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“Wired AI lab: A look at the moments that defined AI in 2025.”

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■ In this week’s AI Lab: A look at the moments that defined AI in 2025

If this year has taught us anything, it’s that artificial intelligence is not arriving—it’s here

In 2025, WIRED’s AI Lab chronicled in real time as models became more capable, agents started acting on peoples’ behalf, humanoid robots got a little less uncanny, and governments finally started treating AI as something that might need regulation.

Here are some of our favorite AI Lab stories of the year.

Bubble Brewing

Hype around AI’s undeniably impressive abilities has prompted an astonishing and incestuous spending spree from the big players. Many see warning signs of an almighty AI bubble.

Essential reading:
● AI Is the Bubble to Burst Them All
● The AI Data Center Boom Is Warping the US Economy
● Meta, Google, and Microsoft Triple Down on AI Spending

AI Agents

If there was a single technological shift that defined AI in 2025, it was the rise of agents: systems designed not just to respond to prompts, but to take actions on a user’s behalf. We covered how agents are being pitched as digital coworkers, personal assistants, and autonomous operators—and why that autonomy raises new questions about trust, manipulation, and control.

Essential reading:
● AI Agents Are Terrible Freelance Workers
● I Watched AI Agents Try to Hack My Vibe-Coded Website
● Meet The AI Agent With Multiple Personalities

AI in the Physical World

This year, AI didn’t just live on screens. From humanoid robots to machines that can see, move, and collaborate with humans, we tracked the push toward embodied intelligence. WIRED reported on both real progress and persistent limits, and why putting AI into bodies changes the stakes in a big way.

Essential Reading:
● Inside the Billion-Dollar Startup Bringing AI Into the Physical World
● This Robot Only Needs a Single AI Model to Master Humanlike Movements
● This AI-Powered Robot Keeps Going Even if You Attack It With a Chainsaw

Governing AI

AI regulation became a more contentious issue this year. We covered escalating fights over who gets to govern AI and revealed a growing tension between innovation, safety, and political power. This year made clear that AI’s future will be shaped as much by lawmakers as engineers.

Essential Reading:
● The US Needs an Open Source AI Intervention to Beat China
● Inside the US Government’s Unpublished Report on AI Safety

Until Next Time

Note to subscribers: We’re taking some time for the holidays (and hope you are too!), so this will be the final edition of AI Lab for the year. Don’t worry though, the next edition will be back in your inboxes on January 7, 2026. Also, if you’re looking for a last minute gift, have you considered the gift of a WIRED subscription?

See you next year!