If you ask me, 2025 was the year AI finally sobered up. The real momentum came from purpose-built models, cleaner data, and agents that actually understand processes. Forget hype—progress showed up in practical wins, sharper workflows, and AI stepping into its role as a true co-pilot.
Looking back, 2025 was the year AI got serious. Organizations realized the “prompt-and-pray” approach with LLMs wasn’t enterprise-ready and shifted toward combining generative AI with other AI technologies for better outcomes. Many understood that thoughtful autonomy and trust are more critical than forcing a single technology into solutions. These lessons will continue to shape AI implementations in the coming year.
For me, 2025 reinforced that AI only works when aspiration meets reality. GenAI hype is cooling as enterprises double down on data readiness, ROI clarity, and governance. And with agentic systems evolving into real digital coworkers, powered by LLMs, Document AI, and Process Intelligence, AI is finally starting to transform work in meaningful, durable ways.
Here’s what stood out to me: progress comes from pragmatism. Digital twins became accessible; small language models outperformed their oversized cousins, and agentic AI drove measurable gains. But governance tied it all together—ensuring scalable impact through disciplined oversight, smart architecture, and trust embedded across every workflow.
As we look to the year ahead, the trends of 2025 are set to accelerate and mature.
The move away from one-size-fits-all LLMs will continue. Expect to see wider adoption of purpose-built models designed for specific, high-value enterprise tasks where accuracy and cost-efficiency are paramount.
AI governance will transition from a best practice to a business necessity. Organizations that successfully embed transparency, security, and ethical principles into their AI frameworks will gain a significant competitive advantage and build lasting user trust.
The focus for agentic AI will shift from pilots to production. The challenge will be to build and deploy agents that are not only autonomous but also collaborative, reliable, and fully integrated into core business processes.
The future of work isn't about replacement, but empowerment. The most successful AI strategies will be those that amplify human potential, leveraging AI as an intelligent companion to help people and teams work smarter.
With service to nearly 60,000 patients every year, Chris O’Brien Lifehouse is one of Australia’s leading cancer treatment and research facilities. To offer an even higher patient experience, the facility adopted ABBYY IDP—thereby eliminating 80% of paper records and enabling faster access to patients’ complete medical histories.
In this article, you’ll meet three members of that team — Michelle Yurovsky, Beth Thomas, and Dallas James — who share insights into the strategies that have shaped their success and what leadership means to them.
Financial statements are often provided in PDF or paper format, so many companies can benefit from the automation of data entry demonstrated in this case study.
Documents are still the dark matter of business - full of untapped knowledge that drives decisions but often remains invisible to automation. Morgan Conque, VP of GTM Strategy at Ashling joins Maxime Vermeir and Dr. Marlene Wolfgruber to explore how a Hybrid approach to AI — the fusion of Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and Large Language Models (LLMs) — is finally bringing that hidden information to light.
This expert-led session moves beyond the hype to provide a clear decision framework for applying AI to your document workflows. We will equip you with the insights to determine when to use Large Language Models (LLMs), when to rely on purpose-built Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), and how to combine them for maximum business value.
See how to fill the gaps in traditional process mining and fix process issues before they turn into problems.
