The last few years have been defined by constant acceleration. Every trend feels louder, faster, and more overwhelming than the one before it. While many people are looking ahead and making predictions about what’s coming next, I think there’s more insight in recognizing what we’ve already left behind.
So here’s what we are leaving in 2025....
1) “Real” Content
2025 will go down as the last year in history when the majority of content created or consumed was made by humans, meaning “real.”
From here on out, AI-generated video dominates social feeds. Most ads are AI-generated. Most writing starts with a prompt. More of what we hear is synthetic. Increasingly, people don’t care whether something was made by a human. They care whether it’s good. Whether it’s believable.
The boundary between creation and inquiry is now limited only by imagination. Even the most ethical, spiritual, and humanitarian pillars of what makes us human have been, and will continue to be, touched by AI.
“The current No. 1 Christian artist has no soul.”
https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/11/solomon-ray-ai-christian-music-soul-singer/
What I find almost as unsettling is what’s happening to history itself. AI-generated summaries, rewrites, and reinterpretations are quietly becoming our history. The obsession with bias, pressure-testing the past against modern values, and dismissing uncomfortable facts is not progress. It is distortion.
One battle I am constantly fighting with students is the misconception that Google is a source of information. Now it actually kind of can be, with Gemini summaries placed directly in front of you every time you browse.
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia adds another layer to this shift.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/elon-musk-launched-grokipedia-heres-how-it-compares-to-wikipedia
I don’t know what the long-term effects of all of this will be. But I do know this: human-made content is no longer the default, and 2025 was the last year most content was human-made.
The year of “slop” was our last “real” one.
2) Overpriced Private Schools
2025 was the peak year for private school pricing.
AI is turning information, productivity, and education in its truest sense into a commodity. Knowledge is becoming close to universally accessible, at least for people who are motivated and have strong foundational language skills.
While I personally believe AI use for young children will be more harmful than helpful, for teens and young adults it is already incredibly engaging, adaptive, and effective. For students with strong foundations who are ready to do more problem-solving rather than developing fundamentals, AI functions like a tireless, personalized tutor restricted only by imagination.
The truth about all AI-centric businesses is that the two biggest costs are salaries and marketing. An AI-dominant education business model does not cost anywhere near $40,000 per student per year to run.
The competition between ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and whatever comes next ensures that high-quality AI will continue to be cheap, interchangeable, and accessible. When one falls short, another fills the gap. That pressure trickles down. When you run out of tokens, it makes far more sense to switch models than it does to spend $20 a month.
Most educational choices, even among nonprofits, are driven by money. And yes, colleges are wildly overpriced, so I am not blaming AI hype for that. But any education powered by AI and branded as elite or revolutionary does not cost what it is charging. The exclusivity is the artificial part of the business model. The intelligence is not.
It is also important to say this clearly. AI-driven education only works well for motivated learners. As a public school teacher, I truly believe at least 50 percent of my daily energy goes toward motivation. Convincing students that school matters, that science matters, and that our town, Maryland, America, and the world do not completely suck.
Until robots take most jobs, public schools and public school teachers will remain pillars of the community. We serve the least fortunate in any way we can and serve the most fortunate to the best of our abilities.
3) The Denial of “AGI”
We are also leaving behind the pretense that artificial general intelligence, superintelligence, or strong AI has not arrived yet.
Every major chatbot I use today is smarter than me in measurable, repeatable ways. Put me and a modern model in front of almost any test of intelligence, and the model wins.
We used to define AGI as doing any work a human can do. By that definition, we have already crossed the line. Instead of acknowledging it, we moved the goalposts.
This whole thing feels less scientific and more psychological.
Microsoft’s AI Diagnostic Orchestrator, MAI-DxO, correctly diagnosed 85 percent of cases described in the New England Journal of Medicine. Human doctors, on average, were correct about 20 percent of the time.
https://time.com/7299314/microsoft-ai-better-than-doctors-diagnosis/
Approximately 28 percent of people surveyed have used AI for quick mental health support or as a personal therapist. Only about 15 percent of people seek therapy or mental health advice from a professional. Either the group of people who use AI is more likely to talk about mental health, or people trust and use their AI chatbots for mental health advice twice as much as they trust other people.
https://news.llu.edu/health-wellness/can-i-use-ai-my-therapist-truth-about-turning-chatbots-therapy
On a strange and genuinely concerning level, AI is able to give young people the impression that it satisfies real emotional needs.
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/08/nx-s1-5561981/ai-students-schools-teachers
I find it bizarre and irresponsible how the definition of AGI keeps shifting. Maybe it is economic. Maybe political. Maybe societal. Or maybe we just need to believe we are still special. But pretending we are still the sharpest tool in the shed is not true, and it is a dangerous thing to tell young people.
2025 was the last year humans knew humans best.
2025 is not coming back, and neither are some of the unique characteristics of living in, or before, it.
Have a great 2026.
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”