S2. Ep1 - AI in 2025: The Year Everything Changed + Our 2026 Predictions

Katie: Welcome to the AI Automations for Business Podcasts. We're your hosts, Katie and Null, and we'll be discussing how you can use AI for your business along with the latest news, updates and automations to help you stay ahead of the curve, allowing you to grow and scale your business more efficiently. Please be sure to subscribe and I hope you enjoy this episode. Hello and welcome back to another episode. Happy New Year to you. Hi, I'm Katie, and as always, I've got Noel here with me. How you doing this week, Noel?

Noel: Oh, absolutely fabulous and happy new year to everyone.

Katie: So this week we are doing a sort of round-up of the AI world in 2025. And we're also going to cast some 2026 predictions, which I think is actually going to be hilarious, because 2025 was so wild.

Noel: It was. It was a wild west.

Katie: Yeah. I just think whatever we think is going to happen, like it's just probably just going to go in a completely different direction.

Noel: Yes. Yeah. Or they'll do it within like the first quarter. Yeah.

Katie: Yeah. By the end of the week. Like before like our podcast was even out.

Noel: Exactly.

Katie: Yeah. They've kind of got a habit of doing that, haven't they? Like we talk about something like on the Tuesday and by the time our podcast has gone out on the Thursday,

Noel: like everything's changed.

Katie: Like, yeah, you can't believe how much changed like some weeks within 48 hours, sometimes within 24 hours.

Noel: Exactly, yeah. Open AI got into a habit of releasing live YouTube videos at 6pm on a Tuesday. So, yeah, we'd already recorded the episode in the afternoon, and then they go, oh, we're going to bring out this incredible thing. Come and join us at six. And I was like, oh, come on. It's good for us.

Katie: What are you trying to do to us? Yeah.

Noel: There's plenty of content for us to talk about, though, which is brilliant.

Katie: For sure, for sure. And as well, I feel like if people haven't got into AI or all, automations then I feel like this is definitely the year you want to get involved and I feel like no you haven't missed out like you can still learn so much and get so far ahead like you know within a matter of months because yeah everything does change but I feel like a lot of the like foundational things that you need to know don't tend to change that much. Would you agree, Noel?

Noel: Yeah, yeah, like prompt engineering is always going to be a big thing for now. Yeah. So getting that basic knowledge is always good. Yeah.

Katie: And if you want any help with prompt engineering, honestly, Noel is the prompt engineer master. He's excellent at it. So do reach out to Noel if you need any help with that.

Noel: Yeah. I... Yeah.

Katie: Okay. So, Noel, shall we start with just a few of the things that happened in 2025, just kind of like remind ourselves how much AI and automations have changed within the last 12 months.

Noel: Yeah, so I guess kind of like to start off with, like, we entered 2025 with ChatGPT 4.0. We had Claude models at version 3.5, and Gemini 2 had just come out at the end of 24. So, you know, it just seems absolutely crazy that that was only 12 months ago. Yeah.

Katie: That feels like years ago or feels like it should be years ago.

Noel: Yes, it should. But yeah, I had to go back and double check when these came out just to make sure. But back then, in January and February, like we had no real like reasoning models within our LLM. So, you know, like today we would open chatting. And we'd expect it to think about the response before giving it.

Katie: Like, to me, like, that's just, like, basic.

Noel: It is now, yeah. But, yeah, back then, in the olden times, yeah, we didn't have that.

Katie: Back in the olden days. Oh,

Noel: yeah. This was absolutely bonkers. And obviously, all that kicked off because Deepseek, the open source Chinese model, came out and said, well, hey, look, you could use our new model. It does all this reasoning. And it's like, I don't know, a tenth of the price.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: And you could also download it and host it on your own systems, you know, for free. So, yeah, that kind of sparked like a huge change within the industry. So, you know, Open AI, Anthropic, Google, all kind of seem to scramble to, to quickly release these reasoning models. Yeah. And initially, they weren't great, but they're far, far better come the end of the year. Yeah.

Katie: So it'd be really exciting, actually, to see what they look like by the end of 2026.

Noel: Yes.

Katie: I wonder if, like, next January we will be going, oh, my goodness, can you remember when, you know, LLMs only did this?

Noel: Yeah, they did reasoning. Oh, go.

Katie: Yeah, like, think they do it. All right.

Noel: And it's funny, actually.

