a16z fund recently announced coming trends for 2025. Among dozens others we publish selected ones to look after:

  • The Year of the “AI Brain”

We all produce a ton of digital exhaust through our text messages, emails, tweets, browsing history, TikTok/Reddit comments, and more. Thanks to LLMs, we can now put all of this unstructured data to use in a “digital brain” that understands how you think and feel.

  • Knowledge Work Gets Personalized

AI is great at producing things, but it isn’t great at producing things that actually sound like you. As anyone who’s experimented with AI writing knows, a bad draft can be worse than none at all. Style and tone often make the difference between a usable draft and something that requires heavy editing. There are many ways to solve this problem, and the solution may look different based on the role and work product. In some cases, this may even involve the AI working as a copilot, “tapping in” the human when it needs an assist or information. Not everything will be one-shot, from prompt to full output. This feels crucial in moving toward a world where everyone does a significant part of their work with AI every day.

  • The Crypto Industry Finally Gets Its Own App Stores, and Discovery

When crypto apps get blocked by centralized platforms like Apple’s App Store or Google Play, it limits their top-of-funnel user acquisition. But we’re now seeing newer app stores and marketplaces provide this kind of distribution and discovery, and without gating. For instance, Worldcoin’s World App marketplace — which not only stores proof-of-personhood but allows access to “mini apps” — enabled 100,000s of users for several apps within just a few days.

  • The Decline of "Google It"

ChatGPT has 250+ million weekly active users. Answer engine Perplexity is gaining share, growing 25%+ month-over-month, and changing the search engagement form; their queries average ~10 words, 3x+ longer than traditional search, and nearly half lead to follow-up questions. Claude, Grok, Meta AI, Poe, and other chatbots are also carving off portions of search. Sixty percent of US consumers used a chatbot to research or decide on a purchase in the past 30 days. For deep work, professionals are leveraging domain-specific providers like Causaly (science), Consensus (academic research), Harvey (law), and Hebbia (financial services).