If 2024 was the year of large language models (LLMs), then 2025 looks like the year of AI "agents". These are quasi-intelligent systems that harness LLMs to go beyond their usual tricks of generating plausible text or responding to prompts. The idea is that an agent can be given a high-level – possibly even vague – goal and break it down into a series of actionable steps. Once it "understands" the goal, it can devise a plan to achieve it, much as a human would. OpenAI's chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, recently explained it thus to the Financial Times: "It could be a researcher, a helpful assistant for everyday people, working moms like me. In 2025, we will see the first very successful agents deployed that help people in their day to day."

Technological advancement coupled with Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken over industries in the 21st century. For example, non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have exploded in popularity in recent years as a means of buying, selling, and trading unique digital assets such as artwork, music, and videos. As NFTs continue to gain in popularity, the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the NFT industry. Artificial Intelligence technology enables artists, collectors, and investors to generate, authenticate, and monetize non-fungible tokens in novel ways. The process of creating and validating NFTs becomes more rapid, efficient, and secure with Artificial Intelligence.

New advances in technology have pushed many sectors, including finance, to start their digital transformation. Some of the emerging FinTech trends today promise to save time and eliminate headaches from the industry, such as fraudulent activity. The change, driven by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, will transform the financial services landscape and forever change the future of FinTech. And those who want to remain competitive will need to reinvent their business processes as quickly as possible. Although the adoption of AI tech in finance is accompanied by several challenges, Microsoft's Accelerating Competitive Advantage with AI report reveals that global AI investments in the financial sector will reach a value of $5.6 billion in 2019.