Top 5 Trends across the AI Landscape

The Tailfin Take on the 5 key trends in the AI landscape right now:

1. Hype vs Reality

2. Consumer Adoption

3. Business Adoption

4. Business Disruption

5. Sector Evolution

Hype vs Reality

• Awareness and usage of LLM’s is growing exponentially, with early-adopters all-in and the second wave of professional users growing steadily.

• The majority are aware, particularly of ChatGPT, but not committed users. Yet. There remains a sizeable proportion who don’t care, are a little scared, and who have no idea what ChatGPT and the like can actually do

• Professionals who do not experiment at all will be disadvantaged

• Pandora’s AI Box is wide open, it’s not closing, and it’s here to stay.

Consumer Adoption

• The choice of AI tools, products and solutions out there is vast and growing daily. There’s minimal barriers to entry for any AI-powered start-up.

• Tailfin tracks over 1,250 AI-powered solutions, in 45 business use-case categories

• The customer acquisition race is everywhere, free trials proliferate and the churn levels must be eye-watering

• Most AI businesses tracked by Tailfin are light on brand communications and clarity of positioning. There’s almost zero focus on customer loyalty.

• Of the 45 business use cases Tailfin tracks, none cover AI-powered customer loyalty solutions…

Business Adoption

• Now that Pandora’s AI Box is well and truly open, business leaders have a choice to make

• Large Corporates can develop their own walled-garden LLM. Or go AI-first across the business and impose solutions top-down.

• Agencies will need to implement AI solutions where possible to remain nimble and light on their feet. And cost-effective.

• Business where staff can use whichever AI tools they fancy will reap benefits short term, but risk digital chaos.

Business Disruption

• The traditional competitive landscape mapping exercise with a handful of head-to-head competitors per sector is dead.

• This AI wave is driving two main actions. Enabling competitive offers to launch at a minimal cost. And allow micro-focus on single problems and micro-niches.

• ‘The Piranha Effect’ is clear. Traditional head-on competitors being replaced by shoals of smaller offers, nibbling away at the business from every angle. As the disruptors start to scale they then become subject to the ‘Piranha Effect’ as their model is copied from below.

• Business ‘Moats’ are being breached rapidly by BigTech and SmallTech. A defendable business model in 2025 needs a trusted brand, good customer data and excellent product fit.

Sector Evolution

• AI powered change is everywhere. Early adopters are starting to re-shape business sectors from within, and from the outside. Early stages, but the directional signs are clear.

• Three examples:

  • Customer service. Specifically contact centres. As voice agents being increasingly sophisticated and intelligent - and vast strides have happened here in the last 6 months - contact centres will transform quickly in capacity and capability

  • Consultancy. As knowledge is increasingly democratised, and an LLM can write you a management consultant report in moments, the traditional consulting business model is already evolving. Will there be an increased focus on transformation and accountability going forwards?

  • Market Research and Insight. Having started my career in market research pre-internet and pre-mobile, I’ve seen the sector change massively since the late 1980’s. Agencies can now use AI to streamline operations and process, and handle analysis. Clients now have increasingly short expectations on time, and low expectations on cost. Doing it ‘properly’ has morphed into ‘doing it quickly and cheaply’. Disposable research for directional purposes only is achievable daily. Synthetic respondents and data is going to be the new battleground for 2025 and 2026.