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In artificial intelligence, 2025 marked a decisive shift. Systems once confined to research labs and prototypes began to appear as everyday tools. At the center of this transition was the rise of AI agents AI systems that can use other software tools and act on their own. While researchers have studied AI for more than 60 years, and the term agent has long been part of the fields vocabulary, 2025 was the year the concept became concrete for developers and consumers alike. AI agents moved from theory to infrastructure, reshaping how people interact with large language models, the systems that power chatbots like ChatGPT. In 2025, the definition of AI agent shifted from the academic framing of systems that perceive, reason, and act to AI company Anthropics description of large language models that are capable of using software tools and taking autonomous action. While large language models have long excelled at text-based responses, the recent change is their expanding capacity to act, using tools, calling APIs, coordinating with other systems, and completing tasks independently. This shift did not happen overnight. A key inflection point came in late 2024, when Anthropic released the Model Context Protocol. The protocol allowed developers to connect large language models to external tools in a standardized way, effectively giving models the ability to act beyond generating text. With that, the stage was set for 2025 to become the year of AI agents. AI agents are a whole new ballgame compared with generative AI. The milestones that defined 2025 The momentum accelerated quickly. In January, the release of the Chinese model DeepSeek-R1 as an open-weight model disrupted assumptions about who could build high-performing large language models, briefly rattling markets and intensifying global competition. An open-weight model is an AI model whose training, reflected in values called weights, is publicly available. Throughout 2025, major U.S. labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI released larger, high-performance models, while Chinese tech companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, and DeepSeek, expanded the open-model ecosystem to the point where the Chinese models have been downloaded more than American models. Another turning point came in April, when Google introduced its Agent2Agent protocol. While Anthropics Model Context Protocol focused on how agents use tools, Agent2Agent addressed how agents communicate with each other. Crucially, the two protocols were designed to work together. Later in the year, both Anthropic and Google donated their protocols to the open-source software nonprofit Linux Foundation, cementing them as open standards rather than proprietary experiments. These developments quickly found their way into consumer products. By mid-2025, agentic browsers began to appear. Tools such as Perplexitys Comet, Browser Companys Dia, OpenAIs GPT Atlas, Copilot in Microsofts Edge, ASI X Inc.s Fellou, MainFunc.ais Genspark, Operas Opera Neon, and others reframed the browser as an active participant rather than a passive interface. For example, rather than helping you search for vacation details, it plays a part in booking the vacation. At the same time, workflow builders like n8n and Googles Antigravity lowered the technical barrier for creating custom agent systems beyond what has already happened with coding agents like Cursor and GitHub Copilot. New power, new risks As agents became more capable, their risks became harder to ignore. In November, Anthropic disclosed how its Claude Code agent had been misused to automate parts of a cyberattack. The incident illustrated a broader concern: By automating repetitive, technical work, AI agents can also lower the barrier for malicious activity. This tension defined much of 2025. AI agents expanded what individuals and organizations could do, but they also amplified existing vulnerabilities. Systems that were once isolated text generators became interconnected, tool-using actors operating with little human oversight. The business community is gearing up for multiagent systems. What to watch for in 2026 Looking ahead, several open questions are likely to shape the next phase of AI agents. One is benchmarks. Traditional benchmarks, which are like a structured exam with a series of questions and standardized scoring, work well for single models, but agents are composite systems made up of models, tools, memory and decision logic. Researchers increasingly want to evaluate nt just outcomes, but processes. This would be like asking students to show their work, not just provide an answer. Progress here will be critical for improving reliability and trust, and ensuring that an AI agent will perform the task at hand. One method is establishing clear definitions around AI agents and AI workflows. Organizations will need to map out exactly where AI will integrate into workflows or introduce new ones. Another development to watch is governance. In late 2025, the Linux Foundation announced the creation of the Agentic AI Foundation, signaling an effort to establish shared standards and best practices. If successful, it could play a role like the World Wide Web Consortium in shaping an open, interoperable agent ecosystem. There is also a growing debate over model size. While large, general-purpose models dominate headlines, smaller and more specialized models are often better suited to specific tasks. As agents become configurable consumer and business tools, whether