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It’s been quite a year! As we approach 2025, mobile technology is rapidly evolving and on the cusp of a massive transformation. We're seeing this firsthand, working with brands to create digital experiences that will define the future of mobile application development, but I’ve also been digging around with some of our experts across WillowTree, getting their take on what’s the next big thing.
In this article and the video below, we explore four mobile app development trends that will reshape how we interact with our devices and the digital world around us.
We’ve been banging the voice tech drum for years, but the days of furiously typing on our smartphones may soon be behind us. By mid-2025, we anticipate a significant shift towards more natural and intuitive ways of interacting with our devices.
"The way that we're engaging with our devices will be fundamentally different in 2025,” notes WillowTree Chief Product Officer Blake Sirach. “We're going to see more multimodal interactions with voice, with typing, with touch, and perhaps other modalities — even AR — that will really impact our user experience on these platforms."
The shift towards multimodal interfaces is no longer a theoretical concept; it's backed by significant market trends and projections. The increasing adoption of voice interfaces is seen particularly among younger generations.
TELUS Digital and WillowTree President Tobias Dengel recently shared some primary voice tech research in Forbes on this topic: for instance, while 17.9% of the total population uses voice for shopping at least once per week, that number jumps to 30.4% for Gen-Z.
According to a report by Global Market Insights Inc., the global multimodal UI market size was valued at USD 19.5 billion in 2023 and is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.5% from 2024 to 2032. These stats signal a clear trend towards more natural, intuitive interfaces that combine voice, touch, and even gesture controls.
Of course, this shift towards multimodal interaction presents both challenges and opportunities for app developers. At WillowTree, we're exploring how to integrate voice commands, gesture controls, and even eye-tracking (Apple added native eye-tracking into iOS 18!) into our clients' apps to create more intuitive and accessible user experiences.
We think 2025 is the year the dam will break wide open on multimodal UI.
Yes, yes, you’ve heard it over and over, but seriously: artificial Intelligence is set to become more personal and more powerful, transforming our mobile devices into highly capable digital assistants. This trend is not simply about customizing user interfaces; it's about creating AI that understands and anticipates your needs in context.
WillowTree Research Director Jill Heinze adds, "It's a little early to say exactly how, but you can see with Apple Intelligence and similar industry moves that the mobile device is going to become a companion for people."
This includes evolutions in iOS, including photo editing tools like Clean Up, image generation tools like Image Playground, and Writing Tools that involve Apple Intelligence. And Android is not far behind. Google's Gemini AI, introduced in 2024, is set to revolutionize the Android experience in 2025. Gemini can now remember user preferences and context across conversations, allowing for more nuanced and personalized interactions.
Industry analysts predict that by 2025, AI-powered apps on both iOS and Android will be able to predict user behavior, automate complex tasks, and offer suggestions before users even realize they need them. Yikes, but cool.
So, yes. We expect this shift towards deeply personalized AI assistants to make mobile experiences more intuitive, efficient, and tailored to individual needs across both major mobile platforms. Clients across industries are increasingly asking us how to leverage artificial intelligence to create more personalized, context-aware apps that can truly enhance users' daily lives.
While we’ve yet to see significant uptake to date, we think augmented reality (AR) is poised to break out of its niche applications and become a mainstream feature of mobile apps in 2025 — especially in enterprise use cases (if not across the board with consumers as well).
"I am excited about the opportunities with augmented reality, and a lot of people are thinking critically about how to move those augmented experiences forward in a way that's feasible and can actually be kind of a second window in our lives," said WillowTree Design Partner Paul Giacherio.
Alex Shafran, SVP of Solutions Architecture, notes a particular enterprise use case we’re seeing: "A technician working with AR glasses can stream that content directly to a companion mobile device. And that device can then render the image in something like ARKit, for example, to aid in the diagnostic process and then help them with further resolution, whether it's part ordering or communicating further diagnostics back to their control center."
