The digital economy: 2025 outlooks for digital assets, cyber risk, and artificial intelligence

Executive Summary

Credit risks are set to rise as cyber attackers target larger companies, digital finance will gain further traction among financial institutions that seek operational and cost efficiencies, and advancements in AI capabilities will lead to better, more user-friendly products and deeper business integration. 

Listen to the podcast and explore our 2025 digital economy outlooks:

» Artificial intelligence. Scaling of AI foundation models by feeding them ever more data is slowing and across many major AI research labs model performance is converging. Over 2025, model builders will increasingly compete on new capabilities and product features. This will make the technology more user-friendly and unlock more use-cases. Nevertheless, we still believe ­most of the positive effects will take another few years to appear. This year will bring advancements in autonomous AI agents, able to plan, execute and adapt tasks with little human intervention.

» Digital assets. In the coming years, digital finance will gain further traction among financial institutions that seek operational and cost efficiencies through blockchain and want to expand into new asset classes. These heavily regulated firms will likely need to focus on quantifying and managing risks associated with blockchain-based platforms. In 2025, institutions will likely focus on tokenization of real world assets (RWAs), although developing viable new uses for RWAs will largely hinge on successful integration of digital currencies. A few traditional financial firms are still expanding their crypto trading and custody services, but are taking a cautious approach.

» Cyber risk. Cyber risk will intensify next year as attackers switch tactics in response to better corporate cyber defenses and as advances in artificial intelligence increase the volume and sophistication of their strikes. The incoming administration will likely scale back cyber defense regulations in the US, while a new UN treaty on cyber crime will strengthen the global fight against this threat.