Arjun Pillai, Co-Founder & CEO, Docket.
With the new year behind us, leaders everywhere are planning how to optimize their organizations in 2025. Artificial intelligence (AI) is on everyone’s mind, with 72% of businesses adopting AI for at least one business function.
Companies are eager to leverage the technology to gain a competitive advantage, but many are unsure how to handle its complexities. To help you better prepare for what lies ahead, here are some predictions about AI trends, avoiding mistakes and planning for shifts in the industry.
Avoiding Scaling What Isn’t Working
When a tactic you try in business doesn’t pan out as you’d hoped, do you double down and do more of it? No. Most people will realize it isn’t working and pivot to a different approach. But for some reason with AI, many leaders might dig in their heels and keep trying to scale solutions that weren’t functional from the start.
For instance, an organization that has failed to book enough meetings or acquire enough quality leads with its human SDRs may consider using an AI SDR solution to succeed by brute force (e.g., flooding inboxes with tens of thousands of emails).
It should be obvious that this is a deeply flawed strategy, yet many companies have tried it. If something like cold emailing prospects didn’t work the first time, why would you unleash the same tactic at scale? I’m seeing many companies that have made such mistakes recognize the error of this approach and commit to doing things differently in the future.
From Disillusionment To A Comeback
Because they have been unable to fulfill their promises, certain AI companies have caused leaders to write off AI as a disappointment. As such, many of them are starting to question their investments and wonder whether they should try again with other solutions.
Even so, expect a revival of sorts toward the end of 2025. Throughout the coming year, teams will regroup to reflect on what they’ve learned from their early AI implementations and study the case studies of those around them. Many will conclude that choosing technology carefully and taking a thoughtful, targeted approach to AI can enhance their productivity (up to 66% in some cases) and outcomes.
The key here is to recognize that even if AI didn’t deliver the value you wanted this year, it’s likely because it wasn’t deployed with the right strategy or expectations. There’s room to change this in future deployments and gain the benefits.
Evolving Pricing Models
In my opinion, one surefire prediction for 2025 is that pricing models will undergo a significant transformation catalyzed by the desire for better alignment between vendors and buyers. To this end, there are two key trends we’ll be seeing more of:
• Outcome-Based Pricing: In this model, you only pay for measurable results. This might look like a customer only being charged for each support ticket that has been closed with a positive outcome.
• Agent-Based Pricing: This model consists of deploying AI agents as a direct alternative to human agents, saving significant costs and improving workflow.
While each may be attractive for its own reasons, both models have challenges, especially around cost predictability. Outcome-based pricing can cause unexpected surges in cost, leaving a company’s finance team unprepared. However, agent-based pricing may lead to compromises in quality control, as AI agents often struggle with complex or nuanced tasks that would be better served by human judgment and empathy.
Renewed Focus On AI Security And Standards
As AI technology has changed and continues to change, the same underlying security principles remain. Organizations must adhere to the strictest standards when protecting their data and customers’ data. One of the main focus areas in 2025 will be monitoring vendors to ensure they don’t use client data to train their AI models. While AI offers many advancement opportunities and benefits, we must all be diligent about maintaining privacy and preventing data misuse.
According to Forrester research, executives now realize they must “navigate around concerns for AI skills, governance, security, and ROI.” To that end, the Forrester Budget Planning Guide 2025 identified key areas for investment that can help organizations prepare for a strong AI future. These include “investing in high-quality, well-governed data, establishing robust AI governance frameworks, creating a scalable and secure architecture, and developing a dynamic mix of skills.”
The Future Of AI In 2025
After much advancement and excitement around AI technologies in 2024, the coming year promises to be much more measured and thoughtful. The organizations that will succeed the most will be the ones that resist the urge to scale broken processes or ideas and instead carefully deploy AI alongside the right strategies and expectations.
They’ll also pay attention to changing pricing models and ensure their data security standards (and those of their vendors) are at the highest tier. This approach can allow companies to make the most of this incredible technology without exposing themselves to unnecessary risk.
Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Read the full article here
