As we step into 2025, technology is rewriting the playbook. From AI-driven hospitality to location-based entertainment that adapts in real-time, we’re seeing a radical reimagining of how humans and technology coexist, collaborate, and ultimately, create meaning together.
Just as AI starts to feel omnipresent, we’ll also see something of a backlash. Creators and brands are going to be pushing back by seeking out the human touch and genuine craftsmanship. Authenticity is the new cool.
Connecting these dots are multidimensional experiences (MDX), which can transform new tech from a cold robot into something that can actually help us connect with others. From museums where you can chat with the art to hospitals hyper-personalized to their patients, MDX is how we’ll make emerging technology feel less like code and more like collaboration with the world around us.
Twenty of Journey’s top minds break down exactly how this is going to play out. Read on to see our expert predictions for the coming year.
MDX, IRL
Ben Townsend, Project Director
In 2025, location-based attractions will once again thrive. Attendance will be back to pre-COVID levels, and there will be a renewed focus on creating stronger visitor interest with more diverse and specialized offerings. For attraction owners, the key is to invest in multidimensional experiences (MDX) that blend the physical and the digital with gamification, immersivity, strong narratives, and spectacle. Supported by XR, AI, wearables, gamification, hyper-personalization, and game engine integrations (think Disguise and Unreal Engine), these experiences will create highly unique, immersive entertainment. After the AI hype peaks (likely in 2026), the technologies involved may change, but we’ll still see a fundamental emphasis on fostering meaningful connections and unforgettable experiences to keep visitors coming back.
Juliana Regen, Strategist
In the world of retail, in-person shopping is sooo back, and Gen Z is at the forefront — they’re currently the most demanding customers out there. To cater to them, brands are bringing out the big guns: immersive stores, flagships, and multidimensional experiences rather than just transactions. The whole brick-and-mortar experience is changing, with shoppers moving seamlessly from reserving an item online to trying it on in-store to checking out touchlessly.
Lionel Ohayon, Chief Creative Officer
As a discipline and as a practice, interior design will begin to be replaced by AI tools and by new perspectives on designing space. Static, one-dimensional approaches will increasingly be replaced by multidimensional experiences (MDX) as clients seek solutions that integrate the physical, immersive, and virtual. Spaces will need to respond to all facets of customer experience — social and emotional as well as physical — and studios will need to draw on science and analytics as much as creativity to execute effective MDX design.
Harry Wood, Business Development Associate
Location-based entertainment (LBE) will be increasingly popular: Think VR arcades, interactive/theme-based entertainment, and a blend of historical, cultural, and abstract influences merging in brand-new multidimensional experiences. Outside of entertainment options like the teamLab Borderless Museum and others, this trend will be echoed by a growing number of corporations requesting more bespoke and unique media installations at their headquarters.
Brandon Kaplan, Chief Innovation Officer
In the coming year, we’ll see the rise of “living venues,” where immersive technologies converge to create dynamic, responsive environments. Buildings will adapt in real time to meet the needs of visitors, tailoring experiences based on demographics, behavior, and external factors like time, season, or weather. Picture a venue that adjusts its lighting, digital displays, and wayfinding to suit the flow and preferences of its guests. This level of personalization will enhance visitor engagement and satisfaction — and it’s achievable today. Experience design teams are already focusing on making these living venues a reality, transforming static spaces into hyper-personalized, responsive environments. Just one caveat: Tech always needs to be an enabler of experience, versus tech for tech’s sake.
AI Everywhere, Everyday, All at Once
Andy Zimmerman, CEO
The rise of GenAI bots to help us attend more meetings, make more contributions, and offer more feedback is already underway: Hyper-creation meets hyper-personalization. As these AI assistants become more capable and creative, we’ll become exponentially more productive and efficient — but in a tailored way. The bots that work for my daily workflow won’t be the same bots that work for yours. The rise in productivity will also bring a corresponding rise in client expectations, with studios being asked to create hundreds or thousands of deliverables instead of one or two.
Paulo Melo, Software Developer
We’re at the beginning of a robotic era where both task-specific and general-purpose robots will start to be much more visible around us. These robots will have to account for a world made for humans, so even though they won’t change the way the built environment is designed, it will affect how people experience certain locations. From hotels and museums to restaurants and homes, we’ll be moving closer to robots doing your dishes, folding your laundry, and serving you food or drinks.
Olivia Reid, Lead Strategist
As AI improves, it will become more embedded in hardware, invisible to the eye, and far more ambiently proactive. Messages like “You wanted to see Sam this weekend. Should I make dinner plans?” will become expected. Your AI assistants might then intercommunicate, coordinating with Sam’s to book reservations that fit both calendars. Today, AI clears inbox clutter, but next year it will auto-reschedule low-priority meetings and draft speaking points for morning calls without ever being asked. As AI agents learn from past requests, they’ll start autonomously handling tasks. We’ll also see the development of switches between work AI and life AI, or AI “off switches,” to enable people to establish boundaries between data collection and autonomous learning.
The AI Backlash: It’s All About Authenticity
Tom Law, Lead Creative Director
The rise of AI-generated imagery has led to a surge of content embraced by brands and ad agencies — like Coca-Cola’s new AI-driven Christmas ad. But for 2025, my prediction is resistance. We’ll see a celebration of the human touch, the craftsmanship and ingenuity behind the content we consume. In a world where anything can be generated, the art of creation will regain significance, and we’ll once again spotlight the skill and effort in creative work. It’s a little like a wildlife documentary: The behind-the-scenes footage showing how scenes were captured is often more exciting than the final shot itself. In 2025, immersive “making-of” experiences that reveal human effort could redefine storytelling.