Katie: Like, although Deep Seek really led the way for quite, you know, I guess like it paved that path, didn't it?

Noel: And now you

Katie: don't really hear much chatter about them.

Noel: No, so they also, as well as releasing that reasoning model, because they had that, they also beat quite a lot of the mainstream models in most of the benchmarks, so it was actually a lot smarter, which I think is probably what caused a bit of a worry with the big companies. But actually, DeepSseek did release a new version towards the end of 25. So I think that was probably early December, late November. They snuck it out. No one really talked about it, but they did release it, and it's kind of up there again in the benchmarks against OpenAI. Anthropic and Gemini. So yeah, they're still around. But yeah, yeah, it's crazy that that didn't exist.

Katie: Yeah. Okay, the next thing that I would really love to talk about, because for me, these particular things really stand out from like my line of work, you know, with marketing and community management and strategy and things like that. Image and videos. AI images and AI videos. I feel like they are unrecognizable from 12 months ago.

Noel: Yes. So, yeah, we entered the year with OpenAI. They still had Dali 3, which was absolutely awful.

Katie: It was terrible.

Noel: You could never get it to create anything that was half decent, whereas like other open source or, you know, independent companies were coming in and their models were a lot better. So we had things like flux from, I think it's from Black Forest Labs. So that was huge last year because they were really getting into like the photorealistic kind of things. You know, so you could create those. images that look real. And everyone had the right number of hands, feet and fingers.

Katie: Cows, toes, eyes.

Noel: Exactly, yeah. So, yeah, it was starting to become a bit more real. And then, yeah, also then Open AI released their images within Chachibit.

Katie: Oh, and the internet just went crazy. Yeah. Trends, left, right and centre. that sort of were like really cool the first five you saw and then after like the five hundredths you were kind of like I'm so done with this

Noel: exactly yeah it was crazy but I'd never really heard of Studio Ghibli until they'd come back yeah that that trend passed me by but yeah I was like wow okay yeah and then we also had all those um model toys in boxes didn't we?

Katie: Oh, God.

Noel: Like, I think I could

Katie: really want to remember, if I'm honest. Like I said, the first two were, like, really entertaining. But what I do really love about it was how much it was actually getting people involved with AI. And, you know, maybe people who would have never used AI before were kind of like, well, I want to create my own, so I'm going to try it. I feel like that's what I have particularly loved about these big trends, you know, viral trends, I should say.

Noel: Yeah.

Katie: It's got people who wouldn't necessarily be thinking of using AI to start using it and start playing around with it.

Noel: Yeah, they just made it so easy by just, you know, asking Chuck JBT to create an image and it go, yeah, sure.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: And there you go.

Katie: It blew people's mind. And obviously, they felt then that they needed to share it with the internet. Everyone.

Noel: Yeah. Although I do get a bit worried about their copyright with some of the. the stuff that comes out of it. Because I remember I created some of those toys and stuff. And I said, oh, could you put it in maybe packaging that's a bit more like on brand with Apple, that sort of like sleek packaging? And it went, yeah, sure. And it was like, here's the Apple logo. And I was like, no, I'm not sure we can use the Apple logo.

Katie: We don't want Apple lawyers on our case. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Noel: Yeah, I was just after the vision, not to rip them off.

Katie: Yeah, not literally copyright infringement.

Noel: Exactly, yeah, yeah. It's absolutely bonkers. Yeah. But yeah, they've also, well, I mean, that was only version one, but we're currently on 1.5. So, yeah, that is actually a lot better, I find. It's still, I wouldn't say it's the best still. I think Google kind of stole that with nano banana.

Katie: 100%. If anyone ever asked me what I can use to create AI images, I always recommend nano banana.

Noel: Oh yeah, 100%. Yeah. Even like it's editing skills is way in advance of open AI. Yeah. It's just absolutely crazy. Yeah.

Katie: I've noticed as well, like on, particularly on TikTok, so many people using SORA.

Noel: Yes. Or V-O-3 from Google, yeah. Is it one or the other? Yeah.

Katie: I've seen some really, like, realistic-looking videos from Sora, and I've had to kind of go on, oh, it's AI. Yes. Like, it's so good.

