At the start of 2025, forecasts were confident: Automation would accelerate, artificial intelligence (AI) adoption would surge, and the economic picture would clarify. A year later, the report card is mixed. Predictions were directionally right but overly optimistic about the speed of change.

Consumer Behavior: Confidence Lagged; Spending Did Not
Grade: C

Consumer forecasts were among the least accurate.

“Consumer confidence started the year at low levels,” says Samuel Bond, associate professor of marketing in the Scheller College of Business. Many analysts expected households to pull back, particularly on discretionary spending. Instead, consumers kept spending — especially on travel, dining, and entertainment.

Bond notes a persistent gap between sentiment and behavior. “People expressed worry, but they did not significantly reduce spending.”

He also points to a major 2025 shift: the rise of AI “shopping assistants.” Rather than using search engines or retailer sites, consumers increasingly turned to tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and other bots that consolidate search, comparison, and advice.

Automation Expectations: Progress Without the Breakthrough
Grade: B-

Supply chain automation was expected to leap forward in 2025, but progress came in targeted pockets.

“2025 did not deliver a broad, step-change leap in automation performance,” says Chris Gaffney, professor of the practice in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE). “Instead, it delivered selective progress.”

Automation delivered the most value in tightly scoped environments with clear ownership, particularly in new distribution and manufacturing facilities. Semi-automated systems that supported human judgment and stabilized throughput outperformed complex retrofits that promised full automation.

Forecasts missed by assuming technology alone could overcome workforce readiness, data gaps, and organizational complexity. “The gap between expectation and reality was less about technology and more about readiness to operate automated systems day-to-day,” Gaffney says.

Still, Gaffney gives 2025 a B-, calling it “a healthy, if humbling, outcome” that reset expectations and clarified what actually matters heading into 2026.

Artificial Intelligence: Adoption Advanced; Hype Outran Reality
Grade: Hard to define

No trend attracted more hype in 2025 than AI, and predictions routinely overshot reality.

“There’s been so much hype around AI that keeping track of specific forecasts is difficult,” says Jorge Huertas, a researcher in the ISyE. “AI has grown in many different areas and scopes, but not at the pace it was hyped.”

Some applications matured quickly, particularly code generation and AI tools embedded into existing platforms. “Claude has grown very well with code generation, and Gemini has grown by integrating across the Google ecosystem,” Huertas says.

Other highly touted areas lagged. “Agentic AI was hyped, only to see many cases where engineers spent two or three times longer fixing errors from AI-generated code,” he adds.

AI delivered the most value when narrowly applied to the right problems. Looking ahead, Huertas points to accuracy, guardrails, and regulation, rather than model capability, as the key constraints shaping AI’s 2026 trajectory.

Alex Hsu, associate professor in the Scheller College of Business, notes that business adoption is accelerating regardless. “The AI revolution is here to stay,” he says. “Tech companies are investing hundreds of billions in large language models and data centers, while companies outside tech are using models to improve margins. This will heighten competition and put downward pressure on the labor market.”

Economic Outlook: Forecasts Tested by Policy Volatility
Grade: C+

Economic predictions faced unusual turbulence in 2025, driven largely by rapid policy shifts.

“2025 was a difficult year to forecast gross domestic product (GDP) growth given the immense number of changes in policy at the federal level,” says Danny Woodbury, lecturer in the School of Economics.

Early forecasts projected solid growth in the first quarter, but GDP instead contracted slightly as government spending fell and imports surged following tariff announcements. “Forecasters did not foresee the magnitude of the shift in trade policy,” Woodbury says, noting that projections only converged with reality weeks before official data releases.

Later in the year, export growth pushed GDP forecasts sharply higher, again catching analysts off guard.

Hsu adds that inflation and unemployment will be the key indicators to watch in 2026 as the Federal Reserve balances price stability with employment amid rising bond yields and global fiscal pressures complicating the outlook.

What Forecasters Should Adjust Going Forward

Across sectors, 2025 revealed a common blind spot: Predictions assumed smoother execution than reality allowed.

For 2026, experts point to discipline over hype, operational readiness over technology promises, policy risk over static models, and actual behavior over stated intentions.

As Gaffney puts it: “2026 will reward operators who treat automation as a system to be run, not a solution to be bought.”