Practices of hyper-personalization, convenience, and automation, already used by major brands, are becoming accessible also to small and medium-sized businesses, thanks to the dissemination of new technologies. SecondLeonardo Oda, marketing specialist and CEO of LEODA Marketing Intelligence, these marketing trends will transform the way companies connect with their customers and strengthen their market presence in 2025.

"The consumer is more demanding and wants personalized experiences, quick processes, and efficient solutions. Those who can deliver this in a structured way will stand out next year," says Oda. Next, the specialist shares guidelines to put these trends into action and boost businesses.

Extreme customization

The era of "one for all" is behind us. Consumers seek products, services, and experiences tailored to their individual needs and preferences. Big brands are already successfully exploring this trend, such as Yves Saint Laurent, which uses artificial intelligence to create personalized lipsticks based on each customer's skin tone.

Leonardo Oda explains that, although examples like this seem distant from the reality of small businesses, hyper-personalization is already an accessible reality. "With simple tools, such as campaign segmentation or message automation, small businesses can create equally relevant and impactful experiences," he/she/they states.

An e-commerce, for example, can use customers' purchase history to suggest complementary products or send targeted promotions. Personalized messages via WhatsApp, chatbots that adapt their responses to user behavior, and email campaigns with specific offers are also other strategies that bring the brand closer to the consumer and increase loyalty.

For Oda, relevance is the key to personalization: “More than investing in great technologies, it is necessary to deliver something that makes sense to the customer. When they feel understood, the connection with the brand naturally strengthens,” he says.

Convenience for a barrier-free experience

The speed at which the customer achieves their goal – whether making a purchase, seeking information, or solving a problem – has become one of the main competitive factors in the current market. Complicated experiences drive consumers away, while simple and agile processes generate loyalty.

In the digital environment, websites with simplified registration processes, quick payment methods (PIX and digital wallets), and intuitive pages increase conversion chances. In the physical environment, strategies such as QR Code orders, automatic check-outs, and digital passwords optimize service and value the customer's time.

For Oda, providing convenience is essential. "Ease is the new loyalty. If the customer perceives that their experience is hassle-free, they not only complete the purchase but also build a trusting relationship with the brand," he comments.

Therefore, evaluating each stage of the purchasing journey, identifying friction points and implementing simple adjustments can generate immediate results and ensure that the consumer returns.

Automation: more results with less effort

Automating repetitive tasks enables small businesses to gain efficiency and focus efforts on what truly matters: innovation and customer relationships.

In marketing, automation tools are more accessible and allow for the optimization of processes such as customer service and campaign management. Platforms like ManyChat, for example, streamline responses to frequently asked questions on social media, while solutions like RD Station make it easier to send targeted email campaigns, aligning the message with the customer's profile.

Leonardo Oda exemplifies the impact of this automation with a practical situation: “Imagine a bakery that automates ordering with an online form integrated with WhatsApp. This simplifies the customer’s life and frees up the team to focus on production.”

Strategic planning for real results

Although hyper-personalization, convenience, and automation are trends for 2025, following them without proper planning can compromise the results. Leonardo Oda emphasizes that the starting point should be the analysis of last year's performance.

Reviewing sales, engagement, and online traffic data helps identify what worked and what needs improvement. Tools like Google Analytics and social media reports are allies in this process. Questions like "Which campaigns generated the most return?" and "Which channels brought the most visits?" guide the analysis and direct strategies for the future.

Furthermore, setting clear and measurable goals is essential. The SMART methodology – with specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives – provides the necessary framework to monitor and adjust progress over time.

An e-commerce, for example, can set the goal of "increasing revenue by 20% by June 2025, investing in targeted Instagram campaigns and focused promotions on WhatsApp." These goals allow for concrete tracking of results and identification of areas for improvement.

With planning, data analysis, and the application of marketing trends – hyper-personalization, automation, and convenience – small and medium-sized businesses can optimize their operations and improve the customer experience. "The secret is to learn from the past and act strategically to build consistent results in 2025," concludes Leonardo Oda.

Global IT spending is expected to reach $5.74 billion in 2025, a projected increase of 9.3% compared to 2024, according to Gartner. This growth reinforces the role of technology as an essential pillar for innovation and business competitiveness, especially in an extremely volatile global market characterized by economic and social instabilities.

Therefore, in 2025, technology CEOs will play a significant role in leading transformation processes, facing complex challenges and seizing new opportunities to drive their organizations forward.

In this scenario, where the pressure for quick results is constant, it will be essential for these executives to adopt an agile and adaptive stance, seeing innovation as an opportunity and investing in technological solutions and long-term strategies to optimize processes and ensure relevance in the competitive market.

Technological transformation and cybersecurityIn a constantly changing landscape, the rapid evolution of technologies such as artificial intelligence, Big Data, cloud computing, and APIs will require CEOs to integrate these innovations in a strategic and efficient manner. Generative AI, for example, has shown a transformative potential in various areas, but to reach its full potential, it needs to be complemented by APIs that enable interaction with other systems and the execution of tasks in the real world. This intertwining of AI and APIs is no longer an option but a necessity to optimize operational efficiency, create personalized experiences, and automate processes in 2025.