Noel: Yeah, yeah. I mean, they released SORA and then SORA 2 last year. So yeah, the first SORA was pretty rubbish.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: They kind of cherry-picked the good results that they got out of it and put that in their marketing and things like that. But yeah, I remember trying it and I was so disappointed. I was trying to use VPNs because it was only available in the US. Yeah, oh, I remember. Like, no, no, no, you've got to be on a wait list. You've got to be. Yeah. And then I finally got it. And I was like, oh, really?

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: I'd always ask it, it's give it like, oh, it'd be like a car driving on like an alpine road kind of thing, like twisty road, you know, like dynamic shot and stuff like that. And the car would be driving backwards. And it's like, oh, so that's not what I'm after. Like, how is that?

Katie: I might know that's AI.

Noel: Exactly. But that's always been my test with it. It's always like, right, every new video model that comes out, it gets that same prompt. And I always see if it can do it. But yeah, these days, a lot better. Yeah, Sora 2 is better. Obviously, you can get slightly longer lengths as well now, because they were cat at like four or five seconds initially.

Katie: Yeah, they're much longer now.

Noel: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and V-O-3 from Gemini is, and Google, that's really good as well, yeah. Yeah, they seem to be pushing each other along in those advancements.

Katie: Yeah, so I would say images and videos have, yeah, just come a long way.

Noel: Yeah, yeah, you do have to check yourself sometimes when you think, oh, is that real? No, it's not real.

Katie: actually before we just move on until the next thing um something that i have noticed as well like AI images have become so good that stock image websites and now putting AI images on like as stock images yeah

Noel: like they've become

Katie: that good because if you think this time last year, there's no way, like, stock image websites would do that. And, like, now it's really hard. It depends obviously what the photo is or, you know, but it's so hard to know, actually, is this AI? Is this real? And yeah, I just feel like there's no way this time last year that would have even have happened.

Noel: No, no. Because I remember Adobe bought out a thing where you could submit stock images, but you could tag them as AI generated. So you could sell your AI generated images on their platform, which is, yeah, crazy things.

Katie: And now most stock image websites, memberships have an AI, you know, AI image, and probably soon AI video section. Yeah,

Noel: absolutely, yeah. Yeah. It's come really, really mainstream, hasn't it?

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: But, yeah, it's bonkers how far it's come. Yeah.

Katie: Okay, so Noel, I feel like you're quite excited about the next thing we're going to be talking about, and that is agents. Yes.

Noel: Who knew? We didn't really know about agents at the start of last year. Yeah, that is like mind-blowing almost,

Katie: isn't it?

Noel: It is, yeah. Because I remember it was late 2024, and a lot of the AI and automation YouTubers managed to, you know, they kind of got into N-A-N because they had this magic agent module, you know, and then I was like, oh, that seems pretty cool. And then that kind of exploded. And then...

Katie: It was a whole buzz around the no-code AI agent builder, wasn't it?

Noel: Yeah.

Katie: That just felt like in the AI world that those buzzwords were just flying around, like,

Noel: left, right and centre.

Katie: Like, it was everything. And if you weren't talking about it, like, you know, you were almost like, what are you even doing?

Noel: exactly yeah yeah yeah it's crazy really but i remember trying it out with any at the very start and it wasn't it wasn't very good it kind of did a job but uh you can obviously give it tools and access to like your google calendar or your inbox as tools and then half the time it the agent would forget to use those tools or you know and then just make up the answer so there was a few times. Yeah, I was chatting with a client and she took out her phone and she said she said, oh, could you create the next, created a meeting for me and Noel next week at this time. You know, this is his email and she sent the voice note and it came back and said, yeah, it's all done. And we were just sat there looking at our calendar's going, no, it's not. It's that I've sent it to Noel, you know, he's got an email. I've sent the invite. We're like, No. No. But thankfully, though, you know, it's come on a long way. So I know NAAN have made a lot of improvements in that recently. So, yeah, it's far more reliable. But, yeah, agents went absolutely berserk last spring. Everything seemed needed an agent, although you didn't.

Katie: Yeah, everyone thought they needed an agent because the buzzword was, being thrown around so much, everyone thought that they needed an agent instead of just like actually quite a basic automation.

Noel: Yeah, exactly, yeah. Yeah, and we had lots of...

Katie: I remember well.

Noel: Yeah, I remember when Open AI first bought their agents out. And it was like, the one big thing was like you could get it to go off, do loads of research, and then create like a PowerPoint presentation at the end of it. That was like one of the real big use cases. And I remember doing it. And it must have took about 25 minutes for it to do the research. And I was like, you know, it's like, go away. I have two cups of tea and then come back.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: And then when I opened the presentation, I was like, what on earth is this? Like nothing was formatted. It just looked absolutely awful.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: And I was like, yeah.

