DX in 2025: Four trends shaping digital experiences in a human-first world

Most organizations spent the last year chasing every new AI development. Nobody wanted to be left behind. Yet while AI capabilities grew exponentially, so did the value of human expertise and insight.

The stampede toward automation taught us something important. Teams that use AI well aren't replacing humans with it – they're finding ways for both to work together.

Organizations are moving past the hype to build something more sustainable: digital experiences that combine AI's processing power with human creativity.

Below, we take a close look at four trends reshaping digital experiences in 2025, drawn from our latest report, "The Human Renaissance in an AI-Obsessed World."

Want practical steps for putting these trends into action? Download our full report for detailed how-tos and real-world examples.

Trend 1: Content Without Clicks

Be honest, how long have you spent obsessing over your homepage? Marketing teams spend months perfecting designs and meticulously planning user journeys. Now those same teams are watching their analytics and see barely anyone starting there anymore.

Instead, users arrive through social media, voice searches, and AI recommendations, often bypassing traditional navigation completely. The carefully crafted pathways we built? Most users never see them.

By 2027, projections suggest over 90 million Americans will primarily use AI-powered tools for online searches – up from just 13 million in 2023. While websites remain essential, they're becoming more like data sources for AI than destinations for humans.

Users expect immediate, accurate answers through conversational interfaces, not page-by-page navigation.

For digital teams, this means fundamentally rethinking how content works. Those perfect user journeys feel increasingly outdated when AI can pull relevant information from anywhere on your site. Success now depends on making content discoverable and accurate regardless of how users find it.

I was chatting with a CMO last week. She was laughing about how her team spent months perfecting their website's homepage, only to realize that most of the time, no one ever saw it. Users were coming in through social media, voice searches, and AI recommendations. It's like they built a grand entrance to a house where everyone used the side door. – Nick Condon, Managing Director EMEA, Squiz.

The bottom line? Stop obsessing over perfect user journeys. Focus instead on making your content clear, accurate, and structured in ways that work for both humans and AI.

Every piece of content needs to stand on its own, ready to be discovered however users find it.

Wondering how to determine if your website is AI-ready? There’s a checklist for that! Dive into the report and find it on page 10. 

Trend 2: AI’s Intern Era

The narrative around AI feels different now compared to late 2023. The sweeping predictions about AI replacing entire professions have slowed down.

Instead, early adopters have found a more practical sweet spot: AI handling routine tasks while human experts focus on creativity, strategy and complex decisions.

Think of early career professionals – they bring fresh perspectives and enthusiasm, but need guidance to deliver their best work. They’ll throw themselves into things like content drafts and basic data analysis, but someone more experienced will then pick their work up to refine and polish it.

Right now, that’s AI.

The key is treating it that way – like it’s a rapidly learning intern. It needs training and opportunities to do work, but with proper guidance it will become increasingly expert at specific tasks.

The goal isn't to suddenly automate everything – we need to find the right balance. Smart organizations focus on tasks where AI genuinely adds value, while maintaining strong governance and ethical oversight.

AI's processing power, partnered up with human judgment.

Before you dive headfirst into leveraging AI across all aspects of your digital experience, prioritize the fundamentals. – Anthony Nigro, President of North America, Squiz.

The bottom line? To succeed with AI, start small and specific. Choose tasks where AI can genuinely support your team's work, not replace it. Set up clear guidelines for AI use, and always have human experts reviewing and refining the output.

Want to know how to implement AI with governance and ethics? Check out the framework from our AI product manager, Assaph Mehr, on page 14. 

Trend 3: The Great Headless Hangover

The promise was simple: separate your content from how it's displayed, and you can push it anywhere – websites, apps, digital displays, wherever you need it.

Everyone bought in hard. More control, more flexibility, everything we all wanted.

Reality hit differently. Marketing teams can't update their own content because there's no built-in templates or front-end editing tools. They need technical help for even the smallest changes, so they now watch simple updates bounce between departments for weeks. And the developers at the end of the request line are buried in content tweaks instead of working on actual improvements.

All that promised flexibility has caused more problems than it solves.

We're now seeing organizations pull back from purely headless setups. They're looking for solutions that actually deliver on the promise – the flexibility, the content distribution – without crippling their marketing teams' ability to get things done.

API-driven content still matters. But it shouldn't create barriers between marketing vision and what marketing teams can actually achieve.

I met a content strategist who said managing their headless CMS felt like playing Jenga with invisible blocks. One wrong move, and everything comes crashing down. – Nick Condon, Managing Director EMEA, Squiz.

The bottom line? Moving forward means finding balance. Look for solutions that give you the flexibility of headless architecture without sacrificing your marketing team's ability to move quickly. The goal is independence with guardrails, not technical complexity for its own sake.

What should you be looking for in the CMS you need for the future? We’ve got that covered on page 19. 

Trend 4: The Edge Advantage

Speed and user experience can't be an afterthought anymore. Organizations figured this out in 2025, and it's changing how they think about website performance.

When someone visits your website, every single element makes a journey from a data center to their device. With traditional cloud computing, those servers might be continents away from your users.

Edge computing flips this completely – putting your website's content and processing power in hundreds of locations worldwide, right near your visitors.

As well as the obvious benefit of making everything faster, edge computing is transforming how IT and marketing teams work together. Marketing teams aren't stuck waiting on developers anymore. They can create personalized experiences on the fly, tweaking content based on how users are behaving right now. Want to update your SEO metadata? No more IT tickets – just do it.

Think of it like bringing your website closer to home for every single visitor. Your content, your processing power, your whole digital experience – all of it sitting right where your users need it.

Faster speeds correlate with better conversion rates. Whether it's signing up to an open day, filling in a form, or applying for a credit card, it matters. – Toby Margetts, Lead UX Strategy Consultant at Squiz.

The bottom line? Think beyond pure speed. Edge computing isn't just about performance – it's about giving your teams the tools to create better, more responsive digital experiences. Start planning now for where you'll need that capability most.

Understand more about this new wave of tech and how it can benefit your digital experiences on page 22. 

What this all means for 2025

We're at a turning point. While everyone's talking about AI and automation, the organizations getting real results are focused on finding the sweet spot between tech power and human expertise.

These four trends tell us where things are heading. Technology working alongside people, not replacing them. Content that finds its way to users naturally. AI handling the routine stuff while humans focus on strategy. Marketing teams getting back in control. And edge computing making everything faster without the trade-offs.

Success in 2025 won’t be about jumping on every new tech trend. It will be about building digital experiences that blend AI's capabilities with human insight. Because at the end of the day, behind every click and interaction there’s a person looking for real connection and value.

Want a step-by-step guide to embracing any of these changes in your organization? Our full DX Trends 2025 report breaks down exactly how to tackle each trend.