Gartner hype cycle 2025 highlights four key trends in automation

Gartner has released its 2025 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, identifying key trends supporting the shift towards autonomous business, such as machine customers, AI agents, decision intelligence and programmable money.

The 2025 edition of the Hype Cycle aims to encapsulate critical insights from more than 2,000 technologies and frameworks into a shortlist of those considered most capable of delivering transformational benefits within the coming decade.

The Gartner Hype Cycle is intended as a graphical portrayal of the maturity and adoption of emerging technologies, mapping how they may evolve in relevance for business problem-solving and opportunities. The methodology is used by organisations to evaluate the likely trajectory of new technologies in alignment with specific business objectives.

Marty Resnick, Vice President Analyst at Gartner, addressed how the landscape is changing as digital transformation gives way to new disruptions driven by artificial intelligence and automation.

"After years of digital transformation, organisations now face new disruption as AI and automation reshape competition, customers, products, operations and leadership. In this new autonomous business era, CIOs must assess how emerging technologies can create competitive differentiation, unlock greater efficiencies and capture new growth opportunities."

The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies is described as unique among Gartner's many such cycles as it distils its findings to what Gartner identifies as "must-know" technologies for CIOs and decision makers. Four trends are highlighted: machine customers, AI agents, decision intelligence and programmable money.

Machine customers

Machine customers - nonhuman economic actors that transact on behalf of people or organisations - are emerging as a significant trend. Gartner estimates there are already three billion B2B connected machines capable of acting as customers, projecting this number to reach eight billion by the end of the decade. Examples span from virtual personal assistants and smart appliances to connected vehicles and IoT-enabled factory equipment.

Resnick said:

"Machine customers will play an important role in industries like manufacturing, retail and consumer goods, unlocking new revenue and efficiency opportunities. To capitalise, organisations must reimagine their business models or risk being left behind."

AI agents

AI agents are software entities designed to perceive, decide, act, and achieve aims in digital or physical settings, employing tools such as large language models. These agents, according to the report, are being developed and deployed to automate tasks in sectors as varied as consumer services, logistics, data analysis, industry operations and content creation.

Gartner notes that trust in AI agents remains a barrier, particularly concerning the readiness of these systems to make significant decisions without human input. The company recommends that organisations evaluate the strategic relevance of AI agents as these become increasingly independent and accessible.

Decision intelligence

The discipline of decision intelligence is highlighted as a method to improve decision-making quality by modelling and digitising decision processes. The aim is to bridge the persistent gap between insight and action through continuous feedback and improvement of decisions.

Christian Stephan, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, emphasised the growing need for improved decision-making processes in the context of technological and regulatory shifts.

"Agentic AI and generative AI hype, regulatory pressures on decision automation and recent global uncertainty have revealed weaknesses in traditional business processes and decision making. In response, organisations now demand decision processes that deliver speed and quality, but are also consistent, compliant, cost-effective and capable of handling complexity and change."

Programmable money

Programmable money is defined as digital currency managed and constrained by software logic, for example through blockchain tokenisation and smart contracts. The report states that participation in programmable money will become mandatory for organisations wishing to transact with machine customers and other digital actors.

Stephan said:

"Programmable money is transformative for financial services providers, enabling new forms of currency and digital asset markets. It drives innovation in value creation, financing, and asset exchange, including machine-to-machine trading, reshaping supply and financial value chains."

Gartner concludes that senior IT and business leaders are navigating a period of renewed disruption characterised by technological advances in automation and artificial intelligence, with these four trends set to drive significant changes across industries in the coming years.