People love to fantasize about what the future holds. Flying cars, teleportation, space travel or intelligent machines dominating the world and supplanting the identity of humans, doing our jobs and changing society.
I’m sure this fictional movie-like approach crossed someone’s mind the first time they heard the term ‘artificial intelligence’. But perhaps this approach will seem a bit dramatic to the more than 300 million weekly active users of GPT Chat, who send more than 1 billion messages a day.
2024 has been the year of artificial intelligence in every sense, and even more so in the world of digital communication, but we are also witnessing the (almost undisputed) prominence of the video format, especially the short one, promoted by platforms such as TikTok or Instagram. These are trends that, far from disappearing, will be transformed to adapt to constantly evolving audiences. So what can we expect in 2025?
Digital communication trends for 2025
Leaving science fiction aside and focusing on the day-to-day life of communication professionals, these are some of the clear digital trends that will mark this 2025.
More and better AI
Having understood the incredible benefits of tools such as Chat GPT, Dall-E, Grammarly or Fireflies, (good and responsible) communicators have been trained to acquire a deeper understanding of them and be able to apply them more successfully in content creation, especially digital. This 2025, we will see more AI: advanced automation for publications, real-time trend analysis, and content generation tailored to the tone and style of specific audiences.
While on a theoretical level it all sounds particularly good, on a practical level we will see (even more) ethical debates about the limits of AI use and we will have to face the challenges of maintaining authenticity in communication.
Extension and creativity
On the one hand, the trend will be towards more extensive content that really reaches our audiences, moving from short and ephemeral video, to other with more duration and weight, allowing the user to connect with the message. On the other hand, creativity in communications, whether text, image or video, that manages to stand out against the infoxication of the digital world. We will have to be able to strike the right balance between length and originality, between content that is quickly assimilated and content that is interesting enough to hold attention in such a complex environment as the digital one.
Digital audiences do not want commercial information or promotional banners. If we want to reach our audience, we must provide them with content that they can connect with, that is long enough to tell a story and that has that bit of creativity and surprise that makes the communication remain in their memory. This is where storytelling, as the ability to tell stories and convey messages effectively, so that what we want to tell resonates with the receiver.
Post-truth, deep fakes and fake news
Communication professionals will have to navigate in digital environments plagued by arguments that seek to distort realities (post-truth), sharpen our judgment to discard deep fakes, and fight against more fake news than ever (where a good crisis communication and reputation management plan will become very important).
Very recently, on Musk’s social network, hundreds of images generated with his own AI with natural language technology, Grok, went viral. These images, highly realistic, let the user see grotesque and apparently realistic situations, which could easily confuse the user. Musk himself describes it as an “uncensored” AI.
Audience hyper-segmentation and message hyper-personalization
Two trends that inevitably go hand in hand. Segmentation, understood as the division of users or audiences into subgroups, taking into account specific characteristics, tastes and behaviors, will go hand in hand with a deep personalization of information for these subgroups. The adoption and application of AI, as mentioned above, will facilitate all these processes.
Transmedia and multi-device communication (big time)
We must tell stories that are extensible to multiple platforms and media, capable of involving our audience in an almost immersive experience. In other words, we will have to apply transmedia storytelling.
In 2025 we will communicate for virtual reality, for the incipient metaverses; for those who use tablets, smartphones and consoles; for those who only watch videos on platforms such as YouTube, or only listen to radio through podcasts on Spotify; for those who stream their games on Twitch, and for those who shop on TikTok Live Shopping.
User generated content (UGC) and employee generated content (EGC)
Brands already know the power of digital environments and the endless possibilities they offer (and will offer) to connect with their audiences and potential consumers. As a result, their messages in digital environments, which are becoming more and more numerous, are already going unnoticed.
In this context, user-generated content will be key in 2025: the experience they have with the product or service, their satisfaction, their opinion about the ESG criteria of the brand they consume… The one-sidedness of digital communication, to which brands adhered for a long time, ceased to exist. Communication professionals will have to face a balance in which, of course, UGC will have more weight.
The corporate evolution of UGC is happening and is called Employee Generated Content (EGC), and it will be another strategic pillar to take into account in 2025. The voice of employees, more credible, visible and closer brand ambassadors… will gain relevance. Testimonials, behind the scenes, or even practical advice created by employees, will be a great tool to humanize brands.
Global environments
At this point, local communication agencies will be of enormous importance, especially for international companies. It will be essential to work with teams that have first-hand knowledge of the terrain in which they will be working, that understand the cultural, political and social particularities of each market. Personalization of messages in these globalized environments will be another key in 2025 (and in the years to come), especially in a digital environment.
AI: Queen of content for another year
Just a couple of years ago, in 2022, the Internet was full of trend predictions and industry trends that predicted a future marked by that metaverse, that evolution of social networks, digital marketing and social relations that was going to change everything.
As is so often the case, we believe that a technology will change the landscape without taking into account, first and foremost, the potential costs associated with it. Unlike a smartphone, not everyone can afford the equipment needed to navigate the still emerging metaverse, thus limiting the introduction of this technology (for the time being).
But unlike Zuckerberg’s virtual universe, artificial intelligence only requires an electronic device, such as a computer or cell phone. Access to this technology is indeed affordable for a large part of the planet. Therefore, we can expect that AI will not meet the same fate. Therefore, this trend will almost certainly be a must in the trend rankings for next year, the following year and beyond. We will see a lot of regulation around it, especially from 2026, which will be when most of the rules covered by the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act come into force. And, if there is no other specific regulatory framework for the control of deep fakes, we will be faced with another recurring trend.
Are there any conclusions? Well…
2025 will be a pivotal year in which many of the trends we have begun to explore in recent years will come to fruition. AI will lead this transformation, but it will not be without regulatory challenges and constant ethical review. In addition, communication professionals will have to adapt quickly to a landscape where personalization, creativity, and authenticity will be essential to connect with infosaturated, infobesedient, infointoxicated audiences.
What is clear is that digital communication will continue to evolve and that the communicator will be required to have a combination of technological, creative and human skills that are increasingly specialized.
