When we hear the word “technology,” most of us automatically think of hardware; the physical devices that have become such a conspicuously present part of many of our day-to-day lives. But technology is a much more expansive phenomenon, encompassing not only all the various tools and gadgets we can clearly see, but also a vast and mostly invisible digital infrastructure of software and code upon which our modern world is based.
When trying to understand technological change, therefore, it’s important to keep its multifaceted nature in mind: tech isn’t a single, homogenous thing, but rather an interplay of many different forces, some of them starkly visible, others less so. In that spirit, consulting firm McKinsey publishes a Technology Trends Outlook report each year highlighting some of the technologies that are having an outsized impact in business and commerce.
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In the firm’s latest report, published Tuesday, artificial intelligence ranked at the top of the list (for a number of reasons, which we’ll get into below). But there were several other tech trends also included, which might surprise you — immersive-reality headsets, for example. (Remember the metaverse, anyone?)
Here are the 13 technological trends included in the report, which, according to McKinsey, “are driving innovation and addressing critical challenges across sectors.”
Agentic AI
Again, few readers will be shocked that this made the top of the list. AI agents — systems that leverage foundation models to perform multi-step tasks on behalf of human users — have become something of an obsession in Silicon Valley, with nearly every major tech developer rolling out their own agentic tools in the past year or so. (Agents were also highlighted in market research firm Forrester’s Top 10 Technologies for 2025 report in May.) Job postings for agent-related roles surged by a staggering 985% between 2023 and 2024, according to the report.
Artificial intelligence
In second place in McKinsey’s new report are AI systems broadly, which the firm describes as “computer systems designed to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence.” This encompasses agents, generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini, predictive algorithms, and other systems designed to detect patterns across datasets and autonomously refine their performance over time.
Application-specific semiconductors
Graphics processing units, or GPUs, have become the technological cornerstone of the current AI boom, propelling chipmakers like Nvidia to global fame and extreme wealth. McKinsey highlights not only these chips, but all semiconductors designed to handle specific tasks, as the third-most influential tech trend currently reshaping the business sector.
Advanced connectivity
Think technologies like 5G and low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites, which are enabling faster, more frictionless means of communication.
Cloud and edge computing
These are two separate modalities for processing huge quantities of information, a challenge that’s become increasingly salient for businesses building and deploying their own AI models.
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Immersive-reality technologies
As noted above, some might be surprised that this particular tech trend, which includes both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), has been included in McKinsey’s list. A few years ago, these were the corporate buzzwords of the hour, as companies invested huge sums to stake their claim in the so-called metaverse — a vaguely defined virtual space which some in the tech industry (notably Mark Zuckerberg, who changed the name of his company from Facebook to Meta in 2021) touted as the future of social media and commerce. Interest in the metaverse has cooled off since then, to say the least, but there are still some prominent figures in Silicon Valley who continue to believe that immersive-reality hardware will be a world-changing technology, and they’re spending accordingly. Meta, for example, has leaned heavily into its Smart Glasses, and Apple is reportedly working on a less costly version of its Vision Pro headset.
Digital trust and cybersecurity
This is another field that’s been forced to rapidly evolve amid the current AI boom, as cybercriminals equipped with powerful AI systems unlock new and more efficient ways to imitate real people and circumvent organizations’ cybersecurity measures. Many financial institutions, for example, have been fighting fire with fire by upgrading their cybersecurity systems with AI to protect themselves against AI-enhanced cyberattacks.
Quantum technologies
These are systems — quantum computers being the most famous example — which leverage the principles of quantum mechanics, like quantum entanglement and superposition, to execute calculations exponentially quicker than their classical counterparts.
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Future of robotics
Recent innovations in AI have also been supercharging the field of robotics, including everything from self-driving cars to humanoid robots that can fold your laundry. Building robots capable of making decisions and taking action in a dynamic physical environment is much more complicated than training algorithms to detect patterns in text; that’s why we have LLMs that can write essays but relatively few autonomous vehicles on the road today. But progress is nonetheless being made. Amazon, for example, recently launched DeepFleet, an AI model that coordinates the behavior of the company’s fulfillment center robots.
Future of mobility
In addition to recent developments in self-driving cars, McKinsey also underscored the recent rise of advanced drones, the proliferation of e-bikes, and advancements in other “technologies [which] have the goal of improving the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of transportation systems.”
Future of bioengineering
Emerging technologies like gene editing and synthetic biology are opening a new frontier for hacking the processes of organic evolution. This offers both big potential benefits (eliminating certain diseases, for example) and dangers (democratizing access to AI systems that could hypothetically generate blueprints for the engineering of deadly new pathogens, say).
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Future of space technologies
Space is becoming a new — if perhaps not the final — frontier for capitalism. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, for example, have been ushering in the era of commercial spaceflight. Other companies like Starlink (also owned by Musk, Northrum Grumman, and Lockheed Martin have been launching constellations of LEO satellites. There’s also been a surge of government interest and investment in spaceflight. Japan became the fifth country in the world to land a spacecraft on the moon last year. And who knows, maybe an LLM will one day be able to help humans pilot a spacecraft.
Future of energy and sustainability technologies
The final item on McKinsey’s list of the thirteen technological trends most drastically reshaping the business landscape, this encompasses “a broad spectrum of innovations aimed at transforming the global energy landscape toward a more sustainable and resilient future,” according to the firm. For example, the report highlights “clean electrons,” a phrase which refers to energy gleaned from sources that don’t rely on the combustion of greenhouse gases — like solar power and hydropower, as well as the rise of electric vehicles from companies like Tesla and Rivian.
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