2025 in tech: What’s coming to the industry next year

There’s a lot we don’t know about what’s coming in technology in 2025. AI can save the world, or destroy it, or do nothing fun at all. A new US president could change priorities and policies regarding antitrust and privacy laws. Will TikTok be banned? Will fediverse go away? Will it be the year of Matter? Will Grand Theft Auto VI change society forever? Is the following Objective: Impossible the movie was awesome? Look, I didn’t say the numbers are always too high. But there are many questions.

In this episode of The Vergecastwe try and give some answers – without proof at all. Nilay, David, and The Wall Street Journal writer (and eternal friend of The Verge) Joanna Stern take turns giving their predictions for the coming year.

We start with our mildest, most milquetoast take on technology in 2025, before moving up to our biggest, hottest, and spiciest ideas. And because we need to be held accountable for our actions, we make a game out of it.

Here’s how the game works: Each host gives a prediction, and the other two get a chance to agree or reject the prediction. At the end of the year, whoever is right with that prediction gets a point. If you are wrong, you lose a point. Next week we will have more predictions, and more points available. A year from now, we’ll review who was right more often than not, and we’ll buy the winner the coolest gadget of 2025, whatever that might be. (We’ll need your help deciding, too, but we’ll get back to that.)

Don’t read the below until you listen to or watch the episode, but on tape, here are our predictions and results:

What are your predictions for 2025? What do you think we have right and wrong? Who will win the game? Tell us what you think! And check out all the cool gadgets in 2025, because we’ve got a winner to buy. Finally.