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(MENAFN- Orient Planet Group) Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 7 January 2025 – Cisco revealed key technology trends for 2025, emphasizing a landscape shaped by shifting consumer behaviour, an expanding digital ecosystem, and the need to integrate AI.

Reflecting these dynamics, the Middle East emerges as a hub of innovation, with rapid adoption of AI, cloud, cybersecurity, and smart city initiatives. IT spending in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is projected to total $230.7 billion in 2025, an increase of 7.4% from 2024, according to Gartner, Inc.

David Meads, Vice President for the Middle East, Africa, Türkiye, Romania, and CIS at Cisco, commented: “By embracing this year’s technology trends with both strategic foresight and pragmatism, companies can effectively navigate challenges and seize growth opportunities.” He added: “The Middle East is witnessing a significant surge in technology investment, driven by a strong commitment from both governments and private enterprises aimed at establishing the region as a leader in technological innovation. This rapid adoption of technology provides businesses with unique opportunities to enhance efficiency, boost productivity, improve customer experiences, and gain a competitive edge.”

Agentic AI will fulfill AI’s promise of personalization and efficiency.

Many AI-powered tools in use today are based on static rules or datasets. Agentic AI differs in that it can continuously learn from user inputs and make decisions with little to no human oversight.

Imagine a customer service AI that predicts user needs before a query is made, or a network management AI that identifies potential issues and resolves them autonomously, ensuring uninterrupted service. In response to the rise of Agentic AI, we will see organizations implementing mandatory ethical guidelines to ensure fairness and transparency in algorithmic decisions and protecting intellectual property.

Humanoids and humans collaborating will force companies to rethink workplace dynamics.

AI-powered humanoids will form a part of the future workforce. This will force companies to completely reimagine their workplace dynamics. For example, companies will need to ensure their connectivity has the right levels of latency and throughout to process and analyse data in real time. At the same time, organizations must ensure their security postures.

This human and machine collaboration will be inspiring and allow organizations to greatly scale operations but will also likely trigger concerns about AI replacing jobs. Leaders will need to be clear and uncompromising about harnessing AI’s power without losing the human touch that defines world-class customer experiences.

AI will present challenges for companies, particularly regarding infrastructure and data readiness.

AI will continue to captivate businesses, promising unprecedented innovation and efficiency, and companies will continue to invest in AI-powered solutions. As AI journeys progress, so too will the understanding that the path is fraught with hurdles. Despite billions of dollars invested into AI models and AI-powered solutions in 2024, new data from Cisco’s AI Readiness Index shows that AI readiness has declined as now only 13% of companies are ready to leverage AI-powered technologies to their full potential.

In 2025 organizations will grapple with how best to secure the right level of compute power to meet AI workloads. Companies will need to lean on their strategic partners to identify and prioritize their AI use cases. IT teams will experience increasing pressure to optimize the management, hygiene, which is currently spread across multiple systems and locations.

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