in 2024, new data from Cisco’s AI Readiness Index shows that AI readiness has declined by one point globally over the past year—now only 13 per cent of companies are ready to leverage AI-powered technologies to their full potential.

“In 2025 organisations will grapple with how best to secure the right level of compute power to meet AI workloads (today, only 21 per cent of organisations say they have the necessary GPUs to meet current and future AI demands).

“Companies will need to lean on their strategic partners to identify and prioritise their AI use cases, upskill their teams, and modernise their infrastructure environments in a progressive, proportional way.

“IT teams will experience increasing pressure to optimise the management, hygiene, labelling, and organisation of data, which is currently spread across multiple systems and locations.

“This mandate will apply to structured data typically associated with existing business processes, as well as unstructured data related to customer and user interactions.

“As teams work feverishly to prepare their environments for AI, boards and leadership teams will realise that significant gains from AI will happen in the long run and progressively – starting now and improving over time – especially in areas like opening new revenue streams and improving profitability.

“Many boards will find themselves readjusting expectations, timelines and priorities that were established mere months ago as companies reckon with the “messy middle” of AI implementation. Let’s play the “long game.”