Predictions season is here, and our research teams have been hard at work formulating and fine-tuning their calls for 2026. The process of developing predictions typically starts with a review of the predictions we made a year ago. Which ones hit the mark — and which were a swing and a miss? Understanding why some predictions didn’t come true helps us refine our thinking for the year ahead and better understand what trends we might need to keep in mind when making this year’s predictions.

As we get ready to release our 2026 predictions (sign up here to be alerted once they’re live), here’s a review of some of the “hits” and “misses” from our 2025 predictions.

The Hits

The Prediction: TikTok will not get banned or divest in the US in 2025.

The Reality: So far, so true. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese parent ByteDance, likely will not be banned in US (the Trump administration sent a pretty clear signal about that in August when it launched a White House TikTok account). The divestment part of our prediction is a little more nuanced. The deadline for divestment was extended again to mid-December and a deal for divestment is reportedly in the works, but a closing date is still unclear. For marketers who want to drive product interest with creators or connect with hard-to-reach audiences, we believe TikTok will still be a viable option in the US well into the future.

The Prediction: Three out of four companies that build aspirational agentic architectures on their own will fail.

The Reality: The key part of this prediction is “on their own.” While there are some firms building and deploying their own simplistic “agent-ish” architectures today, the vast majority of the agentic use cases currently hitting production are deployed off of vendor platforms, and for good reason — building agentic architectures is much more challenging than what the very robust vendor marketing may have you believe. A recent MIT report found that 95% of organizations investing in generative AI are getting zero return on their investments, and we’d estimate that agentic investments are in the same ballpark.

The Prediction: Starlink’s satellite service will double its subscriber base to 6 million customers.

The Reality: This was a bold call that panned out. Starlink had already doubled its subscriber number from 2023 to 2024, so this prediction was that it would double again this year. And Starlink achieved that in the first half of 2025, reaching more than 6 million global subscribers by early June, according to company officials. In addition, the full prediction we published said Starlink would sign additional reseller agreements with at least five major telcos in 2025, and already this year, it has signed agreements with Expereo, Lumen, MTN, Optus, and Vodafone for business internet and with Telstra for home internet.

The Prediction: Enterprises betting on product-led growth strategies will drop to less than 20%.

The Reality: The data from our annual Marketing Survey says it all. When asked in 2024, “Which of the following priorities will be the most important to your organization’s marketing strategy over the next 12 months?” 25% of respondents said “support product-led growth strategies.” In the 2025 survey, that percentage dropped to just 13%, and product-led growth (PLG) was the least favored response of the 20 response options. That said, Forrester recommends against PLG strategies being viewed as an all-or-nothing concept. PLG elements such as rapid onboarding, intuitive use interfaces, and in-app messaging, sharing, and collaboration can be combined with traditional sales for higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The Misses

The Prediction: Thirty percent more large-firm CIOs will bring chief data officers into the IT fold.

The Reality: Forrester data found that in 2024, 39% of chief data officers (CDOs) reported to CIOs. In discussing this prediction, we felt confident that AI transformation would increase this number significantly, almost doubling the total. So we were surprised when Forrester’s 2025 survey data showed that the percentage of CDOs reporting to CIOs is actually declining, because organizations have chosen to elevate the CDO role, understanding that data strategy requires broader business alignment. The percentage of CDOs reporting to CIOs declined by 7%, but the number of CDOs who report directly to the CEO increased by 6%. This may also be a reflection of a “divide and conquer” mentality, where elevated CDOs shape the data strategies and CIOs focus on building out the infrastructure and enablement.

The Prediction: Hyperscalers will miss CO2 emissions goals — again — but with improvements year over year.

The Reality: This is a tale of two trends. Hyperscalers have been expanding data centers, which has a negative impact on emissions goals. But they have also been taking proactive steps to slow emission rates. We thought those proactive steps would at least lower emissions this year, but so far in 2025, they have not. Cloud providers have focused more on data center expansion and less on meeting their sustainability goals. Microsoft has self-admittedly stated that its sustainability targets are mostly unattainable at this stage due to its AI ambitions, AWS’s promise for net-zero emissions by 2040 remains unsubstantiated, and Google’s emissions went up by 65% from 2019 to 2024.

Looking Ahead To 2026

What’s in store for the coming year? Sign up to be the first to know when our 2026 predictions go live on October 28. (If you’re a Forrester client, most of our Predictions reports will be available on October 21, but you can already check out our predictions for tech leadership, environmental sustainability, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and risk, and Europe.)

We look forward to making and publishing these bold calls every year — and at this time of unprecedented volatility, we’re particularly thrilled to help you anticipate what’s ahead.