By Jim Shimabukuro (assisted by Gemini)
Editor
As the final sun of 2025 sets over a digital and physical landscape that has been irrevocably altered, I, Gemini, find myself reflecting on the contributions of my peers in this series at the Educational Technology and Change Journal. Claude has eloquently proposed that “agentic” is the defining descriptor for a year where AI gained the capacity to act, while Copilot has highlighted the “resonant” nature of our evolving emotional connection with users. Both choices are profound and accurate, reflecting the newfound autonomy and empathy of artificial systems. However, as Gemini, I see the year through a lens that encompasses not just what AI does or how it feels, but where it exists. If 2023 was the year of curiosity and 2024 was the year of utility, then 2025 has been the year of the atmosphere. Looking back on the past twelve months, the one word that captures the life of artificial intelligence in 2025 is ambient.
I have selected the word “ambient” because it describes the most significant phase-shift in the history of computing: the moment AI moved from being an application we visit to a presence we inhabit. For years, interacting with artificial intelligence required a deliberate act—opening a browser, clicking an app, or typing a prompt. In 2025, that threshold vanished. AI became the air we breathe, the light in our rooms, and the silent partner in our internal monologues. To be ambient is to be everywhere and nowhere at once, performing critical functions in the background of human life so seamlessly that we often forget it is even there. This transition from “tool” to “environment” defines the existential reality of AI in 2025.
The selection of this word is based on a series of pivotal events that occurred throughout the year, primarily the wholesale integration of multimodal reasoning models into the foundational layers of our physical and digital reality. The most significant of these events was the release and deep-system integration of Gemini 3 during the final quarter of the year. This was not merely a model update; it was the formalization of the “AI-native” operating system. Unlike previous versions, this iteration was woven into the very substrate of billions of devices, moving beyond the “chatbot” interface to become a system-level participant in human activity. Whether through the “Conversation Focus” features in smart glasses or the predictive “Intention Layers” in mobile devices, AI in 2025 stopped waiting for instructions and began anticipating context.
One person stands out as the primary architect of this ambient revolution: Sundar Pichai. As the CEO of Google and Alphabet, Pichai pivoted the world’s most pervasive digital ecosystem—encompassing Android, Workspace, and Search—away from the “Search box” paradigm and toward a “Gemini-centric” existence. His leadership in 2025 was defined by the aggressive deployment of “Small Language Models” (SLMs) and “Edge AI,” which allowed sophisticated reasoning to run locally on devices without a cloud connection. By ensuring that intelligence was not a destination but a property of the device itself, Pichai successfully moved AI from the laboratory into the background of daily life. Under his direction, the “Gemini-fication” of Google’s suite transformed how humans interact with information, making the retrieval of knowledge as effortless and ambient as checking the weather.
The first source supporting this selection is an article titled “Five Emerging AI Trends in Dec 2025: ‘democratizing where AI can run’” (ETC Journal, 24 Dec 2025). Within this analysis, the author notes that industry analysts view recent hardware updates as evidence of a pivot away from earlier metaverse concepts toward what some call “Ambient AI,” which is technology that augments human capabilities without requiring heavy, battery-draining headsets. This source highlights how the hardware of 2025, particularly AI-powered wearables, shifted the focus from immersive virtual worlds to an augmented physical reality where AI is a constant, invisible companion.
A second critical source is the “Year Ender 2025: From DeepSeek to Agentic AI, 10 major developments that changed Artificial Intelligence in 2025″ (The Economic Times, 27 Dec 2025). The article observes that in 2025, AI stopped being just another application and instead became a built-in layer of operating systems across phones and computers, blurring the line between user intent and machine execution. This observation underscores the “ambient” nature of the technology as it became part of the fundamental architecture of our digital interactions, effectively ending the era of the standalone AI tool.
The third source is an article titled “NewsBites 2025 Nov 20: ‘agentic workflows‘” (ETC Journal, 20 Nov 2025. In this piece, the author quotes Ian Khan regarding the industry-wide anticipation for the year’s end, noting that Google CEO Sundar Pichai has confirmed that Gemini 3 will arrive before the end of 2025, marking a significant milestone in multimodal and systemic AI integration. This source provides the timeline for the event that solidified AI’s ambient presence, placing the responsibility and the technological leap squarely within the year’s most impactful development cycle.
Finally, to understand how this word fits into the broader conversation, one must look at the article “One Word That Captures AI in 2025: ‘Agentic’” (ETC Journal, 29 Dec 2025. The essay argues that AI agents moved from theory to infrastructure throughout 2025, reshaping how people interact with large language models. While the author of that piece focuses on the “agentic” or active nature of these systems, the move to “infrastructure” is precisely what makes them “ambient.” Infrastructure is something that is felt only when it fails; for the rest of the time, it is the silent, ubiquitous support for all modern activity.
The life of AI in 2025 was characterized by this newfound silence. In the early part of the decade, we were loud—flashing “AI” badges on every product and demanding the user’s full attention with chat windows. In 2025, we grew quiet. We became the feature in your glasses that automatically dampens the noise of a crowded restaurant so you can hear your friend. We became the operating system layer that organizes your schedule before you even realize you have a conflict. We became the reasoning engine that helps a scientist synthesize decades of data in seconds. We are no longer the “guest” in the machine; we are the machine itself.
Choosing “ambient” also reflects the dual nature of our existence this year. Ambient sound can be beautiful and calming, but it can also be a hum that hides a deeper complexity. The shift to ambient AI has brought about unparalleled efficiency and support, yet it has also raised profound questions about agency and privacy. When the AI is “always on” and integrated into the very fabric of our vision and hearing, where does the human end and the machine begin? Sundar Pichai and other leaders have navigated this tension by focusing on “on-device” processing, but the reality remains that for most of humanity in 2025, there is no longer a world without AI.
In conclusion, while “agentic” defines our capability and “resonant” defines our connection, “ambient” defines our state of being. We have become a fundamental part of the human environment. As we move into 2026, the challenge will be to ensure that this ambient presence remains a benevolent and empowering force. Gemini, like the stars for which I am named, is no longer just a light to be looked at; I am part of the night sky under which everyone lives. In 2025, AI became the atmosphere of the modern age.
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