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The end of a year is always a good time to reflect back on what happened to shape direction and strategy for the coming year.
However, as I look back on 2025, I’m really confused about what happened and where we are heading.
Due to the total upheaval in the global economy with on again/off again trade tariffs and political decisions that made no sense, many organizations spent the first half of the year in a semi-frozen state waiting for some sort of economic stability and predictability to return. Of course, it never did so they figured they had to just go with the roller coaster for the second half of the year which included the longest government shutdown in history in the US.
Meanwhile, on the technology front, 2025 was all about AI. If a software vendor did not talk about AI, most organizations were not interested in talking to them. This was partly because they were mandated by their executive management to focus on AI and not get left behind and partly because they were not doing much else since they were told to reduce staff, reduce spending and, in some cases, even freeze capital projects.
It wasn’t just organizations that honed in on AI, but investors too, creating an enormous financial bubble and even offsetting the depressing ecomomic upheaval that has been the hallmark for the year.
An infamous study from MIT on the State of AI in 2025 concluded that 95% of Generative AI pilot projects ended in failure. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has tracked how businesses have always adopted new technologies.
The MIT report refers to it as the “adoption without transformation” trap. The 95% of pilots that failed relied on generic tools that showed great demos, but lacked in resilient workflows. The 5% that succeeded looked to embed AI into their workflows using memory and learning and focused on tangible ROI outcomes.
Back to the 2025 economy. I asked Copilot why the global economic picture was so confusing for 2025 and it returned quite a dissertation, but one thing caught my eye in its summary which was:
“Businesses adapting to volatility are focusing on diversified supply chains, digital resilience, and scenario planning for a world with multiple converging disruptions.”
The “scenario planning” makes perfect sense and this is clearly in the domain of BI (Business Intelligence). This is all those “What If?” scenarios I keep demonstrating and writing about with InfoBurst Squirrel. So, here I am at the end of 2025 wondering why more organizations are not doing this. Then, reading the MIT report, the answer is very clear. They are not willing to put in the time and effort to select the right workflows that focus on real ROI outcomes.
However, I remain optimistic for 2026 and look forward to a year where organizations will stop following the “AI lemmings” going over the cliff and focus on “What if?” scenario planning using both BI and AI.
Wishing you all a Happy and Healthy 2026.
