Crystal Ball 2025: More experts predict manufacturing tech trends (Part 2)

Aislinn Wright, VP of product Management, EDB:

Hybrid cloud solutions will continue to surge as companies seek cloud agility with greater control and data sovereignty

In 2025, enterprises will increasingly adopt hybrid cloud solutions to gain the flexibility of cloud services while retaining greater control over data and total cost of ownership.

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Organizations will prioritize hybrid models that blend cloud agility with the control of private cloud environments, allowing them to optimize costs, meet regulatory requirements, and manage data sovereignty more effectively. This trend will drive demand for platforms that seamlessly integrate cloud and multi cloud capabilities, offering the best of both worlds for mission-critical workloads.

Optimized hardware will supercharge Postgres performance and slash costs

By 2025, enterprises will increasingly adopt optimized hardware configurations to enhance the performance and cost-efficiency of their Postgres deployments. This trend is expected to deliver up to sixfold improvements in transaction throughput and significantly reduce total cost of ownership, enabling organizations to meet growing data demands more effectively.

Rohit Choudhary, co-founder and CEO, Acceldata:

High-quality data will drive successful AI across enterprises. In 2025, the success of AI and machine learning operations will hinge on the foundation of high-quality data, robust enterprise infrastructure, and well-trained models.

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Reliable, accurate data will be essential for scaling AI-driven decision-making, allowing organizations to deploy AI as a core strategic asset. Enterprises equipped with consistent, high-quality data will respond swiftly to market changes, leveraging AI to fuel continuous innovation and maintain a competitive edge.

Operational insight from data will drive business decisions and enable strategic workflows. By 2025, data-driven insights will extend beyond technical teams, empowering C-suite executives and non-technical leaders with the information needed for informed decision-making.

Organizations will leverage accessible, actionable dashboards that provide operational visibility across data workflows, transforming data insights into a critical resource for guiding strategic priorities and fostering business success.

Hybrid multi-cloud infrastructure will be standard, supported by data observability. In 2025, hybrid multi-cloud environments will become the standard for data-driven enterprises, optimizing security, privacy, and cost management.

Data observability will be essential for ensuring seamless operations and unified visibility across these diverse infrastructures, helping organizations manage multi-cloud and on-premises data assets with enhanced resilience.

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Structured data will become the backbone of AI-driven insights. In 2025, structured and semi-structured data sources will form the foundation for robust AI-driven insights. By leveraging data lakes, data warehouses, and data streams, organizations will enhance AI model training, improve data quality, and generate more accurate, actionable intelligence.

This strategic approach will empower businesses to unlock the full potential of AI, driving continuous innovation and maintaining a competitive edge.

Ashwin Rajeeva, co-founder and chief technology officer, Acceldata:

Data governance, bolstered by advanced data observability, will evolve into a strategic asset. Data governance, bolstered by advanced data observability, will evolve into a strategic asset, driving both compliance and innovation in the AI-driven business landscape of 2025.

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Organizations will enhance governance frameworks with observability tools focused on data reliability, compliance, and ethical use. This evolution will provide visibility into data lineage and metadata, enabling organizations to meet regulatory standards with operational agility.

To ensure ethical and transparent AI practices in 2025, organizations will utilize data observability to monitor and validate the data underpinning AI systems, thereby mitigating bias and fostering trust with stakeholders.

Data observability will play a critical role in supporting responsible AI development, aligning with corporate values such as sustainability and ethical governance to build long-term trust.

In 2025, unified data observability platforms will emerge as essential tools for large enterprises, enabling comprehensive visibility into data quality, pipeline health, infrastructure performance, cost management, and user behavior to address complex governance and integration challenges.

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By automating anomaly detection and enabling real-time insights, these platforms will support data reliability and streamline compliance efforts across industries.

Abhinav Asthana, co-founder and CEO, Postman:

Consumption-based APIs will become the new cash machines

API monetization models will shift toward usage-based and outcome-driven strategies. In 2025, companies will continue moving away from traditional subscription models, embracing usage-based, dynamic pricing, and marketplace-driven strategies.

This shift reflects the increasing demand for flexible, consumption-based pricing that aligns with how customers engage with APIs. As APIs become essential revenue engines, businesses will also leverage API marketplaces to foster new partnerships and tap into broader ecosystems.

Venture capital will pivot to profitability in AI investments

After years of investing heavily in AI startups, VCs in 2025 will shift from growth-at-all-costs to sustainable, profitability-centered models. Major players like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Nvidia have become the cornerstones of AI infrastructure, so funding will increasingly go to startups with strong economic foundations and clear paths to revenue.

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The days of blank checks for speculative AI projects are over; instead, we’ll see focused investment in companies that show measurable value and can survive in a market dominated by industry giants.”

Ankit Sobti, co-Founder and chief technology officer, Postman:

Rogue AI agents will drive a new era of API design

As AI agents gain expanded access through APIs, 2025 will be a pivotal year for API design. Companies will need to rethink their API strategies to handle the demands of autonomous AI, moving beyond human-focused models.

Rogue AI behavior, where agents take unplanned actions, is a real possibility if APIs aren’t designed with both security and machine-to-machine interaction in mind.

