15 tech trends to watch closely in 2025

Your all-in-oneAI Super Analyst for market intelligence Instant insights to bet on the rightmarkets, stay ahead of competitors,and source the right companies. ▮▮▮▮IIIIGet a demo Tech trends Enterprise Financialservices The cyborg wealth advisor04AI agents are given money to spend12Crypto takes more baby steps toward the mainstream19Compressed fintech valuations create opportunities for acquirers24 Spatial computing for enterprises is here to stay71 Retail&consumer Retail’s personalization imperative76 Healthcare&life sciences Industrials Disease management enters a new phase with AI30Investment floodgates open for RNA therapeutics35Autonomous robots eye caregiving40 The future data center arrives81Cheaper access to space sparks investor rush86 AI AI M&A fuels the next wave of corporate strategy45LLMs’ explainability moment51Open-sourcecedestopLLMsbutdominatessmallermodels58The USisleadingthe AIarmsrace—fornow65 Financialservices The cyborg wealthadvisor Financial services Drowning in admin work, financial advisors spend less than a fifthof their time with clients Topperformers eke out an additional 9%of their time for clients—driving~200additional1-hour meetings per advisor per year Financial services To get that time back, wealth giants like Morgan Stanleydoubledown onAI for advisor productivity MorganStanley’s wealth management business saw record net revenue in Q3’24 on theheelsof deeper AI integration Financial services But outside of the largest and most well-resourced firms, wealthmanagers are cautious about AI Wealthfirms’AI plans have been hamstrung by concerns around regulation and dataprivacy,as well as a lack of knowledge and technical skills Early days: Nearly half of wealth managers are still learningabout AI, while another third are implementing it incrementally 62% of firms see the lack ofregulatory guidelines as atop obstacle to adopting AI Source: Wipro study, September 2024, n = 100 Financial services One of wealth management firms’ biggest opportunities with AI isto bring scale and speed to the ‘human element’ of advisory AIcan augment financial advisors’capabilities at every point of the wealth value chain 8Source: CB Insights research—The new wealth tech value chain report. The visual shows 15 technology markets gaining momentum across wealthmanagement. Companies in these markets either develop AI solutions or enable wealth tech platform integration via APIs. Financial services Personalized client engagement is one of the most mature AI usecases in wealth management GenAIstartups are automating marketing tasks like copywriting and video creation Source: CB Insights—The generative AI in financial services market map.To identify players for this market map, we reviewed generative AIcompanies targeting horizontal applications and shortlisted those with funding momentum (received funding since the start of2022 or with totalfunding of $30M+). We then filtered based on the industries the companies serve, selecting companies targeting financial services applications. Financial services Forfirms looking to build AI into client engagement, integrationwith existing tech stack is key Easeof integration is a selling point,as shown by positive customer reactions toNitrogen’sAI-powered client engagement and prospecting tool Financial services Wealth managers can select from 50+ AI-focused wealth techpartners that have already validated their products The majority of B2B AI wealth techs are growing client distribution,signaling commercial readiness Potential partners in the Deploying stage or later withhigh Mosaic scores (measuring business health) Source: CB Insights Commercial Maturity scores (measuring a company’s ability to compete for customers or serve as a partner). Analysis includesB2B startups with Commercial Maturity scores that appear in both the Wealth Tech and AI Expert Collections. Data as of 11/7/2024. Financialservices AI agents are givenmoney to spend Financial services AI agents are emerging across the software landscape, but they’reutility is limited until they can make transactions seamlessly Privatecompanies building the infrastructure for AI agents proliferate Infrastructure Financial services Current payments infrastructure is designed for humans—and keepingbots out Onlinepayments flow today Financial services Crypto emerges as the first AI payment rail Earlymovers Skyfire and Coinbase target agent-to-agent transactions to circumventhumanidentify verification required for bank accounts and credit cards •Coinbase launches capability to create AI agents with crypto wallet•Skyfireannounces integration with Base blockchain, enabling agents to useCoinbase wallets 15 Stripe launches developer tool to enable agents to spend funds Stripe’sand Coinbase’s entry signals a strategic push from established players toleadthe emerging agent-enabled payments ecosystem Financial services Big tech envisions the future of agent commer