In 2024, key business trends include the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) integration, sustainability efforts, and the growing influence of remote and hybrid work models. Companies are increasingly adopting AI to enhance efficiency and personalize customer experiences, while sustainability practices are becoming crucial for long-term success and meeting consumer demands for eco-friendly products. The shift to remote and hybrid work continues to shape workplace dynamics, emphasizing flexibility and digital collaboration tools. These trends are expected to grow further in 2025, with AI and sustainability central to innovation and business growth.
We’ll explore the sectors leading these business trends, changes in consumer behavior, and the tech innovations driving them. Key sectors include technology, e-commerce, clean energy, all-embracing AI, automation, and sustainability. Consumers are increasingly favoring eco-friendly and personalized products, prompting businesses to adapt. Tech innovations like AI, machine learning, and blockchain enable new ways of working, shopping, and interacting. Together, these factors shape the trends that define the future of business.
Whether you’re a small startup or part of a Fortune 500 company, here are the top business trends to watch: increased use of AI and automation, a focus on sustainability and eco-friendly practices, the rise of remote and hybrid work models, personalized customer experiences, and the growing importance of e-commerce. Staying ahead of these trends can help businesses thrive in an evolving marketplace.
1. Generative AI Boosts Business Productivity
Generative AI is capturing the attention of businesses, offering new ways to automate content creation, streamline processes, and enhance customer interactions. Generating text, images, and other media opens up innovative opportunities for efficiency and creativity across various industries.

By 2025, generative AI is expected to account for around 30% of the overall AI market, estimated at approximately $60 billion. This rapid growth highlights its increasing impact across industries.
The generative AI space is valued at around $45 billion, showcasing its significant presence and influence in the technology sector.
Consumers increasingly expect businesses to adopt generative AI applications, with nearly 70% believing that most companies will soon use this technology to enhance the customer experience.
Generative AI platforms are powered by large language models (LLMs), which enable them to process and generate human-like text.
LLMs are trained using billions of pages of text. During training, they focus on the relationships between words and sentence patterns, allowing them to create content based on what they’ve learned.
For instance, the BERT LLM can reach 85% to 90% accuracy in just a few milliseconds.
And LLMs are continuously improving.
In the future, AI experts believe these models can create training data to improve themselves, gather information from outside sources, and work more efficiently using a method called “sparse expert models.
The Boston Consulting Group reports that some people believe generative AI will be able to produce “final draft” content by 2030.
LLMs are imperfect, but businesses already benefit from their many capabilities.
According to Accenture, LLMs could affect 40% of all working hours. Additionally, 98% of global executives believe AI models will be crucial for their organizations in the next five years.
Startups in the healthcare sector have introduced many exciting generative AI technologies.
Syntegra, a startup founded in 2019 in San Francisco, uses AI to create realistic synthetic patient data that doesn’t connect to specific individuals.
Synthetic data accurately reflects real data statistics, allowing health systems and research institutions to access the information they need while protecting patient privacy.
It’s also faster and often cheaper to obtain data this way.
Generative AI is becoming an essential tool for software developers.
GitHub’s Copilot is one of the most popular AI tools for coding.
The platform uses natural language prompts to suggest code or complete functions that match the request. It’s often described as an autocomplete feature for software developers.
One user of Copilot mentioned that programming tasks that used to take 10 minutes now only take about 30 seconds.
GitHub reports that the AI tool generates 40% of the actual code in projects where Copilot is used.
Generative AI will soon play a role in advertising as well.
Google has announced plans to introduce AI-powered ads shortly.
Business users can upload their materials to train the AI model. The model will generate new ads using those materials, including fresh text, images, and videos.
Meta has announced launching a similar AI ad model on its platforms.
2. E-commerce Growth Persists Post-Pandemic

The pandemic transformed how people shop.
E-commerce was growing before COVID-19, but the pandemic accelerated its growth dramatically.
According to Shopify, e-commerce saw ten years of growth in just three months during the pandemic.
While e-commerce growth has slowed down after the pandemic, it is still growing steadily. Businesses are adapting their marketing and sales strategies to exploit this growth.
Global e-commerce sales reached $6.3 trillion in 2023, and this figure is projected to rise to $8.1 trillion by 2026.
In 2019, e-commerce made up almost 14% of all retail sales. 2023, it is expected to exceed 22% of total retail sales.
Certain retail sectors, such as electronics, home improvement, and home furnishings, have continued to grow even after the pandemic.
For instance, the furniture industry generated over $149 million in e-commerce revenue in 2022 and is projected to reach $208 million by 2025. This represents about 12% of total e-commerce sales in the United States.
Currently, more than 4 million e-commerce companies are operating in North America.
Companies are creating new e-commerce opportunities every day.
For instance, look at Disney.
In early 2021, Disney announced that it would prioritize e-commerce and close 60 of its physical stores in North America.
Then, in late 2022, the company revealed plans to add in-app shopping features to the Disney+ platform.
Users can scan a QR code on the detail pages of their favorite shows and movies. This will direct them to a special shopDisney website where they can buy exclusive merchandise available only to Disney+ subscribers.
Your Super is an e-commerce company that sells superfood supplements. It experienced significant growth during the pandemic and continues to thrive in 2023.
In 2021, Your Super teamed up with Target and was acquired by The Healing Company.
They sold over 5 million products, which earned them the 25th spot on Inc.’s list of the fastest-growing companies in 2021.
3. 5G Vastly Improves Data Collection and AI Capabilities
The growth of the 5G mobile network could significantly transform how businesses operate.

