Get Grounded With the 2025 Gartner Hype Cycle™ for Emerging Technologies

Autonomous business leverages self-improving, adaptable technologies to make decisions, take action and generate new value in markets where machine customers are prevalent. According to Gartner’s 2025 CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey, 29% of CEOs are working on a strategy to engage with machine customers and AI agents, and half of them plan to have a strategy in place within two years. Gartner predicts that as agentic AI continues to advance, it will transform products, services and use cases by merging autonomous operations, augmented leadership, machine customers and self-adapting products into a fully programmable economy. 

Key innovations driving autonomous business include the rise of machine customers and machine sellers, supported by crucial tech enablers such as AI agents, decision intelligence and model context protocols (MCPs). Business enablers like autonomous sourcing and programmable money further accelerate this shift, creating new opportunities and efficiencies in the evolving digital marketplace.

Hypermachinity is the driving philosophy behind building increasingly autonomous and intelligent systems that outperform traditional human-machine processes in speed, accuracy and consistency. Through the evolution of agentic AI, these systems develop self-architected workflows, leveraging connected microcapabilities and sensors across digital, physical and hybrid environments to achieve complex goals.

This theme encompasses advancements such as artificial general intelligence (AGI), domain-specific GenAI, embodied AI, humanoid robots, intelligent simulation, meta computing and physical AI. These innovations enable context-aware intelligence that can coexist, collaborate and cooperate with humans to accelerate the integration of autonomous systems into everyday environments.

What it means to be human is shifting in a world where technology often performs tasks faster and more efficiently than we can.

Augmented humanity focuses on using technology to expand human abilities and foster a genuine partnership between people and intelligent systems. Imagine interfaces that adapt to the user, brain-machine connections that let you share thoughts or tasks and work environments where humans and machines collaborate seamlessly.

Building trust is at the heart of this evolution, but the vast majority of the workforce lacks practical AI exposure. Gartner finds that only 25% of workers at every level report having used GenAI tools to significantly reduce the effort required for a critical task. When we can confidently share tasks with machines, humans become even more essential by collaborating to achieve more than either could alone.

Technology is essential for economic and societal stability, but it cannot always be relied upon to function flawlessly — especially in a world defined by volatility. Growing geopolitical tensions and the rise of generative AI have introduced new risks, raising concerns about data security, privacy and the resilience of digital and physical infrastructures. Traditional security measures are no longer sufficient to address these evolving threats.

To navigate this fragile landscape, Gartner recommends that organizations prioritize resilience by exploring innovations like confidential computing, digital immune systems and crypto-agility. Efforts also include strengthening disinformation security, ensuring technological sovereignty and adopting resource-positive buildings. 

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