Our report, “The Top 10 Emerging Technologies In 2025,” drops April 29, and this year’s list features big changes. Two longtime list members are stepping back, and two fast-moving entrants will be moving onto the list — including one surprise that wasn’t even on our radar last year until we did the research.

These shifts reflect more than changing buzz. They show how client energy, vendor activity, and what we call the AI effect — the rapid spread of AI into everything, everywhere — are reshaping the technology landscape.

By publishing earlier than usual this year, we’re giving tech leaders time to absorb the insights, explore strategic implications with us over the summer, and benchmark against the flurry of fall announcements and events.

What’s Changing — And Why It Matters

Forrester’s annual emerging technologies report identifies the technologies with the most potential to deliver business value in short-, mid-, and long-term horizons. In 2025, we see a clear shift toward AI-adjacent innovation. That’s why we’ve moved two technologies from the top 10 to the next 10:

  • Extended reality (XR) steps aside after years in the top 10. The collapse of metaverse hype and slow progress in consumer-friendly form factors have cooled enterprise interest — for now. But XR still holds promise, and a major breakthrough could bring it back.
  • Zero Trust edge (ZTE) also shifts to the next 10. To reflect market alignment, we’ve adopted the more familiar Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) label. The technology remains important — particularly for security — but it’s no longer one of the top 10.

Taking their place will be two fast-rising contenders. The first was once a niche technique but is now vital for training and fine-tuning AI models where real data is scarce or sensitive. It’s powerful — and controversial. Expect more from us soon on its use, risks, and policy implications. The other brings images of science fiction — but thanks to breakthroughs in language models, computer vision, sensing, and declining hardware costs, it’s fast approaching real-world use in manufacturing, logistics, and service jobs.

A Comprehensive Emerging Technology Research Experience

We’ve expanded well beyond the report. Our emerging technology research portfolio now helps Forrester Decisions clients engage in deeper, more flexible ways:

  • An interactive top 20 experience: Explore each technology’s maturity, impact, and value in an intuitive digital format.
  • In-depth coverage of our top 20: We publish “State Of” and some “Future Of” reports for our top emerging technologies. In addition, we go even further in some cases with “Architect’s Guides” to satisfy our technology architects’ and developers’ desire for detail.
  • Izola, our genAI assistant: Ask questions, extract summaries, or explore implications directly within the research using Izola, now embedded in our emerging tech content.
  • Strategic guidance covering the top 75 technologies: I regularly deliver custom guidance sessions that go beyond the top 10 — and offer emerging tech briefings to executive teams across industries.

Don’t Miss The Debut

This year’s launch gives you a head start on 2026 strategy. Here’s how to engage:

  • April 29: Forrester clients get access to “The Top 10 Emerging Technologies In 2025” report.
  • May 21: Join our public webinar to hear my first formal presentation of this year’s list.
  • June 23–26: I’ll present deep-dive sessions at CX Summit North America on how emerging technologies are dissolving the barriers between companies and their customers.

Curious about what will reshape your business in the decade ahead? This is where to start — and we’re here to help you turn signal into strategy.