, 5G offers faster data speeds, improved reliability, and a low latency of less than 10 milliseconds.
As of November 2023, the United States and China were at the forefront of the 5G rollout.
In the U.S., 5G is accessible in 503 cities, while in China, it is available in 356 cities.
The 5G market is projected to grow at an annual rate of 65.8% until 2030, reaching a value of $797.8 billion.
This technology is essential for businesses looking to introduce new services and gather insights to stay competitive.
For instance, the advancement of the 5G mobile network is boosting data collection and analysis for businesses.
In summary, this allows businesses to gather more data from a wider range of sources faster, enabling them to utilize that information in real-time.
These faster data speeds enable businesses to leverage AI and automation effectively.
Some potential applications include advanced data analysis, remote medical management, traffic light control from a distance, and virtual reality-based machinery monitoring.
BMW is already exploring 5G technology at its Leipzig factory in Germany.
BMW is integrating 5G and AI to track machines, cars, tools, and parts in real-time at their Leipzig factory, with precision accuracy down to one centimeter.
In early 2021, T-Mobile launched its first 5G network in a Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System hospital.
The network can reach speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second.
This allows healthcare providers to access large patient records from hospital devices, such as X-rays and medical charts.
The 5G network is essential for medical providers who have invested in telemedicine. Its high speeds allow for almost real-time video consultations and remote patient monitoring.
Businesses use 5G connectivity with the Internet of Things (IoT) to enhance their operations and introduce new services.
IoT sensors are currently used in manufacturing assembly lines, supply chain management, self-driving cars, and other applications.
IBM is currently testing the use of IoT technology to monitor public infrastructure.
This “next-generation maintenance program” combines data from sensors, cameras, drones, and wearable devices to evaluate the safety and risks of roads, bridges, water pipes, and other infrastructure.
IBM believes this program could help clear a $2 trillion backlog of needed upgrades to public infrastructure.
We anticipate that the agribusiness sector will quickly adopt 5G and IoT technologies in their daily operations in the next few years.
Remote sensing and connected devices can help monitor soil health, determine when crops are ready for harvest, and manage pests effectively.
Connected devices are already being used to keep track of livestock.
Lely has developed a “cow-recognition system” that gives each cow a transponder to wear around its neck.
The sensor gathers information about the cow’s health, activity levels, eating habits, and reproduction.
While the system doesn’t use mobile networks yet, experts in agriculture believe that 5G networks will soon improve efficiency, create smoother workflows, and enhance the quality of the final product.
4. Employees Actively Seek Out Remote and Hybrid Work
During the peak of the pandemic, 71% of Americans with jobs that allowed remote work were working entirely from home.

The number of people working from home increased greatly from 2019 to 2021.
A 2022 Gallup survey found that 56% of full-time employees in the U.S. have jobs that can be done from home, which equals about 70 million workers.
Among those workers, 50% have a hybrid work schedule, 30% work entirely from home, and 20% work completely in the office.
Young adults with a college degree are likelier to have remote and hybrid work options.
Studies show that people with a bachelor’s degree or higher are five times more likely to work from home than those with less education.
Recently, employees who have had the chance to work from home are reluctant to return to the office when companies ask them to.
A 2022 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 78% of people working from home want to keep doing so in the future. This is a 14% increase since 2020.
Over two-thirds of remote workers say they would begin searching for a new job if their company made them return to the office full-time. Additionally, more than half would prefer a pay cut rather than lose their flexible work arrangements.
Employees are still enjoying financial benefits from working remotely.
People who work from home spend around $432 a month on things like lunch and coffee, while those who work in an office spend about $863 a month.
However, businesses are still cautious about the continuing trend of working from home.
According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, 85% of business leaders find it difficult to trust that employees are productive in a hybrid work setting.
As remote work continues, more companies are likely to use monitoring technology to keep track of employee productivity.
Many businesses already use tools to monitor screens, record keystrokes, and scan workers’ faces multiple times daily.
According to Gartner, the percentage of large companies using monitoring technology has doubled since the pandemic, at 60%. This number is projected to rise to 70% by 2024.
5. Businesses Expand Ads, Communities, and Commerce on Social Media