through browsers or workflow management software, the power to choose the right model increasingly shifts to users rather than labs or corporations. The challenges ahead Despite the optimism, significant socio-technical challenges remain. Expanding data center infrastructure strains energy grids and affects local communities. In workplaces, agents raise concerns about automation, job displacement, and surveillance. From a security perspective, connecting models to tools and stacking agents together multiplies risks that are already unresolved in standalone large language models. Specifically, AI practitioners are addressing the dangers of indirect prompt injections, where prompts are hidden in open web spaces that are readable by AI agents and result in harmful or unintended actions. Regulation is another unresolved issue. Compared with Europe and China, the United States has relatively limited oversight of algorithmic systems. As AI agents become embedded across digital life, questions about access, accountability, and limits remain largely unanswered. Meeting these challenges will require more than technical breakthroughs. It demands rigorous engineering practices, careful design and clear documentation of how systems work and fail. Only by treating AI agents as socio-technical systems rather than mere software components, I believe, can we build an AI ecosystem that is both innovative and safe. Thomas ªerban von Davier is an affiliated faculty member at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Packages of grass fed ground beef are being recalled over possible E. coli contamination. The affected packages were distributed in at least six states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). What ground meat is recalled? The USDA made the announcement in a Dec. 27 recall notice, explaining that the recall includes 2,855 pounds of raw ground beef produced on Dec. 16 from Mountain West Food Group, LLC. The at-risk product is the company’s 16-oz. (1-lb.) vacuum-sealed packages of FORWARD FARMS GRASS-FED GROUND BEEF. The packages have a use or freeze by date of 01/13/26. The product also has the establishment number EST 2083 printed on the side of the package. The meat was shipped to six states, including California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Pennsylvania, and Washington to be sold. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) advises customers to check their freezers for the at-risk products and either throw them away immediately or return them to the place of purchase. There have been no confirmed reports of illnesses due to the contaminated product. Per the announcement, the possible contamination was flagged during a routine FSIS testing, which discovered the presence of E. coli O26. “Most people infected with STEC O26 develop diarrhea (often bloody) and vomiting,” the release said. How do you treat E.coli? According to Mayo Clinic, rest and fluids are the most common treatments for an E. coli infection. Those with the illness should avoid anti-diarrheal medications which can slow digestion and healing. Likewise, antibiotics aren’t recommended. It also notes that sometimes E. coli can lead to a life-threatening form of kidney failure, which requires hospitalization, IV fluids, blood transfusions, and kidney dialysis. Another recent E. coli outbreak affecting raw milk cheese led to at least three infections. A Dec. 30 Food Safety News report found that there have been at least 33 multi-state food outbreaks, including E. Coli, Salmonella, and other bacteria, in 2025. “For every confirmed patient in an E. coli outbreak there are likely more than 26 who go undetected,” it noted. The ground beef recall notice directed consumers with further questions to contact Mountain West Food Group, LLC’s CEO, Jeremy Anderson at 208-679-3765 or info@mountainwestfoodgroup.com. Fast Company reached out to Mountain West Group, LLC. for additional comments on the recall but did not hear back by the time of publication.
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E-Commerce
When Bianca Jones, a 33-year-old special education teacher in Memphis, Tennessee, decided a couple of years ago that she wanted to buy a house, she started digging into her Experian credit report. She was shocked by what she found. Her student debt had been double-counted, making it look as though she owed a quarter of a million dollars and putting home ownership out of reach. Jones disputed the items with Experian, one of the major credit reporting agencies, multiple times in writing and over the phone, but got nowhere. “They kept saying it’s been verified, it’s been verifiedThey never investigated. They never tried to remove it,” Jones said in an interview. Eventually, Jones complained to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal watchdog created by Congress in 2010 to protect consumers in their financial dealings, helping her lawyers show a judge the lengths she’d gone to mitigate damage to her credit, according to her attorneys, legal papers and a copy of the complaint. That paper trail eventually helped Jones successfully sue Experian to correct her record. Jones closed on a house purchase in the Memphis suburb of Millington for $300,000 in January. “If I didn’t have this agency to go to, I don’t think I’d be in the house right now,” said Jones. “It actually changed my life.” Experian and the CFPB did not respond to a request for comment on Jones’ case. AGENCY FACING SHUTDOWN In interviews, consumers who had fallen on hard times or known difficulty, lawyers