Sophie Smith, Senior Producer
Some brands will seek to avoid AI completely, touting content that is human-made and “authentic.” Especially given the murky world of licensing assets, there might be a strong movement to skip the use of AI altogether for certain labels, projects, and campaigns. Consider the industry going back to shooting on film: an exaggeration, but not by much. This desire for authenticity could allow for some beautiful creative possibilities and problem solving.
Judy Suh, Creative Director
Audiences and creators alike will be seeking more meaningful, genuine experiences that technology can’t replicate. The excitement of experimenting with platforms like ChatGPT and Midjourney has worn off for most people, and so has the novelty of AI-generated content. In its place, we’re going to have more emphasis on various aspects of “play” and community/user engagement.
Alice Britton, Director
In 2024, we were all-too-cognizant of the fake, and we’re tired of AI-generated imagery. Now, we’re craving all things real, tangible, and natural. Additionally, the global climate crisis is driving our desire to understand the natural world and our place within it so we can better preserve it. As a result, 2025 will see us integrating the digital with the physical to help get closer to the natural world in more meaningful ways. New technologies can bring us into nature like never before. Cameras, on drones or subs, can take us to places we’ve never seen and capture footage at incredibly high resolution. Audio can be recorded with accurate spatial detail to recreate the experience of being somewhere in person. With the help of multidimensional experiences to blend the physical and tactile with the digital and virtual, we’ll feel more “there” than we’ve ever been.
From Artificial Language to Genuine Communication
Jules Coke, Chief Operations Officer
Real-time twins and AI-powered 3D brand ecosystems will revolutionize digital storytelling. Brands and organizations are grappling with the requirement to communicate ever more frequently in video across multiple channels, from email and LinkedIn to Instagram, TikTok, and more. Straight AI doesn’t work because it’s too generic, and it’s not yet editable to the extent that you can tell any nuanced or targeted brand story. Instead, companies and organizations will create and curate their own 3D asset libraries — their brand worlds — and then plug AI content-creation engines into that library. In practice, they’ll still create videos using text prompts, but those videos will be distinctively theirs because they will be generated from their proprietary brand worlds. Eventually, brands will even be able to give their customers access to these worlds so they can generate their own content as well.
Max Italiaander, Creative Director
In 2025, we’ll see the rise of natural language-based interfaces to enable human connection. Consider an installation in a museum gallery where a visitor can give their impressions or come into conversation with an artwork via a conversationally skilled chatbot. This kind of technology will offer a more reflective, empathetic way to connect with the world around us.
Amir Suddle, Finance Manager
The world will become a much smaller place in 2025. AI translation tools will be introduced into more technology, minimizing language barriers across media. YouTube will be first in developing these language models, with television networks following — allowing anyone to watch anything in the language of their choice.
Kuba Piegza, Producer
Clients will get more comfortable with using AI to communicate their ambitions. This will prove helpful for initial briefs and feedback — though it will also usher in higher expectations, especially in the realms of video content and real-time media. Recently, we’ve seen a client use Runway to turn one of our stills into a 10-second video as a reference for us. Of course, it had its limitations, but it was otherwise pretty impressive.
Breaking out of the Box
Cassiano Sala, Managing Partner
As generative AI and machine learning evolve, MDX empowers creators to craft interfaces that break free from the constraints of the glowing rectangle (phone), enabling richer, more intuitive, and immersive experiences that adapt to the context and needs of each user, transforming the way we interact with technology at every level.
Silvia Tossici, Project Director
Accessibility will challenge our creative thinking in 2025. We rely heavily on two main senses—sight and hearing—for our immersive experiences. The next step is to make these experiences exciting and inclusive for people with different accessibility needs. Our experiences must engage all the senses, offer multiple ways to interact with them, and remain flexible enough to cater to as many people as possible.
We’ve come leaps and bounds in this respect, creating immersive exhibits that engage all the senses, including everyone at the Paris Maritime Museum. We aim to apply these principles across our work as much as possible.
James Merry, Animator
Animation is escaping the rectangular screen. Returning to its roots in interactive trick-films, magic-lantern shows, and live performances (a la Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur shows), animation will no longer be constricted to our TVs and smartphone screens. Instead, it will be augmented by 21st-century MDX technology and concepts, like in our recent animated projection for the Assyrian Lions at the British Museum. The color, visuals, and atmospheric soundtrack helped bring the exhibit to life, attracting viewers and giving it extra interpretive context while still being respectful of the original piece.
Kat Kemsley, Producer
Film and material design are going to break the mold with new tools and creative techniques. Lidar sensors are being used in a broader context, like the DJI Focus Pro camera. Everyday objects are becoming touch-sensitive, not just screens — from clothing and foil to product packaging and greenhouse plants. Being able to work with new textures and materials will bring exciting new possibilities for creators.
Ryan Carlisle, Experience Design Strategist
What if the movie-going experience was an event that lasted much longer than the movie itself? What might inspire someone to linger at the theater if they weren’t quite ready for that cinematic magic to end? In 2025, we’ll see a change in the traditional movie theater model to combat the desire to just stay home and stream content. We’re already seeing the initial signs of an industry reinventing itself with experiential movie marketing campaigns, viral 4D experiences, promotional popcorn buckets, and ever-expanding theater F&B options. Major theater chains have also announced investments in amenities like restaurants and pickleball courts. We’re on the cusp of a new form of MDX entertainment