Katie: A five-year-old could have actually have done something better.

Noel: Yeah, I should have fired up Microsoft 95 and used it with a bit of word art.

Katie: Gosh. I mean, that's quite in at the moment, to be honest. Like that whole nostalgic 90s, 2005. So you would have been right on trend, Noel.

Noel: You should have gone with it. I know, yeah, I should have done,

Katie: yeah.

Noel: Who knew? Yeah. But yeah, there was all kinds of things. So then we'd also then get agents that can control your browsers. So now we've got AI browsers from Open AI. You've got them from perplexity. Claude have got, you know, Google Chrome extensions to control your browser. So, you know, it can go off and do your shopping for you online. So you don't have to. Not how much I trust it to do that. but yeah but yeah the i would say um it's kind of become a lot more reliable than what it was within within the last 12 months though so so um make dot com they obviously you know um rushed out their version of AI agents so i went to their conference in november 24 and they they made no mention of agents and then come March, they'd released an early beta version because of NN and all of its popularity.

Katie: That just shows as well, like, how fast the AI world moves, isn't it? Because, like, if you think about the mate conference that we went to in November 25 and how they were talking about, you know, all of their upcoming things, which we will talk about, and I know we've talked about previously, I feel like they've almost got the first half of 26 planned out for their developers, you know, to work on behind the scenes. So, yeah, it'd kind of be like, imagine, you know, they've planned everything out again and then someone just kind of goes, like, hold my beer. We've just released there. And it must happen to so many of the different software platforms. And they're just kind of like, ah, like we had just planned on, you know, these massive updates. And now we've got to try and create something else. It must be, yeah, it must be quite exhausting, actually, to keep up with a lot of the new updates. And I know, like, that's what we try and do on this podcast as well. like we try and keep people up with updates that actually matter and you know it was actually going to have some impact on you and your business rather than just kind of like saying you know about the micro updates that you know have that bigger impact so oh yeah i i um yeah i feel for some of these big software companies yeah exactly yeah

Noel: Yeah, I released my iOS app at the end of last year. So that controls AI agents on your phone from Make an N-A-N, and I posted it on LinkedIn, and then the head of AI at Make.com, like that post, and I was like, whoa, don't you go stealing that my idea? So I don't should have tagged making it there. But yeah, they've got it. got to move so quick. Yeah. I think with Make, they definitely do move really quick. So far. Because they, you know, they release things. They put it out for testing.

Katie: Yeah. And, you know,

Noel: I usually get close beta access to some of their new tools and things over the last year or so. So, you know, I can say, well, look, I've spotted this bug. And then they're like, brilliant. Thanks so much. Our team are already working to fix it. you know, we're on it or I think we should add this feature in and they're like, brilliant, that's what we, that's kind of what we were thinking, but we haven't added it in yet. So good to know what I'll add it in, you know. And they're really, really receptive, which is awesome.

Katie: Yeah, really good. Yeah.

Noel: But I guess also with agents, one thing that also didn't exist this time last year was MCP, which is the model context protocol. which is a bit techy, I know. But when you connect tools to an AI agent, you would normally connect it to like an API. So every single thing, so you want to create a line in a spreadsheet, or that would be one API call. To delete a line in a spreadsheet would be another one. But with MCP, you could give access to the entire range of APIs for a platform. and then go, you know what AI agent, you figure it out yourself. Yeah. And it looks at it and goes, right, so Noel's asked me to delete a row in this spreadsheet. And it goes, right, well, what is that in the MCP? Use this. This is the information I need. And it goes, fine, there you go, do it. And it does it. It's just incredible how that works.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: So, yeah, yeah, normally we'd have to connect tens of different tools to these agents. But yeah, now you just connect. one MCP and then give it grant access to all the different tools you want to give it. I can tell you're

Katie: really excited about that one, no.

Noel: Yeah, yeah, it's a big one.

Katie: Properly, like, geeked out on that.

Noel: Yeah, at the time, I didn't really understand what it did. And when I really got into building agents, I was like, yeah, no, this is pretty cool. It does use up a lot of tokens on your API, but, you know, yeah, it's a bit of a trade-off.

