What's the Deal with 2025?
Brian Basilico
Helping Mid-Sized B2b Business Generate Impressive Sales - Fractional CMO/CRO (Marketing/Relationship) & EIEIO (Engaging/Inspired/Enthusiastic/Interest/Optimizer) - Blending Traditional & Innovative Marketing for Sales
This time of year, the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's, always seem like a blur. It's hard to remember what day today is, especially when both holidays fall in the middle of a week. Business generally grinds to a halt with people and companies taking vacations.
TV is filled with retrospectives of the past year. It's mind-blowing when you realize all of the events that have happened in the last 365 days.
It's also a time to look forward and try to plan how you would like your next year to play out. In this new technologically charged business environment, it's almost impossible to predict. Larger companies with more people and resources are more capable of directing their futures than small companies, but none of us have crystal balls. All we can do is try to adapt to what's next.
In this article, I would like to give you some insights into what I see coming for business and technology in the coming year. Although this can be a huge topic, I focus on internet marketing with a slant on relationship marketing.
So here is my take on what I see coming based on where we have evolved in the last year.
Bright Shiney AI Objects
If you think AI tools and system introductions were overwhelming last year, you may want to get a prescription for Xanax in 2025.
Keep in mind, there are only a few major players in the AI game.
Up and coming are:
Although many video and audio tools are built on independent platforms, many are creating hybrid or integrated tools that use the power of those major LLMs. Either way, there are hundreds and soon-to-be thousands of options to choose from. Although trying new and improved things is exciting, it's fraught with danger. Many will be here today and gone tomorrow.
Last week, Bench Accounting software experienced an unexpected shutdown, affecting 35,000 customers who lost access to their records and data. Users can download their data next week, and Bench advises clients to file a 6-month extension with the IRS while they search for a new bookkeeping partner. This incident is a cautionary tale of what is to come, and it reinforces my preference for investing in a computer-based accounting solution rather than a cloud-based system.
That is just a taste of what the wild, wild west of AI tools and software can and will do to businesses.
I will continue to trust the big guys like Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft to siphon ideas and improve the stability and longevity of AI products and services.
Search Here
Google has been the only game in town for a long time. That is all about to change.
I have an Apple iPhone, and the newer models feature Apple Intelligence. It is a new enhanced Siri (voice assistant, with a mix of ChatGPT from OpenAI & Microsoft). I have been using that to answer questions like I used to use Google. It is easier and faster.
If I want to research or learn something, I use Perplexity.io. The info above about Bench accounting came from Perplexity. That means that Perplexity (and I assume other AI search) is as current as Google search. It also gathers information from multiple sources to compile the answers, whereas Google search gives you one link to one answer.
Search is traditionally about driving traffic to a website. You could game the system by buying ads that would bring your answer to the top of the heap (if you outbid your competition).
Google's main attraction was (and is) free to use and is embedded in every web browser. I pay $20 a month to use Perplexity. I doubt that free will go away soon, but free versions of AI assistants will continue to offer more to entice people to change their habits. That data is being collected and sold to help consumer product companies reach more buyers in ways we can only imagine now.
Browsers will start to look and feel more like personal AI agents. However, websites will still be the sources of data that is scraped, compiled, and disbursed as aggregated new content. This will produce more complete and timely responses that help end users get more from less while spending less time jumping from website to website.
The World Narrow Web
Not too long ago, there was a point where websites were like Swiss Army knives. You had static pages, e-commerce, video, blog, and more sections. It won't be long before AI transforms how websites are created and served up.
I believe there will be a point when web pages can and will be dynamically compiled based on a user's question. That means you will have to compile data, images, and calls to action that can feed a user what they are searching for on your website. The same goes for how they may want to consume it. Users could click a button to turn text into a voice-over video or vice versa.
It may even involve microsites that serve each section that old websites tried to combine into one.
Imagine getting to a website and choosing the text or video-only version. That could be yourwebsite.com/video or yourwebsite.com/text, which would auto-compile the navigation based on how they prompt your website. Then, if you wanted to purchase something, they could click a button to compile an e-commerce option on demand.
All of this will evolve quickly and morph into what user interfaces people use most.
At what cost?
One fact is that AI requires power. It takes an immense amount of computing power for AI to process and output data in a usable form. It also takes a lot of power (as in electricity) to feed the computing farms necessary to deal with the increased data demands. All that power costs money.
Big companies with deep pockets will first find ways to monetize this newfound power. These companies usually work for their shareholders first and customers second. That means that big data will need deep pockets and big customers who can afford to fund all this innovation.
What will be left out to start is the small to mid-sized companies. It will take some time, but you will see companies start making innovation more affordable to larger audiences to offset the costs.
That means web server space will no longer be available for $10 a month for old-style static sites. The new dynamic, high-power websites will start to cost $100 or more per month, which is still affordable. However, when you factor in the subscriptions to the tools needed, building and hosting websites could cost as much as $1000 a month.
As someone who has separate websites for my speaking, books, podcasts, business, e-commerce, and niche audiences, I can imagine limiting the scope of how and why I will present my content.
Final Thought
As with most predictions, my plan is probably a combination of wishful thinking and educated guessing. It will probably combine what we have today with what AI has yet to accomplish.
What I can assure you is that things will change. It will also see the rise and fall of tools and companies quicker than we have ever seen before. It also means that the big guys will control the innovation and feed the narrative that they have the future in their hands.
So grab a seat and strap yourself in... because the internet in 2025 will become a wild and bumpy ride!
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Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about business-to-business sales and marketing today! Do you have a sales or marketing communications strategy that works for you? What tips or techniques can you share that work for you and your business?
To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.