There was nothing new in AI in 2024 that matched the sheer “wow” factor of using ChatGPT for the first time, but rapid improvements in the underlying technology still kept the field humming. For 2025, this is how I see things panning out.

Will AI development hit a wall?

In 2025, that momentum will fade. Even some of the tech industry’s biggest optimists have conceded in recent weeks that simply throwing more data and computing power into training ever-larger AI models — a reliable source of improvement in the past — is starting to yield diminishing returns. In the longer term, this robs AI of a dependable source of improvement. At least in the next 12 months, though, other advances should more than take up the slack.

The most promising developments look like coming from models that carry out a series of steps before returnin