Today’s ponderable: Have DWG’s 2025 digital workplace predictions come true?
As 2025 comes into sharper focus, I find myself looking back on the digital workplace predictions I made last fall through both a professional and personal lens. Making bold forecasts is always a leap but the past year has proven just how transformative the digital workplace has become. The question I am asked most often is, ‘Did your predictions come true?’. It’s time for an honest accounting – something I believe is essential for leadership in a rapidly changing landscape.
Predicting the future digital workplace, then living it
DWG’s annual predictions are not just theories. They are crafted through conversations with global leaders, daily observations of member organizations, and a sense for the culture shifts underway. In January, I set out 10 themes that I believed would define the digital workplace in 2025 – from AI-driven personalization and intelligent collaboration to the rise of intrapreneurship and the resurgence of storytelling as a new super-power for digital leaders.
What is remarkable as I look through the scorecard is the degree to which these themes are not merely trending, they are now central to how organizations operate and succeed.
The scorecard: What has come true
Many of the predictions have been realized. Artificial intelligence is not just present but pervasive: from personalized knowledge management and smart intranets to organization-wide automation and skills development, AI is the engine driving change. Leaders who declutter and invest in clean data-ready systems are thriving. Change agility has emerged as a core value. The rise of intrapreneurship supported by digital tools continues to accelerate.
Significantly, storytelling has indeed become the digital workplace leader’s new super-power. In an era of constant transformation and evolving technology, those who can connect innovation to purpose through a compelling narrative are setting their teams apart. Storytelling now brings life to data, makes change relatable and fosters a sense of belonging even in distributed or hybrid environments.
There are a couple of areas marked ‘in progress’. Seamless intelligent collaboration and the full cultural embedding of Copilot’s value are real but not perfected. Yet, these partials reflect ongoing journeys rather than complete failures – they are signs that we remain agile, curious and focused on continuous improvement.
Outcomes and commentary
Prediction 1: Hyper-personalization revolutionizes knowledge management (0.5 points)
AI-powered personalization now sits at the heart of modern knowledge management. Targeted content recommendations and adaptive discovery workflows are dramatically improving the ability of employees to find information they need, when they need it. These advances in hyper-personalization are no longer theoretical – they are quickly getting embedded in mainstream platforms, helping organizations reduce noise and surface contextual insights to each individual.
Prediction 2: Digital Workplace teams embrace Swedish death cleaning to get AI data-ready (1 point)
Leading digital workplace teams have recognized that cluttered and outdated data hampers AI effectiveness. Decluttering (once regarded as a nice-to-have) has become an operational priority. ‘Swedish death cleaning’ is not just a clever metaphor: organizations are systematically archiving or removing redundant files and cleaning metadata so that their AI solutions perform with accuracy and trust.
Prediction 3: Generative AI brings the intranet into sharper focus (1 point)
Generative AI has truly sharpened and reimagined intranet experiences for employees. Personalization engines craft tailored news feeds and answer complex questions, AI-driven writing assistants streamline content creation and multilingual support is now seamless. The intranet has shifted from a passive repository to a dynamic tool supporting day-to-day work and agile communication.
Prediction 4: Enterprise AI moves from concept to reality at scale (1 point)
Across industries, AI has moved from isolated pilots to scaled deployments. Organizations are implementing AI for everything from IT and HR service desk automation to document management and talent analytics. Leaders have moved beyond proof of concept and are seeing real returns on investment as AI becomes integral in daily operations and strategic decision making.
Prediction 5: Intelligent collaboration produces advanced teamwork (0.5 points)
AI-embedded collaboration tools have simplified how teams coordinate across locations, languages and time zones. While many organizations benefit from AI-enabled scheduling, transcription and connection, the vision of seamless, ‘advanced’ teamwork driven entirely by intelligent platforms is still emerging. Friction points remain – but there’s clear progress.
Prediction 6: In addition to hiring AI-skilled talent, organizations launch ‘schools of AI’ to bridge the digital divide (1 point)
Upskilling and reskilling programmes targeting AI literacy have spread widely. Organizations are investing directly in internal academies and skills bootcamps or partnering with trusted providers. These ‘schools of AI’ are helping to bridge the digital skills gap and anchor the next wave of talent that can create and leverage advanced technologies.
Prediction 7: Microsoft pushes Copilot’s value creation story into warp speed to overcome the Clippy 2.0 moniker (0.5 points)
Microsoft Copilot and its competitors have moved swiftly from early hype to practical business value. However, some organizations still see uneven adoption and pockets of scepticism lingering. Copilot’s story is less about clever branding and more about how it is embedded in business processes – yet user learning curves and change resistance are still being worked through.
Prediction 8: Change agility emerges as the new social currency for organizational success (1 point)
Change agility (the ability to adapt quickly and pivot in response to opportunity or disruption) has become a distinguishing organizational strength. The most successful workplaces invest in fostering mindsets, skills and cultures that value learning from change, and view uncertainty as fertile ground for growth. This agility now correlates directly with employee trust and business results.
Prediction 9: Advances in the digital workplace spur a new generation of intrapreneurship (1 point)
Intrapreneurship (innovating from within an organization) continues to rise, enabled by new digital platforms. Employees have more resources, avenues and encouragement to propose, test and scale ideas. This new wave of intrapreneurship is helping companies stay relevant and competitive, fuelling engagement across business units.
Prediction 10: Storytelling becomes the digital workplace leader’s new super-power (1 point)
As predicted, storytelling now differentiates outstanding digital workplace leaders. Those able to connect purpose, technology and transformation through narrative are bringing clarity and motivation to their teams. Storytelling is vital for strategy launches and technology rollouts, and in supporting everyday cultural belonging. It has evolved from a soft skill to an essential leadership super-power.
Total score: 8.5 out of 10
Why transparency matters
Providing a transparent accounting reflects DWG’s belief that honesty and reflection fuel progress. Assessment of the annual predictions is achieved through a composite view derived from both AI and practitioner voices, including perplexity.ai, Gemini, MS Copilot, the DWG team, our members, the pool of awards entries and practitioner feedback at large.
Our scoring system is a simple one: based on the collective view, each fully recognized prediction realized is assigned 1 point; a partially achieved one scores half a point; and 0 points are reserved for any clunkers. By that measure, 9 out of 10 of our predictions have played out either fully or substantially, with the exceptions serving as guideposts for where to focus next.
Looking forward
If 2025 has taught us anything, it is that the digital workplace is no longer just a supporting toolset, a project, a programme or technology stack. It is a living ecosystem – woven from AI, data, diverse talent and, above all, shared stories. The organizations that thrive are those that are willing to learn, adapt and reframe their narratives as they go.
As DWG looks to the years ahead, my hope is that we continue to marry bold vision with frank evaluation, and that every leader sees the value in both predicting – and building – the future together.
Reserve your place
The future we predicted is not just arriving, it is already here – and together we are shaping what comes next. Join me for some future gazing on November 13 when I will reveal DWG’s predictions for 2026.
- DWG Members: Register on the DWG member extranet
- Our wider circle of practitioners*: Apply for a guest place on the DWG website
* DWG reserves a select number of guest passes for individuals and organizations who are not yet part of the DWG member community. Please note that these events are intended for practitioners within organizations and are not open to students, technology providers or consultants.
Categorised in: → Diary of a She-E-O
