From avatars to cinema, Jonathan McCrea predicts many AI returns in the new year.
It has been quite the year for AI (and consequently for me). I’ve spent the last 12 months talking a lot about the developments in the world of artificial intelligence (some would say too much). I’ve interviewed ‘godfathers’ of AI on the world stage in Amsterdam, delivered training to global SaaS companies in Boston and hosted dozens of technology and AI events around the country. I’ve consulted on AI start-ups, opined with great self-importance on LinkedIn and yes, even in this column right here.
As a result, I’ve noticed a few pretty clear trends emerging and although technology journalism is littered with the corpses of those who made tech predictions, I thought I’d share five wild ideas before we wrap up this column for 2025, just for the craic.
Security over shiny
It seems that Microsoft’s bet that Irish businesses prefer security over shiny things has paid off. I imagine it will grow their share of the Irish LLM market next year if they can only find a way to properly integrate Office and make their Copilot Chat just a tiny bit less awful. Although the pace of innovation at Microsoft has been glacial compared to OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, all of the conversations I have with Irish clients are along the same lines – leaders don’t trust AI generally, they aren’t willing to risk data breaches and see the provision of third party AIs to their employees as too big a risk.
While Copilot has improved a lot in a year (it had a very low baseline), it has a very long way to go to compete with its rivals, but it seems that businesses are simply willing to wait. Anecdotal evidence: most of our in-house training queries are for Copilot these days.
AI coming to a cinema near you
I think we will pass the ‘Turing test’ for video by the end of next year. It’s not controversial to say that we have already passed the benchmark for photo generation. Using a cutting-edge model – prompted carefully – you can create images that would pass the sniff test for authenticity for any non-expert.
Google Labs’s Imagen 4 model (not available directly in Ireland) is capable of extraordinarily realistic human imagery. But while video generation using models such as Kling, Veo 3 and Sora 2 has yielded some jaw-dropping moving imagery, precise control of the output remains elusive. The prize is huge and a model that gives us realistic, affordable and predictable video content could precipitate the world’s first AI-generated blockbuster by 2027, if the public could stomach the idea.
Scroll for an avatar influencer
I hope I’m wrong, but I think avatar-based advertising campaigns are about to explode across our social media channels. It’s now pretty easy to create a digital clone and companies such as HeyGen are close to perfecting an end-to-end marketing package for FMCGs, where a single prompt will script and generate compelling social content with an AI influencer of your design – all you have to do is upload a few pictures of your product and a website URL. If you have a big enough reach, you can A/B test your way to a winning ad for a hundredth of the cost of shooting with a real camera.
Does it matter if the influencer on the box isn’t actually a real person? Possibly not. Survey data from quantumrun.com shows 90.9pc of consumers are comfortable with brands using AI-generated videos. And are the real influencers any more real, really? Time will tell.
Pass the chips
Will a major AI player cash in the chips next year? I’m no economist, but surely the insane amount of money spent on developing essentially the same product under five different names has to run out at some point (right, Elon?). And while Google, OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic and X vie for supremacy in the AI arms race, there are a number of other unicorns wrapped up in the dream of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – these will surely have to make good on investor promises soon.
All I want for Christmas is … less AI slop
Finally, I think we will almost certainly see a good few more cases of high-profile companies and public bodies getting AI horribly wrong to comic effect. There have been a few high-profile clangers this year, from big-ticket consulting companies having to confess to using AI slop to McDonald’s wojus Christmas ad that was bullied off the internet within hours.
Public tolerance to these sorts of shenanigans will be sorely tested over the next 12 months, mark my words.
If, like me, you are sick to the teeth of AI comments on AI opinion pieces on AI companies on LinkedIn, 2026 is going to be like nails on a chalkboard.
All that being said, I think we’ll also see some really beautiful and bold ideas emerge as creatives start to master this emerging suite of tools.
Expect hyper-personalisation and frictionless experiences across every touchpoint of the digital experience that will feel like an enormous weight being lifted.
A dystopic utopia or a utopian dystopia? One way or another, 2026 is going to be an interesting year.
For more information about Jonathan McCrea’s Get Started with AI, click here.
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