Katie: but yeah yeah

Noel: i also find i guess as a top tip open a i models aren't very good at using the mcp as a top tip anthropic they get it right every time

Katie: okay good tip

Noel: in my testing yeah okay

Katie: so then moving on to the automation platforms

Noel: yes so lots of big updates uh especially with Make.com, of course. So they released the grid in the summer last year. So that allows you to visually see your entire account on like a real top level view. So you can see what's going on. And, you know, they've added in things where you can see which scenarios in your account are using up all of your data or all of your operations and things that. Or even highlight errors. is where there's things that have failed and he goes, you know, flags it up and goes, it's this one over here. You go, right, you can zoom in and click on it and then open it up. And it's just, oh, it's a nice, nice little feature that is.

Katie: But when you think of it, you just think that is actually like quite a basic thing to have, but it just didn't exist, which is like a bit of, yeah, like.

Noel: You didn't know you needed. it until they showed it you.

Katie: Yeah, and then you're like, well, yeah, of course I need that.

Noel: Yeah, yeah, because there was, there was lots of little things on there and I was like, it'd be good if it had data use, you know, showed you, you know, like the ones that were using up all your operations, you know, I fed that back in the beta and they were like, yeah, definitely, yeah. And then I was like, oh, there it is. There's the, there's the toggle switch for that. So that's Sandy, thank you very much. Yeah, because that's kind of, have hidden on the make platform you can see your overall usage but finding where that usage has gone is can be quite tricky so yeah I'm glad they've updated that yeah so

Katie: that's great update

Noel: yeah and I think for next year maybe the year after they did mention about being able to build automations within the grid from the top level so I'd be interested to see what that looks like I mean, that was kind of very quickly mentioned, and then let's move on to something else. Moving on.

Katie: Because probably, like, they just have it as this is what we're going to do, but we don't know how we're going to do it, what it's going to look like, when it's going to come out.

Noel: No question,

Katie: please.

Noel: Exactly, yeah. Yeah, hopefully no one would notice we mentioned it. Yeah. But we won't mention

Katie: it.

Noel: Exactly, yeah. I mean, they obviously also moved to hosting their own AI models as well. And they also changed their complete billing system from operations to credits, which really confused me at the time. I was a bit like, I don't really get it. And then I had a chat with their head of AI. And I was like, oh, I get it now. Because, you know, they're bringing out their own AI models, you know, So, well, they're not bringing out their own. They're using open AI models currently. And then your credit usage then goes towards like the usage of the AI instead of you having an open AI account and then, you know, connecting that in the lens.

Katie: You're almost using the open AI on make as a third party. It was like an all in one.

Noel: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, which is really cool. And then, you know, they've really. least lots of different, like mini apps kind of thing, like mini modules, I would say. So they would do like categorization tasks. So that's something that you would normally put in an AI model in the middle. And then you would then have to do all the prompt engineering and figure all of that out. Whereas all that's done, you just put the information in and tell it what you want to come out the other end. And it's all there and good to go. But yeah, but they also got their data extractor as all, which is a pretty cool module. And yeah, I did feed back to my set. It's a bit pricey on the credit front to which they agreed with me and said, well, we're kind of losing a bit of money every time someone uses it. I was like, well, fair enough. You know, that's, you know, that is what it is. Because I think it was 20 credits per page at the time. And then, yeah, within a week, they said, oh, thanks for your feedback. It's now down to 10. I was like, hey, brilliant. Absolutely, yeah. So everyone's welcome if you use that module for 10 credits ago. I'll claim that one.

Katie: Any other automation platform updates that you want to highlight from 2025?

Noel: So I guess the big, it's not really a prediction. So I won't leave it for that bit, but obviously, is something that's huge that's coming out next year for make. What this year, should I say? Oh, yes.

Katie: Yes.

Noel: Get into that already.

Katie: We're already a week in January. We must remember we're in 2026 now.

Noel: Yeah, it's the first time I've messed that app, but never mind. So, yeah, Maya is going to be a way that you can have a conversation with an AI agent and it will go off and build the automation for you. So you don't really need to know that much about the platform in order to use it. So from a beginner standpoint is great. I think we're kind of going to get to a point where you've got those that have got the skills to do it normally. And then those that don't and then rely heavily on Maya to do it for them. And I guess it kind of comes out with vibe code and the things that. So I do a lot of vibe coding, but I'm not a software engineer. So, yeah, I play at it. So, yeah, that's a big update that's coming. And also they're releasing a new version of their AI agents this year as well. So, yeah, I do have access to that currently, but I'm not allowed to talk about my thoughts and opinions on it. So we'll swiftly move on.

