What crazy new technology will blow your mind in 2024? Like me, you’re probably struggling to name anything in a year of seemingly incremental changes in artificial intelligence, robotics, apps, and most other categories of technology. But behind the scenes, big changes are brewing that will reshape the way technology evolves.
in 2025.

The rise of AI agents

You’ve probably already encountered an AI chatbot. It may have directed you to the right section of your bank’s website for more information, or suggested suitable phone plans offered by your mobile carrier.

It’s pretty basic stuff. The next phase involves agentic AI – intelligent robots programmed to undertake tasks on your behalf. If you buy a sweater online and find it too small, an AI agent will arrange collection by mail and replacement without a human customer service representative knowing.

Microsoft and customer relations software publisher Salesforce have already created AI agents. In 2025, we will see them infiltrating the business world. Eventually, you’ll have your own agent, who will manage your calendar and make decisions on your behalf, chatting with other AI agents to save you the low-level admin of life.

Technology goes nuclear

The demanding computing requirements of AI are driving plans by nuclear startups and their Big Tech backers to revive production of small modular reactors (SMRs). These reactors are smaller, safer, more efficient and faster to deploy, and their capacity can be increased as needed. Google has partnered with nuclear startup Kairos Power to buy power from a fleet of reactors that will provide up to 500 megawatts of electricity by 2035. Amazon and Microsoft strike similar deals in nuclear energy.

They all want a more reliable energy supply for their vast data centers than wind and solar farms can offer.

Fusion – the true holy grail of energy production that replicates the reactions that power the sun but lacks the risk of nuclear meltdown associated with nuclear fission reactors like Fukushima and Chernobyl – is attracting more investment than ever.

Wellington-based Open Star is racing to build a small fusion reactor for clean energy production. Our nuclear-free status will likely prevent the development of fission SMRs here, but the AI ​​tools we use will eventually be powered by nuclear energy produced in California.

Hello everyone robotaxi

The most remarkable experience I had in 2024 was the Waymo driverless car rides I took around San Francisco. Sitting in the back of a Jaguar iPace as it drove me home from a bar at 1am, the driver’s seat empty, truly blew my mind.

Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, now safely provides more than 100,000 driverless car trips per week in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix. GM-owned Cruise has resumed testing of driverless cars after an incident in which a pedestrian struck by another car was dragged into a Cruise vehicle. Elon Musk in October unveiled Tesla’s Cybercab, a Waymo rival that doesn’t even have a driver’s seat, much less a steering wheel. Tesla also plans to introduce autonomous “robot taxis” in California and Texas next year using its Model 3 and Model Y cars.

Robotaxis are becoming increasingly common in major Chinese cities and Kiwi entrepreneur Alex Kendall, who raised $1 billion for his autonomous vehicle company Wayve in May, is testing driverless cars in the UK. Technology in development for more than a decade now transports people, although driverless cars are at least five years away from hitting New Zealand’s streets.