Another Orbit Around The Sun!

Happy New Year Everyone!

A new year means something different to everyone.

For some, it’s a fresh start filled with loads of resolutions and excitement; for others, it’s quietly another year down. For us, we’re celebrating another orbit around the sun and have taken the moment to pause, amidst our daily whirlwind, before stepping into 2026.

That’s why we are taking this newsletter as a chance to reflect on what the past year brought and about how the year wrapped up as we glide into what’s next this year!

Looking Back at 2025

2025 was a huge year for us at Ergodic, and there’s truly so much we could say! Looking back at each of 2025’s instalments really reminded us just how much we learned along the way about our product, how we pushed ourselves in new ways testing ideas, and how we found ourselves a niche solving challenges in supply chains.

Along the way, we had the privilege of meeting so many fantastic people who believed in what we’re building and, likewise, people who weren’t afraid to ask us hard questions and push our thinking further, all playing a huge role in shaping our journey this year. As we look back on 2025, we’re incredibly grateful for the trust, support, and collaboration we’ve received.

Thank you for being there every step of the way! We truly couldn’t have done it without you, and we’re excited for what’s ahead.

So, What Are We Focusing On Into 2026…

In 2026, we’re doubling down on helping teams bridge the gap between doing AI and having AI that actually delivers value. We’re focusing on building agents for world models that drive deeper understanding of data and keep people informed automatically on changes, implementation frameworks that reduce integration pain, and concrete patterns from organisations we have worked with that have successfully deployed AI at scale.

Just as importantly, we’re continuing to put real focus on the human side of AI adoption. Technology on its own is never what makes an innovation succeed or fail, it’s people using it, trusting it, and understanding how it fits into their work. That’s why this year we’re committed to going beyond the tech itself and offering resources on the science that helps teams feel confident, informed, and supported when working with AI. By building trust, clarity, and shared understanding around these systems, we want to make sure AI becomes a genuinely helpful partner rather than a sideline accessory.

2025: A Year of Real Progress

We can’t have a New Year’s newsletter without acknowledging just how monumental 2025 was for artificial intelligence.

This was the year the conversation finally shifted from what AI could do to how it actually fits into real life and real organisations. Across industries, teams stopped debating whether AI belonged at all and started focusing on how to integrate it responsibly, effectively, and without disrupting critical systems. That shift alone unlocked genuine progress.

Many of these efforts took the form of small, well-scoped pilots, and that turned out to be a strength rather than a limitation, experimenting with forecasting, reporting, document processing, and workflow automation. Some of these pilots quietly delivered meaningful results; others stalled or never made it past testing. Which brings us to a stat that is still carrying over from 2025 and unfortunately defining the space: around 95 percent of AI projects continue to fail or never reach meaningful production use.

Yet, we believe this is rarely because the models themselves are poor, but because adoption is hard. AI latched haphazardly onto existing workflows for users who don’t understand or trust the system are bound to fail. Where we see real potential for change is in agentic AI for strong collaboration between humans and machines as the priority; instead of treating AI as a one-off tool or role replacement, the most promising pilots we saw involved agents working side-by-side with users at the same time. Agents took care of repetitive tasks, gathered context, and suggested next actions, while humans stayed in the loop to review, guide, and make final decisions, building natural trust, hopefully leading to more robust adoption.

Another area that made some well-hyped and important progress in 2025 was world models. Naturally, we are excited by the buzz of world models; whether VR, gaming, or enterprise, we are beginning to see systems that do more than simply react to inputs. While it is still early, we’re excited for the momentum behind the world model wave and even more elated to be the first building in the space for enterprise.

Looking ahead, whether agents or world models, AI does not need to be everywhere, but rather the right places to be useful. We think If 2025 was the year of pilots, then 2026 has the potential to be the year more of them finally stick.

As we head into the year ahead, it feels like AI is finally getting out of its awkward phase, as we see real progress and more doing. The focus is shifting towards tools that actually get used, pilots that turn into real products, and systems that work alongside people rather than getting in the way. There’s still plenty to figure out, but fit feels like the path forward is getting clearer and will continue to across the next year

On the Ergodic side, we’re excited about what’s coming next. We’re growing the team, working more closely with our clients, and doubling down on the things that create real, measurable value. Thanks for being part of the journey so far. We’re looking forward to building, learning, and backing some great ideas together in the year ahead.

Thank you for being part of the Ergodic community. Whether you’re leading AI strategy, managing operations, or navigating yet another integration, we’re here to help you cut through the hype and focus on impact.

Here’s to 2026 and building AI that actually works where your teams do.

Let’s build something that matters!

Til Next Month,

The Ergodic Team