Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2025. Read them in this 17th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By
John Pettit, CTO, Promevo
As we close the chapter on 2024, it’s time to
look ahead-here are five bold predictions for the year to come. These are not
isolated glimpses into the future – but form a bigger picture. From AI becoming
more independent to the infrastructure and human skill needed to unleash it,
this takes you through the connected threads shaping 2025.
A broad technological shift
Agentic AI is about to fundamentally transform business operations in 2025.
Unlike traditional AI, which primarily outputs answers or insights, agentic AI
can understand context, manage tasks, and use a chain of reasoning to deliver
meaningful outcomes. It acts as a proactive digital assistant that predicts
needs, executes tasks, and continuously optimizes workflows for greater
efficiency and performance over time.
And as AI gains intelligence, industries are finding ways to tailor it to their unique advantage.
Tailored intelligence
As we move into 2025, one of the standouts
will be the emergence of industry specific AI. These are not one-size fits-all
solutions; they’re tailored to each sector’s unique challenges. A real world
example of this is Google’s MedLM and how it is automating administrative tasks
and supporting clinical outcomes. This provides doctors and nurses the ability
to spend more time with patients and less on paperwork. And it’s not stopping
there. These custom AIs are not only
boosting efficiency but sparking new levels of creativity which then lead to
new use cases, tools and solutions, and on again, the cycle of innovation
repeats.
This means one thing: CIOs need to stay ahead
of the latest infrastructure to keep
up with AI demand.
Hybrid cloud a key stepping stone to
AI
Hybrid cloud is a key stepping stone to AI
adoption and will continue to be in 2025, especially as more companies discover
the value in balancing cost and control. Some businesses are moving workloads
back to private cloud because it’s more predictable for things like AI
training. But the big players like AWS are still strong, and Google could pick
up steam with its AI focus. Companies are trying to find the right balance
between the control of private cloud and the scalability of public cloud.
Hybrid cloud is also enabling small businesses to adopt AI at scale, which will
be interesting to watch in 2025.
However, it’s not just about costs and scale;
but security too as AI systems grow,
so do the dangers they invite.
Cyber teams use AI to multiply
Resource-constrained teams often lack the
bandwidth and tools to effectively combat increasingly sophisticated cyber
threats. In 2025, AI will serve as a force multiplier-amplifying the
capabilities of small teams to operate at an exponential scale. A single
analyst can perform the work of ten, a team of ten can match the output of a
hundred, and a hundred can act as if they are thousands. The catch? AI doesn’t
just defend; it actively hunts-learning, adapting, and predicting threat
patterns with precision. This transformation will illuminate blind spots,
strengthen networks, and turn reactive defense into proactive resilience,
redefining cybersecurity in the AI era.
But while invaluable, even the smartest AIs
need human oversight.
CIO as strategic players in AI
To conclude, human leadership will be needed to guide
these changes. And as AI demand continues to surge, CIOs will become more
strategic players. They’ll be the ones who’ll have to translate AI’s potential
into real business value, helping their companies make smart decisions about
which AI tools to adopt and how to secure them. In a lot of ways, they’re
becoming the bridge between IT and the business side, guiding their teams
through this major shift.
Bear in mind, the future will not be shaped by
AI alone-but by those who guide it. Technology gives us tools, but leadership
gives us purpose. In 2025, the question isn’t just “What can AI do?” but “What
kind of world will we create with it?”
##
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Pettit has over 25 years of experience
in the technology industry, holding leadership roles including CTO at PerTrac
and Backstop Solutions Group, CIO at Peak Performance, and VP at Affinitiv Inc.
Throughout his career, he has driven innovation and shaped technology
strategies across the financial and SaaS industries. He is currently the CTO at
Promevo.