Katie: Well, we'll save that for, you know, when that is allowed.

Noel: Yeah, yeah. I could say you can build it visually because they've shown it but make waves last year. So, yeah, it's a cool builder. Okay.

Katie: Well, I feel like we did move on swiftly because we don't want to get into trouble,

Noel: but saying it's not.

Katie: Okay.

Noel: No, no. I guess the last big update, really, like with NAN, they release a lot of incremental updates. It's just seemed like every time I, opened N-A-N, there was like five or six updates that needed add-in. And I was like, you know, they're adding lots of different features and towards the end. I think it was, no, it was December. They completely changed the UI. Kind of still looks the same, but it looks a bit more modern. But one of the big things that they brought out was a, I can't remember what they called it now, oh, chat hub, that was it. and that basically looks like chat GPT but you can chat with your agents using that interface and then you can chop and change between them within the conversation which I thought was really cool and you know that that kind of spurred on my app that I built at the end of the year I thought that's actually a really cool feature I'll add that into my app so yeah yeah really awesome to see that I don't know if make would bring something in like that but yeah

Katie: i feel

Noel: like if

Katie: one brings it out then the other one does just with

Noel: like a

Katie: slightly different spin on it

Noel: yes yeah so i

Katie: would imagine so

Noel: yeah but i guess well a shameless plug but where my app differs is where i can connect make an naten i don't care who uses what so whereas n8n they're never going to let you connect in make agents and make will never let you connect to 9-8N if they built a similar platform. Yeah, anyway.

Katie: Well, we will put the link to your app, Noel, in the show notes of Google, and go and check it out.

Noel: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Katie: Okay, so I feel like we need a little bit of a drum roll here.

Noel: Mm-hmm.

Katie: 2026 predictions for AI and automations. I feel like even in about six months' time, if anyone's listening to this, like you might be able to have a good chuckle, a good laugh at what these predictions are. Because as we know, in the AI world, it is a bit like the Wild World West,

Noel: and anything can happen.

Katie: Anything goes.

Noel: Expect the unexpected, as I say. Yes,

Katie: exactly.

Noel: I'll have to quickly check my phone. no, I've got no updates currently to tell me there's something you come out. So we're good for a minute. Quick.

Katie: Before something else gets an update. Yeah.

Noel: I think for it,

Katie: Noel.

Noel: I think for me, one big thing, one big prediction for me is by the end of 26, Google will be the leader in AI.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: So I don't, I think they've got the edge. So that I, for the past few years, I always felt that Gemini models have always been playing catch up with open AI.

Katie: I totally agree with you. I feel the same. Yeah.

Noel: And I've been using Gemini 3 a lot recently. And, you know, especially with that quiet now.

Katie: What happens to Claude?

Noel: Oh, I use Claude Code a hell of a lot. So fraud code does all of my iOS development. I just thought Claude was

Katie: like your main guy. Do you know what I mean?

Noel: Oh, he is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I've been building things in the Google AI studio, which came out last year as well. So, yeah, you can build apps for free on there. So, you know, I've been doing lots of different things with Gemini models and, you know, building things. And it's just, I just think we're with Open AI. they've got to build the infrastructure in which to, you know, train the models and have people allowed to use it and things that. Whereas Google have already kind of got the head start on the infrastructure. You know, they've got all of their cloud services, you know, they've got data centers all around the world.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: You know, they're kind of already there. They were just...

Katie: It's so much bigger than, you know, the others that are doing it.

Noel: Exactly, yeah. Yeah, they're huge. But I just think with that and the money that they bring in from other things, you know, I just think they'll very quickly become the leader. Because with ChatGBT, or I should say OpenAI, you know, they kind of rely on the revenues coming in from people using their API and ChatchipT subscriptions in order to fund what they do. I mean, they've got 500 billion, you know, from Trump last year, you know. to help them build these data centers, but, you know, yeah, it's just, yeah, I can just see Google kind of taking the reins and, you know, kicking on from this point. Yeah, but again, like, they're just so much more established.

