On the heels of ChatGPT’s second anniversary, it seems that generative AI still has hype left in the tank going into 2025.

Despite some signs of faltering business potential this year and some worries about slowing progress in the next, AI bellwether Nvidia and other players in the AI race have continued to see massive growth—though Microsoft’s stock has underperformed the S&P 500 this year—and AI startups like OpenAI, Elon Musk’s xAI, and Anthropic have pulled in monster investments this quarter.

With plenty of predictions flying around about what the next year in the technology’s evolution holds, we talked to some experts and looked for themes. What’s clear from these conversations is that many in the space expect generative AI to look a bit different next year—more dedicated agents that can perform tasks beyond the scope of chatbots, as well as more specialized LLMs. Experts expect private data caches to become more valuable, and overall costs to come down. Meanwhile, human oversight and safeguards could become more important.

Agents, agents everywhere: Talk of agents as the next big era of GenAI advancement has been percolating all year, but this trend reached new heights in recent months as Salesforce rebranded its Copilot product as Agentforce, Microsoft rolled out its agent studio, and other enterprise companies offered up agent builders.

“You have all manner of agents. SAP has theirs, and I think ServiceNow has theirs, and people are just announcing agents left, right, and center,” Babak Hodjat, CTO of AI at Cognizant, told Tech Brew.

Keep reading here.—PK

As temperatures rise, so do electricity bills. In two coastal states, buildings that are heated and cooled by renewable and recycled energy systems could lower tenant electricity bills significantly.

Such buildings and communities are popping up all over the country in areas where geothermal and solar energy is readily available. Others could be connected to AI data centers, recycling the electrons initially used to power computer systems.

Florida: In the Sunshine State, tenants in Orlando are getting heating and cooling from above and below. Novo Avian Pointe, a development from Taurus Investment Holdings with 276 rental units, is positioned above the Floridan aquifer system. EcoSmart Solution, a green energy services provider, designed a geothermal heating system that uses water from the aquifer to heat and cool the development, which opened in June. It also houses solar panels on its roofs to soak up the Florida sun.

EcoSmart Solution CEO Chris Gray told Tech Brew that the company drilled wells into the aquifer, which pull water above ground. Then, the water goes into heat exchangers and back into the aquifer.

“So we’re not using any of the water. We’re not disturbing the balance of that aquifer,” Gray said. “We’re just simply doing heat exchange.”

Keep reading here.—TC

Goodbye, clean-girl minimalism. Hello, AI-inspired futurism.

As marketers work on crafting their 2025 campaigns, the simplicity of the past year’s design styles might just give way to more futuristic aesthetics, Adobe predicts in its 2025 Creative Trends Report. While the company broke down its design trend findings into four categories—Fantastic Frontiers, Levity and Laughter, Time Warp, and Immersive Appeal—all four are united by the undeniable influence of AI.

“This is the year that using AI to push the boundaries of creativity has cemented itself as a scaling trend,” Claude Alexandre, VP of digital media, B2B product, and campaign marketing at Adobe, said in the report’s foreword. “AI is already having a profound effect on the output of businesses, brands, and creatives, from design and video to animation and marketing.”

AI’s artistic effect: So how exactly will AI appear in creative campaigns? Adobe’s report suggests that more brands will show off product images “against ethereal backdrops,” creating an “otherworldly” experience around their products.

Keep reading here.—JN

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Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

All together now: The Washington Post invited seven writers to describe their group chats, and it’s just lovely and reminds us that while tech can be a dangerous annoyance riddled with problems for people of all ages and society at large, there are always things to be grateful for in our technological lives, and group chats are at the top of the list.

As the year comes to a close, we suppose we don’t need to remind you to check in on your group chats—by now, you’ve possibly sent Wordle scores, pet photos, and ex-husband gripes—but just in case there’s one that got away from you, here’s a directive: Check in.