It appears that 2025 has been an extraordinary year in the evolution of AI. Developments have moved at remarkable speed, reshaping industries, challenging assumptions, and redefining what responsible and trustworthy AI must look like.
Experts see four themes taking center stage:
- The rise of strategic and responsible procurement of AI solutions,
- The need to scale AI governance with the right tooling and technology,
- The growing urgency of bringing AI Agents under control, and
- A continuous regulatory dynamic that will influence the landscape worldwide.
Within a single year, the whole AI field has matured, moving from exploration to large scale deployment.
Enterprise AI systems and agents are firmly embedded into company workflows, customer interactions, and backend processes.
This shift has brought a new level of urgency around AI trust, safety, and control. Many organizations apparently recognize that trustworthy AI cannot rely on goodwill or informal processes. It requires disciplined management systems, clear documentation, and operational safeguards. Adoption of the new international AI governance standard ISO/IEC 42001 has therefore accelerated across industries.
The focus of industry shifted away from model size and raw power towards specific functionality, reliability, controllability, and energy efficiency. Beyond digital environments, AI adoption in physical products accelerated, creating new expectations around lifecycle safety, software updates, and post-market monitoring. All of this unfolded alongside major regulatory developments. From the EU AI Act to digital omnibus initiatives and growing global alignment, 2025 showed that compliance is no longer a distant concept but a real operational requirement.
For Nemko Digital (based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands), it was also a dynamic and defining year, with participation in important AI events in Asia and Europe at the same time as further development of relevant services, such as AI Governance, AI Regulatory Compliance, AI Embedded in Products, AI Maturity Model, Digital Trust, and AI Trust Mark.
While the past year has brought extraordinary change, the coming year is expected to demand even more maturity, collaboration, and leadership. More insight is given in Nemko Digital’s New Year AI Trust Special
For further information and/or application for services as linked above, please contact Alicja.Halbryt@nemko.com or Bas.Overtoom@nemko.com
(This article is based on the information provided by Nemko Digital; edited by T.Sollie)