This post is part of G2's 2025 digital trends series. Read more about G2’s perspective on digital transformation trends in an introduction from Tim Sanders, VP, research insights, and additional coverage on trends identified by G2’s analysts.
Because of increased pressure to show a return on investment, companies will drive 50% more utilization of purchased AI products in 2025.
According to Alexander Bick, Adam Blandin, and David J. Deming, generative AI has been adopted at a faster pace than PCs or the internet, stating:
“Generative AI has a 39.5% adoption rate after two years, compared with 20% for the internet after two years and 20% for PCs after three years.”
Alexander Bick, Adam Blandin, and David J. Deming
To amplify these efforts and push utilization further, momentum and hype will not cut it. The succeeding businesses with a “prove it NOW” attitude will introduce gamification, L&D, and tutorials to drive utilization.
But how did we get here? Let’s dive in.
The enthusiasm around generative AI has been palpable ever since the rapid growth of our friend, colleague, and mentor, ChatGPT, in late 2022. At G2, we think of the phases of generative AI adoption as coming in three waves.
At this stage, business leaders were in awe of this new technology's capabilities and rapidly adopted this intuitive chat-based interface.
The industry analysts, pundits, and businesses were all in on generative AI, with earnings calls injecting hundreds of references to AI, conferences pivoting to featuring demos of it on the main stage, and ink being bought by the barrel to breathlessly report on how it will transform the future of work.
According to G2’s 2024 Buyer Behavior Report, the C-Suite are excited about the promise of generative AI and are power users of the technology, with 72% of C-suite employees reporting that their organization has a formal ROI goal for its AI investment.
These leaders and their businesses have been rushing full steam ahead to experiment and invest in the uses of this technology, looking to use it for a range of use cases such as:
Businesses are doing so both on standalone platforms like Claude and ChatGPT and in the tools they know and love, such as writing and designing with generative AI features in Canva.
Businesses have invested a pretty penny in software offerings with these capabilities. Bloomberg predicts that generative AI could become a $1.3 trillion market by 2032.
The excitement, however, has turned into skepticism. Large financial institutions, like Goldman Sachs, are asking: Is there too much spending and too little benefit from generative AI? Are we in a bubble?
Here’s what is happening: although businesses have an AI plan and have invested in the technology, their employees aren't utilizing it to deliver business outcomes. Indeed, according to G2 data collected in 2024, around half of the reviewers for generative AI-enabled software products are not utilizing the generative features in their workflows.
As I noted last year, generative features are only as good as the results they drive. And results can only be driven if the software and these generative AI features are utilized for the tasks at hand.
Businesses will be laser-focused on emphasizing how these features improve outcomes, such as improving time to completion or scale of output. Winning strategies include:
Because business leaders need to unlock the potential of this technology NOW, in 2025, they will prioritize turning the lever of utilization.
2023 was the year of WOW with the launch of ChatGPT. 2024 is the year of HOW, where businesses scramble to understand the tech's use cases. 2025 will be the year of NOW, where software buyers focus on utilization across the organization, and software sellers hone their features to align with users' desired outcomes.
Learn about the narrative around AI and law and how global AI regulation is changing.
Edited by Jigmee Bhutia
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