TThe new US administration and the expected advances in AI alone will have a definite impact on workplaces in 2025. We wanted to know what leaders in business, research and the world of work expect for the future. year to come. Here are 11 predictions, edited for length and clarity:
This 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 return to office within five days (RTO). Part of it is a backdoor layoff, and part of it is some CEOs seeing it as the best way to increase productivity. Amazon requested a five-day RTO in September 2024, and it is suspected that this was motivated by the need to reduce headcount. (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 mass exodus of top talent and people working in hot areas like AI from companies with a five-day RTO.
I predict that overall work-from-home levels will remain stable at the macro level in 2025. But, below stable overall numbers, local battles will rage over hybrid policies, employees will quit, and CEOs will continue to debate the policy. In a sense, this will be the year of the duck – steady on the surface but paddling frantically below.
Agentic AI will be adopted faster than genAI and will have a greater impact on businesses.
Chris Bedi
Customer Director, ServiceNow
I see some parallels (between genAI and Agentic AI) to the extent that both have received a lot of attention. The main difference will be a faster pace of adoption and a much greater business impact. While genAI’s initial pilots focused on case summarization, marketing copy generation, and email generation, agentic AI will deliver exponential improvement to business operations, including customer service, management orders and the supply chain. Agentic AI won’t just help: it will transform the way work gets done by securely integrating with data, systems, and workflows across the enterprise. Specialist agents will manage end-to-end processes such as onboarding and order management, automating routine tasks to improve efficiency. As adoption is expected to outpace the first generations of AI, businesses will need a “control tower” view to effectively manage and coordinate these agents. The technology is ready and change is happening.
Human leadership skills will be highlighted.
Edith Cooper
Co-founder of Medley and board director of PepsiCo and Amazon
I think we will see an increasing emphasis on human-centered leadership skills: communication, empathy, relationship building, self-awareness, and inclusiveness. In an increasingly automated world, with fewer moments of human interaction, organizations will need to strive to foster connections. Prioritizing people will not only strengthen teams: it will be essential to business growth and the kind of innovation needed to thrive in this new era.
The worsening child care crisis will force employers and policymakers to respond.
Brigitte Schulte
Director of the Better Life Lab, New America and author of Overwork
The child care crisis and its impact on the workforce, especially women, will become even more urgent in 2025. The already untenable situation will likely worsen as states run out of funds intended to support the pandemic. the disparate child care system. And with possible cuts to federal anti-poverty programs under the Trump administration, the lack of child care risks having disastrous consequences for low-wage workers.
The child care crisis – and the need for workplace flexibility to combine work and family responsibilities – will become a political issue because parents are no longer the only ones feeling the pain. I predict that organizations will increasingly understand how child care and flexible working are essential business imperatives for functional, productive and profitable workplaces, not “nice to have” amenities or perks. to have “. And since no single company can solve a problem of this magnitude, policymakers will be forced to respond.
AI will allow new workers to have more impact and managers to become more coaches.
Anesh Raman
Director of Economic Opportunities at LinkedIn
All jobs will eventually see changes thanks to AI, but some roles will see the first waves of big changes as early as 2025. Entry-level positions and people managers are two categories that will see early changes. For entry-level work, most of these roles today are built around manual, time-consuming tasks such as data entry, note-taking, and meeting scheduling. This current model won’t be sustainable in the AI era, but that doesn’t mean we’ll simply eliminate entry-level work. MIT has find that the least experienced workers acquire the most AI tools at work, so there is a huge benefit for companies to quickly get these younger employees to work on high-impact projects in a way that was not possible before.
People managers are another job category already under great pressure, and AI is shaking things up even more. We’re unlikely to move towards a ‘bossless’ future: today’s employees say they rely on their managers and that a good manager makes the difference between staying or leaving a company. In the future, the role of people manager will be more like that of a sports coach: managing team energy, regulating team emotions and stress, and understanding at an individual level what motivates each person to help him do his best. .
Worker unionization will continue to increase in 2025.
Liz Shuler
President, AFL-CIO
2025 has the potential to be a transformative year for American workers and unions. Workers are exercising their power to defend our right to dignity and fair treatment in the workplace in a way we haven’t seen in generations. We are seeing a resurgence of unionization across all sectors. We expect more large-scale strikes to hold companies accountable. As technologies like artificial intelligence evolve and transform 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 continue to win.
Workplaces that use AI will become more creative, connected and collaborative.
Annie Doyen
Global Head of Team Anywhere, Atlassian
In 2025, AI-powered teams will be more connected and collaborative than ever. AI will eliminate tedious work and provide teams with the exact support they need to explore and execute on 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 live”, but as a time for collaboration, creativity and complex problem solving. This might lead to an increase in the number of meetings, but this time they will be more focused, more efficient and more creative, helping to strengthen bonds within teams as they move forward with the most impactful work.
AI will be an essential tool for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
Stéphanie Créary
Assistant Professor of Management at Wharton
In 2025, organizations will prioritize auditing 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. Specifically, companies will use AI to identify biases in hiring, employee evaluation, and performance monitoring, enabling targeted interventions aimed at fostering more diverse, equitable, and inclusive work cultures . Additionally, efforts will aim to address disparities 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 that team meetings are reinvented. Distributed Work From Anywhere (WFA) teams will continue their experiments to maximize the value of corporate and team retreats. Teams will also launch experiments with agentic AI solutions by participating in team meetings. Agentic AI will help workers take notes, highlight meeting segments, and in some cases even communicate asynchronously on behalf of individuals. Agentic AI solutions will help workers save time in team meetings and further accelerate their ability to perform WFA.
Businesses will rethink AI risk management.
Sabrina Farmer
CTO of GitLab
In 2025, legal action will intensify against LLM providers if they are unable to certify that copyrighted data was not used to train models. Companies adopting solutions will need to choose their suppliers based on their level of transparency on data use and their data protection guarantees. In response, AI solution providers will proactively integrate data protection principles into their models from the outset, ensuring continued compliance and mitigating the risk of future legal disputes.
We will see the adoption of AI coaches, agents and assistants.
Anna Tavis
Director of the Department of Human Capital Management at NYU School of Professional Studies
In 2025, one of the most transformative trends in the workplace will be the growing adoption of AI coaches, agents and personal assistants. These AI-powered tools will redefine what it means to have access to personalized support. Imagine 24/7 advice, coaching, advice or even just meaningful conversation, available at any time and tailored to your unique needs.
With such benefits come significant risks. The potential for over-reliance, even addiction, to these digital companions is real. If we are not managed carefully, we risk creating a world in which human connection loses priority in favor of interactions with machines designed to simulate it.