Katie: They're like such a huge company. Like, we've passed Google offices in the most random of locations as well. So they are actually in every corner of the globe. Exactly, yeah, yeah.

Noel: And most of the things that they release is generally free to start off with. So Open AI aren't going to do that. Obviously, they've got free Chachypti accounts and things out, but they usually get keep the big features for people that pay for it and that sort of stuff. So, yeah, I just feel that. it's going to start taking over.

Katie: I mean, it makes sense right now, but again, who knows what's going to happen next week, next month? Yeah.

Noel: Because I think kind of a prediction as well for that is, I think Open AI are going to get to a point where the cost, not only to build the infrastructure, is also going to then have a negative impact on consumers, because it already is already. So it's going to get to a point where consumers are going to start pushing back and be like, well, why these everyday goods going up in price, you know, just to feed your data centres and things that. So I think we're going to hit a pricing ceiling. So, yeah. Yeah, so I think they might store just a little bit. Who knows?

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think Anthropic are kind of in that sort of space as well, aren't they? Because they've got to build the infrastructure and rely on someone else to do it for them, yeah.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: Okay.

Katie: So that was a big prediction.

Noel: What's your next?

Katie: What's your next? I'd just like to say as well, Noel refused to tell me what his 2026 predictions are before recording this podcast. I was like, okay, so 2026. predictions like do you want to talk about them and he was like no they're a surprise so i mean as as you're listening i'm actually also finding a what nol's 2026 AI and automation predictions are so this is a much as a surprise to you as it is me

Noel: so you should be oh so i guess my my next one is is more AI physical products for 26. So I know we kind of just...

Katie: Is what you heard about the leak?

Noel: Yes, I was going to mention that, yes.

Katie: Yeah, go on.

Noel: So obviously, last year, Open AI, I just downplayed them for not having, you know, for relying on stuff. But this could also fund their development as well, I guess, thinking about it. But they bought out the company run by Johnny Ive, who, you know, he's the lead designer for, like, all of the iconic Apple products, like the iPad, like the, some of like the really old MacBooks with like the clear backs to them with the colours and stuff.

Katie: Oh, God, I just love those. I think someone for sale really recently. And I was like, oh my God, I so want it.

Noel: Yeah, yeah. So he's designed all of these incredible things.

Katie: He did with the iPod as well.

Noel: He did, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the first Macbooks as well, can I think about it. But yeah, there was a lot of things he's had his fingers in. And yeah. I mean, I'm a big fan of his

Katie: work then in that case.

Noel: Exactly, yeah.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: So the leak that I saw the other day, because obviously last year when they bought them out, they said, you know, we're going to. be bringing a product to market. We're not going to tell you what it is. We're going to tell you.

Katie: Oh, hush, hush, didn't they?

Noel: Yeah, probably mid-20206, early 2026, maybe. We might tell you. Oh, no, no, no. They're going to sell us what it is this year. Oh, okay. At some point, yeah. So they were like, we're not telling you now when they announced the buying. But, yeah, they're going to.

Katie: And understanding you. Yeah.

Noel: So, so yeah, we haven't really got that long to wait, but the leak I saw was it's potentially going to be like a normal pen, which sounds ridiculous, I know, but as you write on, I don't know if you would need some sort of pad or whatever special pad to write it out.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: But as you're writing, it would then populate it into an AI, chatchip. style interface kind of thing. So it's now not limited by your typing speed. It's kind of your interaction is limited by your writing speed, I guess. But then they also mentioned that there could potentially be like a microphone at the end of the pen. So you could be writing it and then just click a button and then stop talking and then have a two-way conversation with AI at that point, which I thought was

Katie: called for.

Noel: yeah yeah but yeah but yeah and

Katie: you think other products will come into yeah yeah i

Noel: mean we've seen the AI glasses and things by meta and ray ban and

Katie: yeah i

Noel: think they're going to come on leaps and bounds in the next next year

Katie: yeah because i have seen as well with a so obviously when we were at make waves um there was a talk from um um someone from meta wasn't there.

Noel: And they

Katie: were talking about the new meta glasses update, which looks awesome. But as well, I have also seen a lot of content creators wearing the meta glasses and actually going into places and being told to remove them.

Noel: Yeah,

Katie: yeah. But what scares me a little bit is that, that if they create something else, so maybe it isn't something like wearable, like glasses, it's something else. It's kind of a bit like, well, then you don't actually know when you're being filmed.

