AI Trends: Humans Asking Better Questions

What trends will come out of 2024 and be used as predictors of 2025 early AI trends? What if instead of looking for those answers, we instead focused on learning to ask better questions? Here goes my attempt:

TREND: AI
What should we look for from AI in 2025?

When it comes to AI/ML, so-called ‘prompt engineering’ will heavily favor those with exceptional writing skills, systems thinking, and a large vocabulary to create the nuance necessary to focus AI tools on more useful/less generic outputs.

TREND: RESPONSIVENESS TO CHANGE
What will be the biggest type of change in 2025 for organizations?

When it comes to managing the curve of change, the very rate of change is/will continue to be the most difficult to manage because it requires the human acumen and relational capacity to manage the tension between responding to changes in the market without breaking an organizations’ ability to keep themselves regulated (internal governance) and mitigate the risk of the same kind of hallucinations of data that AI is infamous for when the parameters are too loose.

TREND: OPTIZATION VS. INNOVATION
When to optimize and when should we innovate?

When it comes to the kind of changes, well that’s where the tension will also need to be managed between optimization and innovation. Painting with broad brush strokes, most orgs confuse optimization with innovation and go along with the premise that different is inherently better. In some contexts, optimization is helpful (right up until the point of diminishing returns), yet innovation (truly inventive thought) will always make optimization the residency of change laggards. Asking “Why?” and “Why not?” about the ideas and even the goals of managers and management layers will continue to be a crucial skill to mitigate the auto-defensiveness of those pushing mandates and directives.

SUMMARY

In short: empathy will win, data will be necessary, and relational equity will continue to be far more important than physical proximity. Oh, and bonus: delegating authority when delegating responsibility will still be the best way to accomplish all three.

That’s my opinion. What say you?