Five Areas Worth Your Time in 2025

Introduction to our new Substack and areas to watch this year for generative AI and communications.

Samantha Stark

1/8/20254 min read

Generative AI Trends for 2025
Generative AI Trends for 2025

Over the past six months, since launching Phyusion, I’ve been working closely with communications leaders to support their adoption of generative AI into their teams and workflows. I’ve been fascinated for many years on how technology changes how we connect and communicate. We’ve certainly seen technology shift the way we connect before—but this is different. It’s foundational.

The integration of generative AI into communications requires more than giving your team cool new tools—it demands a complete reimagining of work outputs, mindsets, and team development. As your ally in this transformation, I'll explore what works, share real examples, and help you navigate these changes.

Looking at all of the big trends underway for this year, here are the five areas I believe will have a biggest impact on our profession.

Agentic AI gets real

Agentic AI is an autonomous system of agents that understand context and act independently, like a mini workforce collaborating with a shared goal in mind. These agents can perform tasks such as researching a company, drafting a briefing sheet, scheduling a calendar invite to review the document, or sending a comprehensive report to a customer triggered by actions like submitting an interest request—without human oversight.

Accenture’s recent launch of the AI Refinery for Industry provides an example of how agentic AI is evolving in the B2B marketing space. Presented as a robust framework, it integrates autonomous systems intended to support data-driven decision-making and simplify complex marketing workflows. According to Accenture, its design focuses on addressing common challenges, such as tailoring campaigns to diverse audience segments, automating content workflows, and aligning efforts with strategic objectives.

While there’s immense potential in agentic AI—the reality is that most communications teams are focused first on unlocking the full value from foundational tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Midjourney, Canva, and others. This makes sense, these enterprise tools are powerful but require a strategic and thorough adoption plan to maximize use.

Enterprise adoption efforts focus on the human

There’s a common thread in many of my conversations with CCOs and CMOs—adoption isn't happening as quickly as expected. According to Wunderkind's latest research, while nearly all marketing executives (97%) are implementing AI in their operations in some way, only 38% are currently using it for advanced segmentation and personalization.

In my experience, there is a growing sense of “pilot fatigue,” with teams feeling stretched thin as they attempt to adapt to the demands of transformative technologies on top of their regular workload. These experiences are reshaping how companies approach adoption, emphasizing the importance of a more human-centered and strategic path forward.

The key lesson is not to rush into full-scale integration but to focus on meaningful, targeted efforts that align with overarching communications team goals. Success lies in identifying areas where AI can deliver real impact through clear, well-defined projects.

Human behavior is at the core of this transformation. Comprehensive education and thoughtful change management are essential to ensuring team members are equipped to embrace new tools and workflows. Many adoption challenges stem not from the technology itself but from the difficulty of navigating the behavioral and cultural shifts required for implementation.

Personalization becomes non-negotiable

As mass-generated content floods every channel, personalization will define which communications are heard this year. This goes beyond just adding someone's name to an email—it requires understanding and responding to individual preferences, behaviors, and needs at scale.

Internal communications teams will leverage deeper audience segmentation and behavioral data to deliver more relevant content to different employee groups. Rather than one-size-fits-all messaging, communications can adapt more easily based on factors like role, location, tenure, and past engagement patterns. For example, new employees might receive more context and background in their communications versus veteran staff who need just key updates.

For external communications, I’ve seen stats that brands using advanced personalization in their email programs see engagement rates up to 3-6x higher than standard marketing messages. This is driven by real-time response to customer behaviors combined with rich customer data.

People are overwhelmed by all the emails and other content coming their way. They have no choice but to make changes to adapt, which might be an “unsubscribe” or using a tool like Copilot to summarize your email instead of reading it (if you’re lucky). Consumer expectations around content are just going to get higher.

AI search engines do most of the talking

How people find and consume information is shifting, and with it, SEO tactics are shifting as well. Instead of scrolling through pages of search results, users now receive direct answers from AI engines that act as influential voices speaking directly to your audience.

Success in this new landscape requires a shift in content strategy. Rather than only optimizing for keywords, focus on creating content that serves as clear answers to common questions about your brand. Consider how your content could be used as an input for AI engines - does it provide unique insights that showcase your expertise? Is it written in natural language that translates well to conversational search?

Regularly audit how your brand appears in AI answer engines like Perplexity or ChatGPT Search to ensure accuracy and message alignment. While technical optimization still matters, the focus should be on developing genuinely valuable, distinctive content that helps your brand breakthrough in what will be an increasingly saturated space.

Video and podcast generators continue to improve

Audio and video generation is already redefining the boundaries of content creation with brands like Coca-Cola openly using the technology in major advertising campaigns. With models like Sora, Veo, and Kling advancing, we are on the cusp of generating longer, high-quality videos that will be virtually indistinguishable from traditional video for many people.

Podcasting is seeing similar advancements with tools like NotebookLM and GenFM, which are changing how audio content is created and shared. These tools bring a new level of ease and flexibility, letting users pick voices, tweak tones, and shape content to fit their audience.

I've been testing these tools, and while the quality is impressive, success still comes down to strategy and a talented human with a vision. The human touch and point of view is what really make the difference. At the end of the day, people connect with other people—they want passion and personality.

Looking ahead

I'm energized by where this is all heading, but I'm also practical about it. These changes aren't theoretical—they're happening now in communications teams across industries. I'll be sharing more detailed case studies and practical guidance in the coming weeks.

Image generated with Ideogram.