TThe incoming US administration and the expected advancement of AI alone will certainly impact workplaces by 2025. We wanted to know what leaders in business, research and labor expect for the coming year. Here are 11 predictions, edited for length and clarity:
It will be the Year of the Duck for RTO debates.
Nicholas Bloom
William Eberle professor of economics at Stanford University
2025 will be the battle for working from home. On one side will be the forces pushing for the five-day return to office (RTO). Partly this is a backdoor layoff, and partly some CEOs see this as the best thing for productivity. Amazon called for a five-day RTO in September 2024, and it is suspected that this was driven by the need to reduce its workforce. (Elon) Musk and (Vivek) Ramaswamy have similar plans for the federal government. On the other hand, employees are increasingly determined to remain hybrid or remote. Expect a major exodus of top talent and people in hot areas like AI in five-day RTO companies.
My prediction is that overall levels of working from home will remain flat at a macro level through 2025. But below stable overall numbers, local battles over hybrid policies will rage, workers will quit, and CEOs will continue to debate these policies. In a sense, it will be the Year of the Duck: steady on the surface, but frantically paddling below.
Agentic AI will be adopted faster than genAI and have a greater impact on businesses.
Chris Bedi
Chief Customer Officer, ServiceNow
I see some parallels (between genAI and agentic AI) because both have received a lot of attention. The key difference will be a faster pace of adoption and a much greater business impact. While early genAI pilots focused on case summarization, marketing copy generation, and email generation, agentic AI will exponentially improve business operations including customer service, order management, and supply chain. Agentic AI will not only help; it will transform the way work gets done by securely integrating with data, systems and workflows across the enterprise. Specialized agents will handle end-to-end processes such as onboarding and order management, automating routine tasks to improve efficiency. With adoption set to surpass early genAI, companies will need a “control tower” vision to effectively manage and coordinate these agents. The technology is ready and the shift is happening now.
Human leadership skills will come to the fore.
Edith Kuiper
Co-founder of Medley and CEO of PepsiCo and Amazon
I believe we will see a growing emphasis on people-centered leadership skills: communication, empathy, relationship building, self-awareness and inclusivity. In a world that is becoming increasingly automated, with fewer moments of human interaction, organizations will have to consciously promote connection. Prioritizing human connection will not only support stronger teams; it will be critical to business growth and the kind of innovation needed to thrive in this new era.
A deepening childcare crisis will force employers and policymakers to respond.
Brigid Schulte
Director of the Better Life Lab, New America and author of About work
The childcare crisis and its consequences for the workforce, especially when it comes to women, will become even more urgent in 2025. The already untenable situation is likely to worsen as states run out of pandemic-era funds intended to support the crisis. the patchwork system for childcare. And with potential cuts to federal anti-poverty programs under the Trump administration, the lack of child care is likely to have serious consequences for low-wage workers.
The childcare crisis – and the need for workplace flexibility to balance work and care responsibilities – will become political issues because parents will no longer be the only ones feeling the pain. I predict that organizations will increasingly recognize how childcare and flexible working are critical business requirements for functioning, productive and profitable workplaces, rather than ‘nice to have’ amenities or perks. And because no single company can solve a problem this big, policymakers will be forced to respond.
AI allows entry-level employees to have more impact and managers to become more like coaches.
Aneesh Raman
LinkedIn’s Chief Economic Opportunity Officer
All jobs will eventually experience changes from AI, but some positions will see the first waves of major changes as early as 2025. Entry-level work and people managers are two categories that will experience early shifts. For entry-level work, most of these roles today are built around these manual and time-consuming tasks like data entry, note-taking, and meeting scheduling. This current model won’t be sustainable in the age of AI, but that doesn’t mean we’ll simply do away with entry-level work. MIT has found that employees with the least experience are exposed to the most form of AI tools on the job, so there is a huge benefit for companies in getting these junior employees to quickly work on high-impact projects in a way that wasn’t possible before.
People managers are another job category already under serious pressure, and AI is shaking things up even more. We are unlikely to face a ‘bossless’ future – workers today participation they trust their managers and that a good manager makes the difference between staying with a company or leaving. In the future, the role of a people manager will become more like that of a sports coach: managing the team’s energy, regulating the team’s emotions and stress, and understanding on an individual level what drives each person to help them do their best work. doing. .
Employee organizing will continue to increase in 2025.
Liz Shuller
President, AFL-CIO
2025 has the potential to be a transformative year for American workers and unions. Workers are exercising our power to stand up for our right to dignity and fair treatment in the workplace in ways we haven’t seen in generations. We are seeing a resurgence in trade unionism across all sectors. We expect more large-scale strikes will hold companies accountable. As technology like artificial intelligence evolves and transforms work, workers will continue to demand a seat at the table to shape our future. Labor is built on solidarity – and when seven in ten Americans and nearly 90% of young people support unions, we know workers will keep winning.
Workplaces that use AI will become more creative, connected and collaborative.
Annie Dean
Global Head of Team Anywhere, Atlassian
By 2025, AI-enabled teams will be more connected and collaborative than ever. AI will eliminate busywork and give teams the exact support they need to explore and execute big ideas faster. This means that the workplace will no longer be dominated by the loudest voices, but rather by the most creative minds.
With a greater ability to execute creative ideas faster, we will also experience a complete evolution of meetings. Meetings will no longer serve as a traditional 30-minute “stand and deliver” moment, but as a time for collaboration, creativity and complex problem solving. This could result in an increase in meetings, but this time it will be more focused, efficient and creative, contributing to the deeper connections within teams while advancing the most impactful work.
AI will be a crucial tool in promoting diversity, equality and inclusion.
Stephanie Creary
Assistant Professor of Management at Wharton
By 2025, organizations will prioritize checking their AI tools for bias, with a focus on improving algorithmic fairness and transparency. AI will also play an increasing role in addressing diversity, equity and inclusion challenges. More specifically, companies will use AI to identify biases in hiring, evaluating employees and tracking performance, enabling targeted interventions to promote more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace cultures. Additionally, the efforts will address differences in how generative AI is accessed and used by different populations.
Meetings will transform.
Prithwiraj Choudhury
Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School
I expect 2025 to be the year in which team meetings will be reshaped. Distributed teams that can work from anywhere (WFA) will continue experiments that maximize the value of corporate and team retreats. Teams will also launch experiments with agentic AI solutions that participate in team meetings. Agentic AI will help employees take notes, mark meeting segments, and in some cases even communicate asynchronously on behalf of individuals. Agentic AI solutions will help employees save time in team meetings and further accelerate their ability to WFA.
Companies will rethink risk management when it comes to AI.
Sabrina Farmer
Chief Technology Officer of GitLab
In 2025, there will be lawsuits against LLM providers if they cannot confirm that copyrighted data has not been used to train models. Companies adopting solutions will have to choose providers based on how transparent they are about data use and their data protection guarantees. In response, AI solution providers will proactively integrate data protection principles into models from the outset, ensuring ongoing compliance and limiting the potential for future legal disputes.
We will see the adoption of AI coaches, agents and assistants.
Anna Tavis
Chair of the Department of Human Capital Management at NYU’s School of Professional Studies
By 2025, one of the most transformative trends in the workplace will be the increasing adoption of personal AI coaches, agents and assistants. These AI-powered tools will redefine what it means to have access to personalized support. Imagine receiving guidance, coaching, advice or just a meaningful conversation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, always available, tailored to your unique needs.
Such benefits come with significant risks. The potential for over-dependence or even addiction to these digital companions is real. If we don’t manage this carefully, we risk creating a world where human connections are not prioritized in favor of interactions with machines designed to simulate them.