This time of the year is synonymous with plans and resolutions to improve and grow, both personally and professionally.
It’s a time when business leaders try to stay ahead of the curve by pre-empting trends so that they make informed decisions with strategies to improve their competitiveness and enjoy more success.
Of course, the world is undergoing rapid transformation where businesses are forced to find innovative and successful ways of collaborating and communicating with their increasingly digitally savvy customers who have more choice than ever before.
We have the benefit of the rise in intelligent agents to make our lives more effective and easier whereby we give the AI agents objectives, or prompts, to achieve, which – if done at scale effectively – could change the environment in which we work and improve the bottom line.
With this in mind, it is worthwhile noting the key trends that will be driving business communication in 2025 and beyond, so that organisations can make the right decisions on where to invest and which partners to engage.
The rise of AI
A recent McKinsey survey created a useful snapshot of the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Steering clear of overhyping AI, it is helpful to appreciate that there has been significant adoption globally in the past year, from about 50% uptake previously to 72% in 2024.
The highest adoption rate is seen in the professional services sector, and the functions that are seeing the most value from AI adoption are marketing and sales, and product and service development. Businesses are now spending 6% of their digital budgets on AI initiatives.
Yet across functions, only two use cases, both within marketing and sales, are reported by 15% or more of respondents.
Organisations are still early in the journey of pursuing its opportunities and scaling it across functions and only 5% of respondents could attribute an increase in EBIT due to the implementation of generative AI.
AI is engaged with in three main ways, organisations that use existing solutions as is, those who customise AI tools with their own data and systems, and those that develop their own tools. Looking ahead, the leaders across industries will rely on both off-the-shelf solutions and tools that are adapted and shaped specifically to their unique needs.
We are entering an age where winning organisations build ecosystems that blend proprietary, off-the-shelf and open-source models.
However, one of the main trends going forward is not just going to be the adoption of AI technologies, but governance around how it is deployed across organisations.
Successful organisations will develop clear strategies and processes that protect them from inherent risks, while unlocking the technology’s power in enhancing and augmenting systems and human capabilities.
This is the opposite of AI-washing, so to speak, and represents a pragmatic and strategic approach to leveraging technology.
This means businesses will need to prioritise data privacy and ensure their use of AI aligns with regulations such as GDPR, POPIA and (NPDA in Nigeria).
Ethical concerns around AI, including biases, transparency and accountability, need to become central to AI implementation.
AI-enhanced customer engagement and automation
Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in driving customer and staff engagement by automating routine tasks and enhancing personalisation. Tools such as virtual assistants and chat bots enable businesses to handle inquiries more efficiently.
They are being deployed not just for reactive customer service but also for proactive engagement, where anticipating customer needs improves service speed and accuracy, all the while appreciating the functionality of seamlessly switching to human engagement for complex issues.
In addition to this, natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning enable AI tools to better interpret and respond to customer conversational queries.
Generative AI enables businesses to produce content at scale, which drives efficiency not only in customer engagement, but also in marketing and product or services design. Deploying the technology smartly frees up employees to focus on strategic tasks and decision-making.
Rise of UCaaS and CCaaS
By now everyone appreciates that communication tools need to be integrated seamlessly. As such, 2025 – and beyond – will see a marked increase in demand for cloud unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and contact centre as a service (CCaaS).
By engaging in these services, and by working with partners who are able to seamlessly integrate with other critical applications, such as CRM, ERP and project management systems, businesses will see a marked improvement in efficient workflow, customer and employee satisfaction and improved productivity.
A shift to multimodal communication
The shift away from voice-based to a multimodal communication ecosystem has been happening for a number of years and is expected to accelerate.
Factors driving this include a distributed workforce and changing communication preferences of both employees and customers. Voice remains important, but 2025 will see more asynchronous and visual communication.
Email, instant messaging, project management platforms and video conferencing are already replacing traditional voice calls and offering more options, as well as flexibility, for remote and hybrid teams.
In addition to this, it gives businesses the flexibility to offer customers a choice of different means of communication depending on the complexity of their queries.
The rise of self-service and automation
Self-service and automation have been around for a while, but – driven by customer demand – in 2025 and beyond we will see a massive increase in areas such as proactive self-service, where businesses create comprehensive knowledge bases and resources that empower their customers to find the answers to their problems independently.
More companies will integrate self-service functionality directly into their product interfaces for instant access.
This will be supported by AI-powered tools that will speed up responses and minimise manual processing time.
Community support is a rapidly growing trend, where customers share experiences and ask and answer their own questions.
Finally, personalisation and collecting real-time feedback will enable businesses to make targeted interventions to ensure a good customer experience.