In 2024, it’s nearly impossible for a business to succeed without being active on social media.
The role of social media in business marketing is expected to grow even more in 2025.
A November 2022 report revealed that consumer use of social media has increased by almost 8% since the start of the year.
As of October 2023, there are an estimated 4.95 billion social media users, increasing from 4.74 billion the previous year.
Advertising spending is increasing to reach these consumers.
Over half of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) plan to boost their spending on social media ads in the next few years.
TikTok ads are becoming a popular marketing strategy for businesses across almost all industries.
A study showed that in-feed TikTok ads are 23% more memorable than TV ads and 13% more memorable than other types of online videos.
In the next few years, businesses will likely move beyond just ads and concentrate on creating communities as part of their social media strategy.
Almost 80% of people say that their most important group is online.
HubSpot found that 64% of marketers intended to invest in social media communities in 2022.
Moreover, brands are starting to engage with more genuine influencers who can connect with smaller communities.
This could be a more cost-effective approach for businesses.
One study found that businesses using micro-influencers experience a 60% higher engagement rate than those working with more well-known influencers.
The conversion rate is also higher for micro-influencers, at 1.46%, compared to just 0.61% for influencers with 21,000 followers or more.
To boost engagement and sales, brands are expected to invest more in social commerce in the upcoming months.
Social commerce is widely used in China, where 14.3% of all online retail sales came from social commerce in 2021.
In the U.S., only 4.1% of sales come from social commerce.
Accenture predicts that social commerce will grow three times faster than traditional e-commerce and reach $1.2 trillion by 2025.
Conclusion
As we look ahead to 2024 and 2025, several key business trends are poised to shape the landscape. The rise of remote work continues to influence workplace dynamics, prompting companies to adopt flexible work arrangements and invest in monitoring technologies. The integration of 5G and IoT is revolutionizing industries, from healthcare to agriculture, enabling real-time data analysis and improved efficiency.
Social media’s role in marketing is growing, with businesses increasingly focusing on community building and engaging with micro-influencers for better reach and engagement. As social commerce gains momentum, companies are expected to adapt their strategies to capture this growing market.
Sustainability remains a critical consideration, with consumers favoring brands that prioritize eco-friendly practices. Overall, these trends highlight the need for businesses to be agile and responsive to changing consumer preferences and technological advancements. Embracing these trends will be essential for companies looking to thrive in the evolving business environment.
FAQs
Q1: What are the key business trends in 2024 and 2025?
Ans: Key trends include the rise of remote work, the integration of 5G and IoT technologies, the growing importance of social media marketing, a shift towards sustainability, and the expansion of social commerce.
Q2: How will remote work affect businesses in the coming years?
Ans: Remote work will likely continue influencing workplace culture, leading to more flexible work arrangements, increased use of technology for productivity monitoring, and a focus on employee well-being.
Q3: What role will 5G and IoT play in business operations?
Ans: Integrating 5G and IoT will enhance data collection and analysis, improve operational efficiency, and enable real-time monitoring in various industries, from healthcare to agriculture.
Q4: Why is social media marketing becoming more important for businesses?
Ans: Social media marketing is crucial for reaching and engaging consumers, building brand loyalty, and driving sales. Companies are increasingly focusing on community-building and authentic influencer partnerships.
Q5: What is social commerce, and how is it expected to grow?
Ans: Social commerce refers to selling products directly through social media platforms. It is expected to grow rapidly, with predictions indicating it could reach $1.2 trillion by 2025.
Q6: How are businesses adapting to the demand for sustainability?
Ans: Businesses are increasingly adopting eco-friendly practices, such as reducing waste, sourcing sustainable materials, and emphasizing social responsibility to meet consumer expectations.
Q7: What is the significance of micro-influencers in marketing strategies?
Ans: Micro-influencers tend to have higher engagement rates and better conversion rates than larger influencers, making them a cost-effective option for brands looking to connect with niche audiences.
Q8: How can companies effectively implement these trends?
Ans: To effectively implement these trends, companies should invest in technology, engage with customers on social media, prioritize sustainability, and adapt their business models to meet evolving consumer needs.
Q9: What challenges might businesses face with these trends?
Ans: Challenges include ensuring employee productivity in remote settings, navigating the rapidly changing digital landscape, and balancing sustainability efforts with profitability. Businesses must stay adaptable to overcome these hurdles.
Q10: How is the landscape of digital marketing changing?
Ans: Digital marketing is shifting towards more personalized and data-driven strategies. Companies leverage AI and machine learning to analyze consumer behavior and create tailored marketing campaigns.