Agentic AI is the top strategic technology trend for 2025

The most important strategic technology for 2025 and beyond is agentic AI, according to the latest forecast by tech analyst Gartner. 

“Agentic AI systems autonomously plan and take actions to meet user-defined goals,” said Gene Alvarez, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, as he revealed the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2025 at Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2024 last week.

Also: Gartner’s 2025 tech trends show how your business needs to adapt – and fast

Spending on AI will help drive a healthy increase in IT expenditure. Gartner said worldwide IT spending is expected to total $5.74 trillion in 2025, an increase of 9.3% from 2024.

“It is clear that no matter where we go, we cannot avoid the impact of AI,” said Daryl Plummer, distinguished VP Analyst, chief of research, and Gartner Fellow.

Gartner predicts that spending on software will increase 14% to reach $1.23 trillion in 2025, up from 11.7% growth in 2024. Meanwhile, spending on IT services is expected to grow 9.4% to $1.73 trillion in 2025, up from 5.6% in 2024. 

Here are Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends for 2025, led by agentic AI:

1. Agentic AI – Agentic AI systems autonomously plan and take actions to meet user-defined goals. Agentic AI offers a virtual workforce that can offload and augment human work. Gartner predicts that, by 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be taken autonomously through agentic AI, up from 0% in 2024. The goal-driven capabilities of this technology will deliver more adaptable software systems, capable of completing a wide variety of tasks.
2. AI Governance Platforms – AI governance platforms are a part of Gartner’s evolving AI Trust, Risk and Security Management (TRiSM) framework that enables organizations to manage the legal, ethical, and operational performance of AI systems. These technology solutions can create, manage, and enforce policies for responsible AI use, explain how AI systems work, and provide transparency to build trust and accountability. Gartner predicts that by 2028, organizations that implement comprehensive AI governance platforms will experience 40% fewer AI-related ethical incidents compared to those without such systems.
3. Disinformation Security – Disinformation security is an emerging technology category that systematically discerns trust and aims to provide methodological systems for ensuring integrity, assessing authenticity, preventing impersonation, and tracking the spread of harmful information. By 2028, Gartner predicts that 50% of enterprises will begin adopting products, services, or features designed specifically to address disinformation security use cases, up from less than 5% today.
4. Postquantum Cryptography – Postquantum cryptography is data protection that resists quantum computing decryption risks. Analysts expect several types of conventional cryptography to end as quantum developments progress. Gartner predicts that advances in quantum computing will make most forms of asymmetric cryptography unsafe to use by 2029. The switch to postquantum cryptography methods is far from easy. Organizations must have a longer lead time to prepare robust protection of anything sensitive or confidential.
5. Ambient Invisible Intelligence – Ambient invisible intelligence is enabled by ultra-low-cost smart tags and sensors that deliver large-scale affordable tracking and sensing. In the long term, ambient invisible intelligence will create a deeper integration of sensing and intelligence into everyday life. Through 2027, early examples of ambient invisible intelligence will focus on solving immediate problems, such as retail stock checking or perishable goods logistics, by enabling low-cost, real-time tracking and sensing of items to improve visibility and efficiency.
6. Energy-Efficient Computing – Compute-intensive applications, such as AI training, simulation, optimization, and media rendering, will be the biggest contributors to organizations’ carbon footprint as they consume the most energy. New advances starting in the late 2020s will help to boost sustainability. Several new technologies, such as optical computing, neuromorphic computing, and novel accelerators, will emerge for special-purpose tasks such as AI and optimization. These technologies will use significantly less energy.
7. Hybrid Computing – New computing paradigms continue to emerge, including central processing units, graphic processing units, edge computing, application-specific integrated circuits, neuromorphic computing, and classical quantum computing paradigms. Hybrid computing combines different compute, storage, and network mechanisms to solve computational problems.
8. Spatial Computing – Spatial computing digitally enhances the physical world with technologies, such as augmented reality and virtual reality, and is the next level of interaction between experiences. The use of spatial computing will increase organizations’ effectiveness in the next five to seven years through streamlined workflows and enhanced collaboration. By 2033, Gartner predicts spending on spatial computing will grow to $1.7 trillion, up from $110 billion in 2023.
9. Polyfunctional Robots – Polyfunctional machines can do more than one task and are replacing task-specific robots that are custom-designed to perform a single task repeatedly. The functionality of these new robots improves efficiency and provides a faster return on investment. Polyfunctional robots are designed to operate alongside humans to support quicker deployment and easier scalability. Gartner predicts that 80% of humans will engage with smart robots daily by 2030, up from less than 10% today.
10. Neurological Enhancement – Neurological enhancement improves human cognitive abilities using technologies that read and decode brain activity. This technology reads a person’s brain using unidirectional brain-machine interfaces or bidirectional brain-machine interfaces (BBMIs). By 2030, Gartner predicts that 30% of knowledge workers will be enhanced by, and dependent on, technologies such as BBMIs (both employer and self-funded) to stay relevant due to the rise of AI in the workplace. This proportion represents a big rise from less than 1% in 2024.