Corporate and entrepreneurial efforts to exploit the enormous power of artificial intelligence in 2025 will be stacked against government and regulatory measures to control it, observers believe.

There are already warnings of a slew of AI changes coming this year.

They include the increasing usefulness of AI agents, computer programmes that can think, learn and act autonomously; intelligent systems performing specific tasks without human intervention.

Other trends differentiating 2025 from the past include AI as a competitive advantage – those that have functioning AI strategies will be able to press that advantage over the have-nots.

Other expected changes include a substantial increase in AI cost implementation and easier integration of AI with robots.

But simultaneously, there are more moves expected to adopt tough AI regulations, even as there will be mergers among generative AI providers to ensure they remain competitive.

Forbes magazine points to the view of Julia McCoy, founder of hybrid AI tech consultancy, First Movers, that her AI clients, having already seen incredible gains, are at a distinct advantage over their competitors.

She stated: “Companies that successfully implement AI-led processes will be able to reduce their workforces by 95 per cent-plus, while maintaining or increasing output.

“We'll see examples of $100 million-plus companies operating with just two or three people assisted by agentic AI systems. This represents a fundamental reshaping of how businesses operate and where value accrues.”

On the sharing online platform, Medium, Ms McCoy recently wrote of her incredible story of moving from being an AI naysayer to an AI adapter. Today, she “lives, breathes, eats and sleeps AI adaptation”.

In recent weeks alone, she has begun actively building and taking on consultancy clients who want to build custom AI-led processes to automate sales and marketing.

She wrote of her firm: “It’s going to solve a huge gap that I believe exists today in AI.

“Because successfully 25’xing and automating your marketing isn’t found by just blindly adding more tools or tossing them at your team.

“It’s found in that rich, grey area between the AI tools and the goals. It’s found in how you connect both.

“There are innovators [First Movers] that have come up with insane ways to automate pretty much everything.

“I talked to the owner of four $100m businesses on Sunday night, on the phone. He had successfully automated over 80 roles down to a few AI agents and customised chatbots.

“Hearing him talk, I knew we were looking at the future of work. It’s here already. Most just don’t realise it and aren’t tapping into it.

“We have big obstacles in enterprise adaptation – misuse and misapplication of AI – but once we streamline the use cases with the tools, and simply adding to that the exponential nature of how this is growing at unprecedented rates of acceleration, I believe we will solve all of that.”

Her enthusiasm over AI’s potential can also be found elsewhere.

Forbes quoted internationally recognised AI business consultant, Ben Torben-Nielsen, who has two machine learning patents. He commented: “To solve a business problem, managers need a dozen tools stitched together. Apart from coding, there is little integration of generative AI into any other workflow.

“Agentic AI, especially combined with smaller language models, offers a solution by letting AI actually use those tools. This is where the real potential lies.”

He said: “Ignoring AI might put your company out of business. We saw a similar wave of closures when companies did not adopt e-commerce. It will happen with AI, as well.

“While not an immediate extinction, failing to plan for AI now creates issues down the line. As PwC wrote: ‘Your AI strategy will put you ahead – or make it hard to ever catch up’.”

He believes the cost of AI is set to rise, and that many companies will be caught out.

Experts believe that AI will expand outside of its existing desktop and mobile devices, tackling far more complex challenges, such as wearables, being tactile and present.

They will progress and integrate diverse types of text, images, audio and video, and achieve more human-like interactions and revolutionise applications in fields such as education, healthcare and entertainment.

But a regulatory crackdown will eventually be needed.

Ahmed Banafa, a technology expert and engineering professor at San Jose State University said: “Global AI regulations will become more stringent, emphasising transparency, ethical use, and accountability.

“The need to address biases, data privacy and the potential for misuse will compel companies to prioritise compliance alongside responsible innovation. This may somewhat slow unregulated progress but will ultimately ensure safer and more trustworthy AI applications.”

Google Cloud says large language models work by using a massive amount of text data to train a neural network.

This neural network is then used to generate text, translate text, or perform other tasks. The more data that is used to train the neural network, the better and more accurate it will be at performing its task.

Professor Banafa concluded: “Currently, training and running large language models requires huge investment in expertise, data collection and computer.

“To become profitable, many AI labs will transition from being pure LLMs providers to offering software solutions that directly serve end users.

“This transformation will probably lead to market consolidation, with a few major AI research companies dominating the field.”

Forbes reported the Eduardo Ordax prediction that AI agents could quickly triple certain gains already realised from large language models

He also referenced the likelihood of shifting business models and potential mergers among generative AI providers to remain competitive themselves.