As the calendar turns, there’s often a pressure to look forward. Predictions, trends, resolutions, strategies.
This year, I want to pause instead.
Because 2025 was not a year of answers.
It was a year of questions.
Across the Living with AI and The Classroom of Humanity series, the inquiry kept circling back to the same place, sometimes through technology, sometimes through education, sometimes through leadership or wellbeing.
Not How do we optimise?
But How do we remain human?
From systems to nervous systems
One of the strongest threads that emerged this year was a quiet reframe.
Education is not primarily about information transfer, but about emotional attunement.
Leadership is not primarily about control, but about regulation and presence.
AI is not primarily a threat or a saviour, but a mirror, amplifying what we bring to it.
Again and again, the writing returned to the idea that society functions less like a machine and more like a living nervous system, shaped by safety, resonance, curiosity, and fear.
When systems become brittle, punitive, or overly mechanistic, it’s rarely because they lack intelligence. It’s because they lack attunement.
AI as amplifier, not replacement
Another pattern became impossible to ignore.
As artificial intelligence accelerates, many people report feeling more overwhelmed, not less. More uncertain about their value, not more empowered.
The deeper question was never “What can AI do?”
It was “What does AI reveal about us?”
Our attachment to productivity.
Our fear of inefficiency.
Our belief is that worth must be earned through output.
Throughout the year, AI appeared less as an external disruptor and more as a psychological and existential irritant, exposing unexamined assumptions about intelligence, success, and identity.
Becoming more human, not more efficient
If there was a single through-line to 2025, it was this:
Progress is not about becoming faster, smarter, or more efficient.
It’s about becoming more human.
That means valuing what cannot be automated.
Meaning, empathy, imagination, and presence.
And perhaps most importantly, the ability to ask better questions, of ourselves and of the systems we build.
Ten questions that shaped 2025
Rather than summarising the year through posts or themes, it feels more honest to let the questions speak.
These are ten questions we lived with during 2025. Not to answer quickly, but to sit with.
What if the greatest myth of modern education isn’t about what we teach, but what we believe about the learner?
What if the most valuable skill you have can’t be taught by a machine, and may soon be the very thing the world needs most?
What if the real story of AI isn’t about machines replacing us, but about tools that make us more human?
Have you ever walked into a room and sensed tension before anyone spoke? What does that say about our collective nervous system?
Why is it that as AI promises to free us from drudgery, many feel more overwhelmed than ever?
What if the human advantage lies not in speed or accuracy, but in meaning, empathy, and the ability to ask the right questions?
What if the most powerful form of leadership isn’t control, but the ability to hold space for uncertainty, emotion, and transformation?
What if the human operating system isn’t broken, but simply outdated?
What if the classroom isn’t a place to fill empty vessels, but a space where curiosity, connection, and courage are cultivated?
What if the most important question we can ask about AI isn’t “Can it do this?” but “What does it reveal about us?”
These questions don’t demand certainty.
They invite presence.
Looking ahead, quietly
There will be more to explore. Patterns are emerging. Deeper layers are beginning to show themselves.
But for now, it feels right to resist prediction and instead honour reflection.
If 2025 asked us to wake up to how our systems shape us, perhaps the next step is learning how to live differently inside that awareness.
That conversation will unfold in time.
For now, thank you for reading, reflecting, and staying curious.
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