2025 Tech Trends Report SXSW

Key Insights 

1. Sensor networks are evolving AI from OBSERVER to CONTROLLER. 

2. AI & biology merge to make matter programmable and life reprogrammable. 

3. Microscopic machines will give us power over nature.  

Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) - when AI models begin to work in teams. they can deliberate on solutions, improve off of each other’s work, all in ways that they could not have done individually. Designed to work without a human in the process.

These AI “agents” still have to rely on communicating in human languages. Because human language relies on so much context, it can often be messy and inaccurate. Human languages slows AI down. But, if we use mathematics as a language instead, then they are able to communicate 3x faster.

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from 2024, the three clusters of tech trends were biotechnology, advanced sensors, and AI

Metamaterials - engineered materials with properties that aren’t found in nature, created through precise micro structural design. They can bend light or sound, they don’t follow the rules of physics.

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