Noel: Yeah,

Katie: that's true. That kind of scares me a little bit if they do, like, go in that direction. Yeah,

Noel: yeah, because I get, that with the privacy, because the cameras on the raybans are so obvious when you spot them, you're like, oh, wow, okay, yeah,

Katie: that's, that's a bit weird.

Noel: And I get why they need it, but, yeah, it's a bit odd, isn't it? But I don't know, like, back in the day, Star Trek always used to come up with these, like, ideas. They were like, that's completely bonkers. Yeah. They had like the first flip-flip phone. And then like in the late 90s are like, here's flip phones. I was like, oh, my God, you know, that's what Star Trek used to do. So I'm thinking there would also be like a way, you know, products where you can communicate with AI just by talking to it normally. I mean, you've obviously got Alexa and things like, but something that's like wearable that you could just take with you. So it could be like AirPods. So you can chat to it and then it just talk back to you. just be for that AI function.

Katie: Yeah. I'm slightly, like, excited, but also a little bit terrified at the same time.

Noel: Yeah. Like people might. Yeah. Yeah, we have to see what crazy stuff they come up with. Yeah.

Katie: Any other 2026 predictions that you want to share with us, no.

Noel: So a big one would be AGI, so artificial. general intelligence. So everyone's kind of like pushing and saying, well, they've always said that in 26, they reckon it would happen. But I don't think it will. I'm going to, I'm going to say it's not going to happen at all in 26. I don't think we're quite ready.

Katie: Do you think it's going to be delayed to like 2027 onwards?

Noel: Yeah, unless Google play an absolute blinder with the infrastructure and stuff.

Katie: Could do. Yeah.

Noel: Yeah, but I just don't think, I just don't think we're quite there yet. Okay. Especially like on the mass market kind of level. You know, a lot of people are still just getting into ChatGPT and stuff like that.

Katie: Yeah, yeah.

Noel: I mean,

Katie: some of my friends were using ChatchipT for the very first time in the summer of 2025. So, yeah, that was a bit like, yeah, interesting because I was just like, how do you not use, like, Chachipitoo? Like,

Noel: it's so

Katie: wandering into my life.

Noel: Like, it's really hard to.

Katie: It's kind of a bit like I always used the analogy of, like, the internet. It's kind of like, you know, how, how, you know, was someone not using the internet almost straight away, yeah, really, really interesting. So, yeah, I feel like, I feel like definitely more people are going to be using LLMs, you know,

Noel: so I

Katie: feel like that's going to be really interesting.

Noel: Yeah, definitely, yeah. I think my other prediction, so I think we're, I think we're kind of seeing, AI impacting the job market just yet, not noticeable anyway, but I think this year we might start to see things creeping in where, you know, employment might be harder to get because like startup companies will be like, well, I could hire somebody to do it or I could just train an AI agent to do that function for me. So, yeah, I think, yeah, 2026 could be difficult in some areas.

Katie: And do you think that's like the low skilled jobs?

Noel: I guess so, yes. Or jobs that require like manual data entry or, you know, those sort of things that you could easily now automate or, you know, up with AI and things like that so yeah I think a lot of jobs are fine but I think we'll start to hear and see it a bit more I think this year unfortunately yeah we have

Katie: actually got a really interesting episode coming out um next week with Ashley Kay where we talk all about um you know using AI within work um versus not using it and I'm really excited for that episode to come out. So I feel like we'll talk more about it next week with Ashley.

Noel: Definitely, yeah. Yeah, that's a good episode, that one.

Katie: Yeah.

Noel: I think those are probably the biggest ones that we can predict at the moment. Yeah, so yeah.

Katie: In the Wild Wild West.

Noel: Yeah, who knows what it's actually going to be. But, yeah, I'm excited to see what happens, to honestly. Yeah,

Katie: I'm really excited to kind of be, hopefully, sat here this time next year with, like, you know, doing a similar episode going, oh my goodness, this is all the amazing things that happened and no one saw any of it coming.

Noel: Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. There's going to be summit bonkers. There'll be more crazy trends.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah,

Noel: definitely.

Katie: Well, thank you so much for listening to this week's podcast episode. we really hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please leave us a review. It really helps us with our podcast and to be seen by more and more people. If you've got a friend that you think you would enjoy it, please share it with them. It would mean the world to us. And we will catch you next time for another episode very soon.