The beginning of the year is often the time to look back on the past 12 months and assess where we have been so we can look forward to the future. Before we start on our 2025 predictions, let’s see how we did with the predictions from 2024.
First, the important stuff – sports. We did well with these:
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- The 49ers did make it to the SuperBowl but did not win
- Argentina did win Copa America 2024
- Simone Biles did win the all-around gold medal at the Paris Olympics
Not so well with these:
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- Novak Djokovic did not win the Australian Open 2024
- Rafael Nadal did not win the French Open
- Golden State Warriors did not win the NBA championship
- Tiger Woods did not win Masters 2024
The economy: Costco stock price reached $700 by the end of January and continued to rise for the rest of the year. Inflation did taper off in 2024, although not completely.
Fraud and technology: The rise of identity fraud, deepfake videos, and AI-generated scams has prompted businesses and organizations to look for ways to increase security improvement and fraud prevention solutions, including passkeys and passwordless authentication methods. The rapid advancement of GenAI has indeed spawned a litany of apps that are intended to improve the efficiency and productivity of professionals in their fields, including insurance, legal, financial, and even software coding. And many software engineers are consulting with AI-augmented models for initial coding inquiries or early-stage problem solving.
It’s time for another Zumigo Predicts!
Let’s see how we do with this year’s predictions. First, what will the technology landscape look like? Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) are top of mind:
“Businesses will continue to increase the use of passwordless authentication methods in 2025 to combat online fraud. However, there will be a significant increase in online fraud due to new generative AI tools and techniques. Businesses will fight back with cutting edge technologies leveraging AI and machine learning to combat these attacks. Let the AI wars begin!” – Chirag Bakshi, CEO
“AI will continue to become more prevalent as a tool used for automation, research, and speed for tech sales. But AI will not replace sales reps in 2025 as some might predict. This will take much longer because AI is not advanced enough to successfully mimic all the nuances and subtleties of human communication (yet!).” – Maya Ebrahimpour, Inside Sales Rep
“In 2025, AI will simplify daily life, improve healthcare, and tackle security challenges.” – Uttara Altekar, Program Manager
“By the end of 2025, about 15% of the web search results from sites like Google and Bing, which are currently displayed as links to other sites, will be converted to precise answers by leveraging LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. Readers will bypass unnecessary clicks before getting to what they are looking for.” – Harish Manepalli, CTO
Here are a few on digital identity security:
“In 2025, digital identity will become more actionable as it shifts to being tightly bound to personal devices, with passkeys and biometrics like facial recognition and fingerprint authentication at the core. This integration will enhance security and user convenience while emphasizing the importance of mitigating onboarding risks through advanced AI-driven fraud detection during initial identity verification. By reducing reliance on traditional methods like passwords, device-bound identities will enable seamless and secure interactions across digital and physical environments, from payments to account logins. As these advancements take hold, organizations will face increased responsibility to safeguard data and ensure privacy, driving innovation and trust across industries.” – Chirag Bakshi, CEO
“2025 will mark the mainstream adoption of passkeys, transforming authentication across enterprises and consumer applications. As businesses prioritize security and user experience, passkeys will replace passwords with frictionless, passwordless login methods built on public key infrastructure (PKI). This shift will elevate identity verification to a critical component of the IAM ecosystem, driving demand for seamless, secure methods to authenticate and manage digital identities in real time.” – Madhu Vudali, Vice President Product Management
“The separation between an individual’s work identity and personal identity has been blurring over the last few years. Many workers are already using their personal devices and data to authenticate their identity. In 2025, the merging of the two will be embraced by IT security teams when authenticating access and provisioning privileges, to simplify the process and reduce operational overhead.” – Yu-Ting Huang, Sr. Director of Marketing
Now for the sports predictions.
“Novak Djokovic will win the Australian Open one last time and walk off into the sunset and retire. Tiger Woods will win the Masters. The Golden State Warriors will make the playoffs and make a surprising deep run for the title. The USC Trojans Women’s basketball team will win the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship, led by star guard JuJu Watkins. Qinwen Zheng will win the Australian Open. University of California, Berkeley will win the Big Game, making it five wins in a row against Stanford University.” – Kevin Lee, Head of Talent Acquisition
“Sports will use tech to boost performance, and the NBA will see young teams rising.” – Uttara Altekar
“The UCLA Women’s basketball team will win the NCAA Championship (sorry Kevin). The UCLA Men’s basketball team will also win the NCAA Championship for the first time in 30 years (and defeat Gonzaga in the final four).” – Maya Ebrahimpour
Other miscellaneous prediction:
“Global tensions and climate action will shape the world, making it a year of change and innovation.” – Uttara Altekar
And finally ….
“Zumigo will continue to grow and exceed its business goals in 2025!” – Team Zumigo
Now that’s something we can all rally around.
*The above predictions are the personal opinions of the employees and are not representative of the entire company.
Yu-Ting Huang is Sr. Director of Marketing at Zumigo. Comment or questions? Find her at on LinkedIn @yutinghuang.