The solution lies in companies adopting an API-first approach, not only to improve developer productivity and software quality but also to create a robust compliance framework and security perimeter, establishing a solid foundation for seamless, scalable AI integrations, and lowering the risk of a rogue AI agent.

AI-powered workflows will reshape team structures and tools

Generative AI will continue reshaping workflows in 2025, transforming not just how we interact with software but also how we staff our teams. AI bots will be embedded across complex workflows, automating repetitive tasks and integrating with interfaces more seamlessly than ever before.

See also: How to avoid the AI hype-to-disillusionment cycle

Companies will lean on AI to enhance productivity while reducing the need for junior roles, investing instead in highly skilled engineers and ‘AI-augmented’ teams that can drive growth and innovation. This shift underscores the need for human expertise alongside AI-powered tools.

Rishi Bhargava, co-founder, Descope:

AI will get a major authorization upgrade (or will require one). Today’s simple permission models won’t scale for AI systems that can generate code, access sensitive data, and interact with users in increasingly sophisticated ways. Organizations will need to build context-aware authorization that protects against the unique vulnerabilities of AI systems.

User experience will make or break AI apps: When every application has AI capabilities (and they soon will), the differentiator will be seamless user experience. Companies that force traditional authentication checkpoints into AI interactions will see significant drop-off. The winners will be those who make security feel like a natural part of the conversation.

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Passkeys will reach critical mass. With major platforms completing their passkey rollouts in 2024, 2025 will be the year that passkeys become mainstream for everyone else. As SMEs gain access to better implementation tools and users grow more comfortable with biometric authentication, passwords will finally begin their long-overdue retirement.

Gilad Shriki, co-founder, Descope:

SMS authentication reaches end-of-life. The technical and economic limitations of SMS-based authentication will finally force companies to seek cost-effective and secure alternatives. Rising prices (Twilio), security vulnerabilities (Not All MFA is Equal), and UX friction will push organizations toward more modern methods.

Developer experience defines platform winners. In 2025, the platforms that thrive will be those offering exceptional developer tools and clear documentation. Time-to-production will become a critical metric, with success tied to how fast teams can unlock value. The focus will shift toward solutions that streamline complex deployments, making them feel effortless and intuitive.

AI will continue to be leveraged as a prominent attack vector for cybercrime. We’ll see a surge in fraud schemes where threat actors use AI to impersonate legitimate parties.

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At the same time, attacks against user-facing AI will rise because of their inherent vulnerability. Cybercriminals will attempt to “jailbreak” or social engineer their way past security protocols, which will drive the need to protect or limit AI agents from unauthorized access and manipulation.

Ian Bramson, VP of global industrial cybersecurity, Black & Veatch:

Fighting AI with AI

With the fast adoption of AI and machine learning in fighting against bad actors and in incident response in IT and OT environments, CISOs and other cybersecurity and operations leaders considering integrating AI into OT systems should proceed cautiously and be very deliberate with where and how they use it to prevent disruptions to their operations. Uptime and safety are top priorities for these critical infrastructure organizations.

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It’s very important to understand that AI can only provide value if the data is correct, clean, and relevant to the operation in question. Otherwise, a compromise in data quality could lead to flawed threat assessments with potentially harmful outcomes within specific operational contexts such as in power plants or water treatment facilities, where even minor disruptions can have severe consequences.

Collaboration is king

We expect to see a less siloed approach to OT and IT. The slow convergence between the two sides can be attributed, in part, to a lack of alignment and a shared mission. A fragmented approach benefits neither OT nor IT. To succeed, both teams must develop a unified business strategy and work together through a coordinated response that puts their company’s overall security goals at the forefront.

This collaboration and integration need to shift to OT taking the lead. The reason: The stakes are incredibly high within OT environments, where cyber incidents and attacks have the potential for real-world catastrophic impacts on safety for the employees, the environment, and nearby communities.

CISOs must become OT experts

Cybersecurity is no longer an IT-only concern. Given the critical nature of OT cybersecurity, ensuring the cybersecurity of OT environments needs to be the driving impetus for most, if not all, industrial companies and municipalities—a key factor influencing strategic planning and investment decisions.

See also: How to choose security for your OT operations

Therefore, CISOs need to lead the IT/OT integration and make it a priority for the overall security of the company’s operations. They need to understand the OT security challenges the same way they navigate IT environments.

They need to bridge IT and OT cybersecurity and develop teams ready to tackle incidents and breaches in both environments. If CISOs fail to get the evolving team mix right, the worst-case scenario following an OT incident might not be limited to delayed production and a financial hit to an organization. It could be as dire as a loss of life. The stakes are that high.

Companies must employ consequence-driven cybersecurity

Companies that successfully responded to incidents or attacks in 2024 discovered the importance of having well-implemented incident response plans. Implementing steps like OT cybersecurity tabletop exercises, at the different levels of the organization, can ensure a team well-prepared to respond when an incident happens.

See also: AI abuse by cyberattackers is a people—not technology—problem

In 2025, more companies need to adopt the consequence-driven model, a proactive approach to security, that aligns OT cybersecurity with high-risk areas, ensuring that resources and investments are aligned to protect the operations of critical infrastructure organizations.

See also: The 2024 Crystal Ball Report