As we are getting ready for Christmas and New Year, it feels like the right moment to pause, take a breath, and look back at what has been an extraordinary year in the evolution of AI. 2025 has moved at remarkable speed, reshaping industries, challenging assumptions, and redefining what responsible and trustworthy AI must look like. In this New Year AI Trust Special, we will reflect on the past year through a timeline of key developments and shifts in global AI regulation, before we turn our eyes to 2026.
There we see four themes taking centre stage:
1) the rise of strategic and responsible procurement of AI solutions,
2) the need to scale AI governance with the right tooling and technology,
3) the growing urgency of bringing AI Agents under control, and
4) a continuous regulatory dynamic that will influence the landscape worldwide.
Looking back on 2025, what stands out most is how quickly the field has matured. In the space of a single year, AI moved from exploration to large scale deployment. Enterprise GenAI systems and AI Agents are now becoming firmly embedded into company workflows, customer interactions, and backend processes. This shift has brought a new level of urgency around AI trust, safety, and control. It is not surprising that ISO 42001 adoption accelerated across industries. Many organizations now recognise that trustworthy AI cannot rely on goodwill or informal processes. It requires disciplined management systems, clear documentation, and operational safeguards.
This deeper adoption also pushed the underlying infrastructure forward. AI agent communication frameworks matured significantly, and MCP (Model Context Protocol) has become the practical standard for enabling controlled interactions between different agents. Meanwhile, multimodal and on-device AI capabilities advanced faster than expected. The focus across the industry shifted away from model size and raw power towards specific functionality, reliability, controllability, and energy efficiency. Beyond digital environments, AI adoption in physical products accelerated, creating new expectations around lifecycle safety, software updates, and post-market monitoring. All of this unfolded alongside major regulatory developments. From the EU AI Act to digital omnibus initiatives and growing global alignment, 2025 showed that compliance is no longer a distant concept but a real operational requirement.
For Nemko Digital, it was also a dynamic and defining year. We had the honour of participating in Dubai AI Week, which opened the door to our first projects in that region. Our collaboration in Korea with KSA (Korean Standards Association) progressed from concept to execution as we shaped the Nemko AI Trust Mark and began bringing it to market. We co-hosted the AI Trust in Electronics Summit with IBM in Oslo and deepened our partnership with them. Lastly, we expanded our team, broadened our client portfolio across sectors, and moved into a new office in Amsterdam South. We are proud to see that we are increasing our impact in line with our mission to Provide Trust in a Digital World.
So, as we begin this New Year AI Trust Special, let us look back with clarity and forward with purpose. The past year has brought extraordinary change. The coming year will demand even more maturity, collaboration, and leadership. Today gives us the chance to explore where we stand, what we have learned, and where we are heading next.
AI Expert Authors
Alicja Halbryt