The key evolution here is that AR experiences were previously standalone; in 2025, they’ll become more tethered to mobile apps, enabling far more interactivity and unlocking new multimodal use cases.
On the device side of things, increased affordability will also be a factor: aside from the Apple Vision Pro, the new Meta Quest 3 and 3S are impressive consumer models offering a great, introductory user experience.
Again, our excitement around AR in mobile apps is backed by impressive market projections and adoption rates: the global AR market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 33.5% from 2024 to 2025. By the end of this year, there will be an estimated 1.73 billion AR user devices worldwide, indicating a massive potential user base for AR-enabled apps.
In industries like manufacturing, healthcare, and retail, AR is revolutionizing workflows and customer experiences. Aside from the real-time diagnostics and repair guidance mentioned by Alex, the retail sector is also embracing AR, with 32% of consumers using AR while shopping, and 73% of mobile AR users reporting high satisfaction with AR shopping experiences.
By 2025, AR features may become a standard expectation rather than a novelty in many mobile applications. We’re psyched for this more immersive future.
In 2025, mobile apps will no longer exist in isolation. They'll be part of a broader, interconnected ecosystem of devices and services.
"Users are increasingly going to turn to apps that play nice with the other apps,” said our VP of Business Development Woody Zantzinger. “Maybe I want to set an alarm for tomorrow to alert me about my Orangetheory Fitness class, and then call me an Uber when... it's these series of steps that people want to string together. It's all going to be powered by AI. But if your app isn't built for those, then you're not going to be a part of that next-generation mobile experience."
Increasingly nuanced on-device ecosystems (e.g., Apple widgets, Apple Wallet passes, etc.) also show how the OS can use its built-in intelligence and infrastructure to surface the right content at the right time.
Take air travel, for instance: a user can buy their ticket in the airline’s mobile app, receive a push notification to check in 24 hours in advance, save the ticket to their smartphone wallet, which is surfaced automatically just before the flight, and view flight status throughout using a persistent widget. All of this points to a future where users make a travel purchase but then rarely have to fuss over the actual travel logistics ever again.
I don’t love logistics, so this is just fine by me.
The explosive growth of internet of things (IoT) devices is also helping to drive this trend of connected ecosystems. The total number of connected IoT devices worldwide is expected to reach a staggering 75.44 billion in 2025, a massive proliferation reshaping how mobile apps are developed and integrated into broader ecosystems.
Again, the integration of AI capabilities and machine learning into these connected ecosystems is enhancing apps' ability to predict user behavior and automate complex tasks across multiple IoT devices. The rumored next-gen Apple HomePod Mini 2, potentially containing a screen and a more advanced Siri (big, if true), could serve as a residential hub — or maybe a control center in certain healthcare settings — where Apple Intelligence really shines.
Relatedly, cross-platform development remains a major trend in 2024, with companies recognizing the importance of reaching the widest mobile audience possible.
As we prepare to adopt these cutting-edge technologies, we should be working now to understand how our existing apps need to be updated or refactored. Do they currently support the modularity and deep linking required to expose this functionality to the OS-level AI? Are we using a cross-platform framework like React Native or Flutter that may require additional workarounds?
We’re advising all our clients to reimagine and in some cases refactor their apps within this connected context, ensuring they remain relevant and valuable in the ecosystem-driven future.
Standing on the brink of these transformative changes, it's clear to me that the future of mobile apps is about creating seamless, intelligent, and interconnected experiences that extend far beyond the confines of a single device or screen.
Our digital product development experts are working tirelessly to help our clients evolve and navigate these changes and create digital experiences that will resonate with users in 2025 and beyond. Whether you're looking to integrate AI into your app, explore the possibilities of AR, or ensure your digital product thrives in the connected ecosystem of the future, WillowTree is here to help.
Ready to future-proof your mobile strategy? Contact WillowTree today and let's start building the future of digital experiences.
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