10 Most Important Technologies That Will Shape Our Future

Use AI Wisely!
January 15, 2025

MIT Technology Review regularly compiles its forecasts: Which technologies will have a major impact on our world in the coming decades? These are the results.

Vera C. Rubin Observatory

This year, the world’s largest digital camera will go into operation at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. The camera, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), will begin a ten-year study of the southern sky. It will take continuous photos for years to come to help astronomers research dark matter, the Milky Way and other cosmic mysteries. A clear case for far-reaching innovation.

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Generative AI Search

Generative AI search promises to make finding what you’re looking for easy and fast. When you type in a search query, an AI model aggregates information from many online sources to provide a unique answer. On your device, it can search through documents, photos, and videos, and recognize objects and people so you can find them faster.

Generative AI search could herald the end of traditional search engines and the rise of AI personal assistants, so this development definitely belongs on our tech list.

Small Language Models

Large language models can do amazing things because they’re stuffed with hundreds of billions – even trillions – of parameters (the values that determine their behavior) and trained on most of the data on the internet.

But cheaper and less power-hungry small language models can now keep up with the heavyweights on a number of specific tasks. So make way, dinosaurs! The future belongs to smaller, nimbler animals.

Robotaxis

Sure, small mishaps are bound to happen: One time, a Waymo robotaxis circled around a parking lot or a roundabout for minutes. Another time, there were nightly honking concerts. But these examples show that after years of beta testing, autonomous robo-vehicles have arrived in the public eye.

In more than a dozen cities around the world, passengers can call one at any time. Now the biggest players are preparing for intense competition by expanding into new cities under the watchful eyes of regulators. We are excited and optimistic that this will open up a new mobility sector.

Clean jet fuel

Climate-friendly and still flying: new fuels are intended to resolve these apparent contradictions. Based on used cooking oil, industrial waste or even gases, fossil fuels for aircraft are set to become obsolete. Researchers and entrepreneurs have been working on this for years, but now they are becoming big business: factories are springing up to manufacture them and new government mandates are mandating their use. So, with momentum on our tech list!

Fast-learning robots

Thanks to today’s boom in generative AI, robots are learning new tasks faster than ever before. Today’s vending machines are no flash in the pan – we are moving toward general-purpose robots that can be brought into new environments and perform a variety of tasks on our behalf almost instantly. So the days of us doing our own laundry are numbered.

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Long-acting HIV prevention drugs

A study of a new HIV prevention drug found that 100 percent of women and girls treated were protected from HIV infection. And it only needs to be injected once every six months. The drug could help us defeat AIDS once and for all – if we can ensure access for those who need it. The signs point to hope!

Green steel

Steelmaking is one of the largest industrial sources of carbon dioxide. It emits more carbon dioxide than all of India (the world’s third largest emitter) and far more than air travel. The first industrial green steel plant using hydrogen from renewable energy is being built by Stegra, a $7 billion startup that is due to open in northern Sweden next year. This could be the beginning of a green built world.

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Effective stem cell therapies

Stem cells from human embryos will cure diseases. That is the great promise scientists made decades ago. Experimental transplants of cells made in the lab now appear to help treat two very different diseases – epilepsy and type 1 diabetes. Now, we are sure, the promise is finally being fulfilled.

Will our predictions be right? Let’s talk about this again in five to ten years.

Author Profile

Julie Gabriel

Julie Gabriel wears many hats—founder of Eyre.ai, product marketing veteran, and, most importantly, mom of two. At Eyre.ai, she’s on a mission to make communication smarter and more seamless with AI-powered tools that actually work for people (and not the other way around). With over 20 years in product marketing, Julie knows how to build solutions that not only solve problems but also resonate with users. Balancing the chaos of entrepreneurship and family life is her superpower—and she wouldn’t have it any other way.