In this regard, leaders will need to find a balance between innovation and security, especially concerning cybersecurity, given the increase in digitalization. The adoption of models such as thezero trust, which prioritizes continuous monitoring and protection of systems against unauthorized access, will be essential throughout the year. Furthermore, effective API management, ensuring that its usage is monitored and scalable, will be essential to avoid excessive costs, security risks, and system performance failures.

Talent management and sustainability in the future of businessAnother challenge in 2025 will be talent management and adapting to the increasing demands for sustainability, with ESG (environmental, social, and governance) practices gaining increasing relevance. In this scenario, AI technologies can play a key role not only in optimizing internal processes but also in supporting sustainable initiatives, such as reducing emissions and efficiently utilizing resources. Furthermore, the use of APIs will facilitate the integration of innovative solutions, helping companies achieve their sustainability goals and position themselves as leaders in social responsibility by 2025.

Regarding talent management, creating work environments that encourage creativity, collaboration, and continuous learning will be essential throughout the year. The appreciation of diversity, employee well-being, and personalized development programs will be differentiators in attracting and retaining the best professionals, who are highly sought after in the market.

In 2025, technology CEOs will need a strategic vision to effectively integrate AI and APIs while prioritizing sustainability and human capital. Resilient and adaptable leadership will be essential in turning challenges into opportunities. In this dynamic environment, proper implementation and management of technologies such as AI and APIs will be crucial for continuous innovation, keeping companies aligned with market trends and ensuring their competitiveness in the global landscape.

If, in these last two years, the emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence has served as a glimpse of the potential of this technology – and we must agree – it has had a reasonable impact in areas such as customer service, by 2025 we should witness the development of "agentic AIs," which promise to substantially transform the technology landscape. Alongside the ever-increasing expansion of AI models to a wider range of companies and niches, the fact is that today, no company can ignore the potential application of AI in innovation or operations.

Unlike traditional AIs, which require constant human supervision, agent-based AIs are designed to operate independently, performing complex tasks without direct human intervention. This advancement is made possible by deep learning algorithms that enable systems to understand and process large volumes of data in real time, quickly adapting to new information and contexts.

Furthermore, agent-based AI systems use large amounts of data from various sources to independently analyze challenges, develop strategies, and perform complex and sequential tasks. The potential application of this type of AI is enormous, starting with customer service, moving through the processing of any type of information or company processes, and also in cybersecurity, where it is possible to automate tasks that currently require human intervention, such as analyzing and fixing vulnerabilities in systems, for example.

In Brazil, the adoption of AI agents is still in the early stages. Some sectors are already testing the new model, and according to a survey conducted by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA), by 2025, about 40% of large Brazilian companies plan to integrate agent-based AI systems into their operations.

Impact of Agentic AI

The potential impact of AI agents is enormous. Banks and financial institutions can reduce fraud incidence by up to 50% with technology, according to the Brazilian Federation of Banks (FEBRABAN).

The Health sector can also apply the new technology. The Brazilian Medical Association (AMB) highlights that AI agents have the potential to reduce medical errors by up to 30%, as the technology is capable of analyzing medical records, test results, and patients' health history to propose more accurate diagnoses. In the industry, intelligent automation will be driven by agentic AI, which enables the autonomous operation of machines and processes.

Expanding generative AI into the production environment

Even with the widespread adoption of generative AI, its impact has still been limited in the productive environment, with more intense use in certain niches, such as image and video creation. According to Gartner, the adoption of this AI model is expected to increase in the production environment by 2026 – reaching up to 80% of companies.

In Brazil, the adoption of generative AI tools by companies is increasing as organizations recognize the value of these technologies in process optimization and innovation. Companies from various sectors, including advertising, media, and design, have been using generative AI to create personalized content and more effective campaigns.

Furthermore, large corporations are beginning to integrate generative AI into their daily operations to improve data analysis, automate repetitive tasks, and forecast market trends. The adoption of these tools can transform the way Brazilian companies operate, increasing efficiency and competitiveness in the global market.

AI will become increasingly humanized

The launch of ChatGPT-5 is expected to happen in the coming months, and one of the most anticipated features of this new version is the enhanced ability of the tool to maintain natural conversations. This means that the chatbot will be able to follow the flow of a conversation, understand the context and hidden meaning, and even respond "emotionally."

Furthermore, experts have suggested that GPT-5 will have reasoning abilities similar to those of humans, being able to understand the context of a conversation in a more comprehensive way.

2025: The Year of Small AI Models

When AI emerged, learning models called LLMs – or Large Language Models – were widely adopted so that popular tools could emerge in the market. These models are trained on large amounts of data – however, this information is more superficial.

Small models are less expensive to build and operate and are more easily adapted to specialized applications. Instead of trying to do everything, small models are customized to perform a limited set of everyday tasks for a specific business need.

LLMs have billions of parameters and require massive amounts of data and computational power to train and operate. Small models, on the other hand, can be effectively trained with less data and require much less computational power (and therefore energy) to run.

In summary, these changes promise to transform various sectors and bring significant innovations to people's and companies' daily lives. The advancement of AI, both in terms of accessibility and sophistication, will further democratize access to advanced technologies, paving the way for a future in which technology is deeply integrated into all aspects of society.

With the proliferation of small, more specialized AI models, it is expected that personalization and efficiency will reach new heights, providing solutions increasingly aligned with the specific needs of each sector. Therefore, the year 2025 promises to be, without a doubt, a year of great revolutions for AI.