# Tech Predictions for 2025 - 2030 *Estimating that over 50% of these will come true* By [Sam Cheng](https://paragraph.com/@samcheng) ยท 2025-03-20 --- Here are some of my predictions for the next half decade. Note: If quantum hits us between this time period (which is more likely than not), all these predictions probably go out the window - might write another set of predictions for that scenario. Regarding AGI, I believe current AI already affects the world close enough how AGI would; the world just needs to rebuild tech to be centered around it. 1. **Robotics** * **Humanoid robots will take longer than 2030 to be materially adopted.** Not necessarily because Moravec's Paradox and tech constraints. But rather, the usability, legality, and pushback from laborers/unions on companies like Figure and Tesla will come hard. People don't want to lose their jobs and the robots look too dystopian to implement and scale. * **Smaller bots and droids will be all around us and way more useful than they are today, and you will talk to them.** Some categories I see blowing up: * **A pet robot will hit the mainstream market.** A new player will disrupt this space with the elements of all of the following references: Sony's Aibo for tech, Disney's robots for manueverability, Popmart Lalabu for character design. Cute is selling more than ever, and this is the next iteration. * **Your Amazon Prime deliveries will be done by air and your Uber Eats deliveries done by rover.** Zipline, Skydio, etc - one of these will win and become the norm. 2. **Web 3 / Blockchain** * **Crypto will feel less like the Wild West as Trad-fi capital enters after policy around stablecoins and digital currencies mature.** Many users will also grow older and (perhaps) more risk adverse. * **Stablecoin usage with remittances** as well as Generation Z starting to get real salaries will drive the onramp to crypto. 3. **XR : Metaverse / AR / VR** * **At least one major metaverse will emerge and have thousands investing their time in it.** News from our reality will be split between it and ours. The bleaker our reality gets, the higher the probability this becomes. Could come from a crypto world - ie. Sandbox, the Otherside. Could come from Roblox extending. Could come from Meta or Apple. My bet is that it comes from a startup that gets all the ingredients right: in world economy, property, exchange rate set up, realistic Avatars, lands to explore and claim, and resources that have value IRL (either social value or advertising value) * **The workplace drives XR adoption.** A future iteration of the Vision Pro will replace laptops at work. A key barrier to this are the obvious cost and weight, but also usability (Vision Pro's keyboard is not up to par yet) and apps. * **Something like** [**Google Starline**](https://blog.google/technology/research/project-starline/) will become mainstream - imagine a couple of rooms in every building complex dedicated to these pay per minute ultra realistic video calls. 4. **Entertainment and Sports** * **The first full AI generated movie will be released (but it won't take over Netflix yet).** Runway already has a partnership with a major studio, [Lionsgate](https://runwayml.com/news/runway-partners-with-lionsgate). * **A new major sport will be invented, possibly with the involvement of fans being an integral part of the game.** Sports and mainstream entertainment are becoming more similar than they are different, especially with sports betting, popular shows like Squid Game, * **TV and movie celebrities will not be replaced by streamers and influencers.** Look at the popularity of stars like Sabrina Carpenter and Chapell Roan, even with younger crowds. 'Brain rot' is at a peak and my more extreme prediction is that we are also at peak streamer and influencer culture - they will be taken over as high quality AI generated entertainment starts to enter the market. 5. **Space** * **The ongoing space race 2.0 between corporations will slowly capture media headlines as progress accelerates. By the end of the decade, space becomes the dominant narrative eclipsing crypto, ESG, and even AI.** Why? 1. Nationalism is rising and China's space program aims to land on the moon by 2029, the US Artemis program by 2028. Blue Origin is catching up to Space X, Sierra Space is developing space planes, Varda is leading manufacturing in space, and Space X progressing steadily. Rocket Labs is underrated as the vertical all things space consultant and should continue to become more and more relevant. * **Space tourism will be a flop until commercial missions start happening every other day** - the less than uber rich don't want to go to space, they want comfort and luxury * **Space won't scale fully until AI co-pilots emerge to support space technologies.** As much as companies like SpaceX have embraced failure, we may not have the capital or time to keep retooling after each exploded rocket. Imagine if our ship gets to Mars and then explodes. Then imagine if that happens again. Then imagine if that happens yet another time. Just like how Musk said space won't be achievable until reusable boosters. Like TARS from Interstellar 6. **BioTech / Medicine** * Not a field that I know too much about, but I believe **healthcare will be the** **most transformed industries** once startups applying AI in this sector gain traction and pass regulations to be implemented on a wide scale. The healthcare and hospital system is so inefficient and inaccurate, from the time it takes doctors to be trained, to diagnosis, to treatment, to payment and insurance and claims. * We see the **first AI doctor capable of accurate diagnosis**. Will start in a specialized field that can be easier implemented (ie. dermatology). Won't replace doctors but will put less pressure on them. * **Personalized supplements will become popular before personalized medicine.** The first moving D2C startup will probably capture the market long term, as churn will be low (no one will want to get tested again with another service). 7. **Education and Parenting** * **Universities will not start dying - we will actually see students getting smarter as they learn more efficiently with AI.** I don't believe AI makes people dumber - ChatGPT is literally a TA with 24/7 office hours. * **Khan Academy-like videos are AI-generated for any topic**, breaking concepts down to any level (ie. 5th grade, college freshman level) * **Parents and children will start interacting through a new app** - I foresee a unicorn in this category. Kid's tech is a blue ocean currently with many sub-sectors still up for grabs. **Addendum:** **There are times where the near future is easy to predict, but there are also times where things become hard to predict.** Things are easier to predict after big breakthroughs, as companies scramble to apply the breakthrough technology and focus on mass production and improvements of the tech. A prime example of this is the smartphone - the newest iPhone is often seen as the benchmark for innovation, and its changes have become incremental and easy to predict. In the last 5 years or so, there have also been less predictable innovations: * AirPods - shocked everyone with its design and faced a mixed initial reaction, but has quietly transformed the earphones market for good. * ChatGPT - our human brains perceive it as magic. I believe it is close enough to AGI that everyone already has a feeling that once we develop everything around AGI, our world will completely be changed everything. * Ozempic - the 'miracle drug' has given us a taste of how possible it is to change our physical bodies as easily as we manipulate software. Harbinger of a biotech wave that will come (I believe post-2030). **2025 marks the end of the last paradigm**, defined by social media 1.0 (Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram), the smartphone, the Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Bezos era. Things are shifting into a new paradigm, where the next generation of entrepreneurs will rise alongside AI. One special thing I think we will see in this new paradigm is that a large group of people will not care about nor want to adopt new tech. The Chasm as depicted below will be harder to cross. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/68d956e46bf553a1ba99db19733418a1.png) Why? Because people don't necessarily want to use what they don't understand, and most people are tech illiterate. As 1) tech becomes more and more complicated 2) we become more and more dependent on AI to parse and understand tech, very few people will be inclined to actually be truly tech literate. **Because of this, most of the developed world will cap at a certain level in terms of new technological adoption. In 2025-2030, the developing world will the regions to monitor as they come online for the first time.** Coming into the modern world with tech today will be very different than how the developed world first learned how to use tech - some unpredictable innovation could come from these individuals. **Lastly, a key risk here is that we build so much complex tech that it cannot fix itself nor do we understand it to fix it.** I believe it is close to inevitable, and we will have to think about how likely this is and how to deal with it. --- *Originally published on [Sam Cheng](https://paragraph.com/@samcheng/tech-predictions-for-2025-2030)*