Thoughtworks, a global technology consultancy integrating strategy, design and engineering to drive digital innovation, today released the fifth edition of Looking Glass, a report designed to help companies navigate industry shifts and identify new opportunities for growth. The report features five chapters, which the company calls ‘lenses’; each one is designed to help readers better analyze today’s most important technology trends.

“While the 2024 edition of the Looking Glass flagged the ubiquity of AI following a year of hype and mainstream interest, in this edition we’ve foregrounded the very real — if often overlooked — challenge of actually operationalizing AI effectively,” said Rachel Laycock, Chief Technology Officer, Thoughtworks. “In other words, as AI has come to dominate industry conversation, the hard work of modernizing data platforms and leveraging responsible practices to derive real long-term value from AI initiatives becomes more urgent.”

The five lenses in Looking Glass 2025 are:

• Operationalizing AI for business impact. While the mainstreaming of AI — and generative AI in particular — hasn’t slowed, what has become clearer is that successfully operationalizing AI models and bringing them to production remains challenging.
• Strengthening the data value chain by leveraging data platforms and AI. The idea that data is the lifeblood of a business is a well-worn truism. What isn’t a truism is constructing and optimizing the architecture and technologies needed to make that data value chain secure and effective.
• Reimagining responsible tech for the era of generative AI. As the world seeks to operationalize AI, thinking through the implications of such technology and questions of risk and accountability are critical. This means the issue of responsible tech must take on renewed urgency.
• Enabling richer experiences through multimodal interactions. The ways humans can interact with products and services is becoming more sophisticated thanks to innovations in AI. However, today businesses need to think about building multimodal interactions that are context specific.
• Unlocking greater value from physical-digital convergence: The convergence of physical and digital is now almost business-as-usual. The implications extend beyond smart refrigerators and consumer wearables. It does, in fact, hold significant potential for the ways businesses think about logistics, supply chain management and maintenance.

Thoughtworks’ Looking Glass is updated on an annual basis to keep pace with the constant shifts in technology possibilities and business priorities. Visit thoughtworks.com/insights/business to stay up to date with the latest business and industry insights for digital leaders.

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About Thoughtworks

Thoughtworks is a global technology consultancy that integrates strategy, design and engineering to drive digital innovation. We are over 10,000 Thoughtworkers strong across 48 offices in 19 countries. For 30+ years, we’ve delivered extraordinary impact together with our clients by helping them solve complex business problems with technology as the differentiator.

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