who work with the poor and credit counselors told Reuters the CFPB had been a lifeline for people facing hardship and they feared that, without it, many consumers would be left unprotected from financial predators. Conceived by Senator Elizabeth Warren to police the type of lending that fueled the 2008 financial crisis, the CFPB has long been a target of conservatives and industry. Congress created the agency as part of post-crash reforms in 2010 as the sole federal body primarily charged with protecting consumers’ rights in the financial marketplace. The CFPB now faces extinction under President Donald Trump’s second administration, which says the agency is a political weapon for Democrats and a burden on free enterprise. Speaking to reporters at the White House in February, Trump said it was “very important to get rid of the agency,” claiming, without spelling out evidence, that Warren had “used that as her little personal agency to go around and destroy people.” In an interview, Warren dismissed the criticism as a sign the CFPB was doing its job. “This is not about vendettas. This is about enforcing the law as it is written, so that billionaires and billionaire corporations don’t cheat American families. I think that’s a pretty good thing,” she said. White House Budget Director Russell Vought, a staunch CFPB critic and the agency’s acting head, told “The Charlie Kirk Show” podcast in October he plans to shutter the CFPB. The administration is fighting in court to fire up to 90% of its workers, while planning to move pending investigations and litigation to the Justice Department. The agency says it is due to run out of money in early 2026 and Vought says he cannot legally seek more until the Federal Reserve returns to what the administration deems “profitability,” a position experts dispute. Congressional Republicans also slashed the CFPB’s maximum allowable funding in July. Together, the administration, congressional Republicans and industry-backed lawsuits have undone a decade’s worth of CFPB rules on matters ranging from medical debt and student loans to credit card late fees, overdraft charges and mortgage lending. The agency has also dropped or paused its probes and enforcement actions, and stopped supervising the consumer finance industries, leading to a string of resignations. The CFPB and the White House did not respond to requests for comment. Warren said that as a law professor studying bankruptcy she saw that consumer protections were weak and fragmented, and that America needed a single federal agency dedicated to protecting consumers from unfair, deceptive and abusive practices. “I was stunned by the number of people in financial trouble who had lost a job or got sick but who had also been cheated by one or more of their creditors,” she told Reuters. “For no agency was consumer protection a first priority, it was somewhere between fifth and tenth, which meant there was just no cop on the beat. If the CFPB is not there, people have nowhere to turn when they get cheated.” CRITICS COMPLAIN OF OVERREACH Republicans said the agency was redundant, with federal bank watchdogs, like the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and state regulators already looking out for consumers, and that its funding and leadership structure were unconstitutional. Like other banking regulators, the CFPB’s funding is not set annually by Congress and does not come directly from taxpayers. Rather, the agency draws on the Federal Reserve and its director was until recently protected from removal at will by the president. Republicans accused the CFPB’s first director Richard Cordray, a Democrat, of using those powers to crush small banks and businesses via overzealous enforcement and complex regulations, and of overstepping the agency’s legal authority by trying to regulate companies Congress had exempted from its oversight, such as auto dealerships. Conservative and industry groups tried several times to curb its powers or extinguish it altogether via the courts. In 2020 the Supreme Court handed the president the power to fire the director, which he has since used. Critics on the political right accused former director Rohit Chopra, a Democrat, of exceeding his authority, flouting the federal rule-making process, and harming consumers with an ill-conceived crackdown on financial firm fees. Thomas Hoenig, who served as vice chair of the FDIC from 2012 to 2018, said he was skeptical of some of the CFPB’s work under prior administrations, but that it still served an important purpose. “If you take them out of the picture altogether, you’re going to get more abuse, not less,” he said. “I’m disappointed to see the CFPB just go away.” “VERY IMPORTANT FOR ME” For some, though, the agency has been a lifeline. Millions of Americans like Jones who are struggling with credit reporting errors, predatory lenders, debt collectors, fraud, discrimination or other challenges, are now filing complaints every year with the agency, which prompts companies to fix the issues, sometimes by paying the complainants, or explain themselves. When companies repeatedly break the rules, the CFPB punishes them and tries to make their customers whole. To date, it has returned $21 billion to consumers, according to CFPB data. Morgan Smith, a 31-year-old single mother and social services worker in Issaqua, Washington, turned to those resources when she realized she had been a victim of identity theft. After her wallet and ID were stolen from her car, she learned that someone had opened up a string of accounts in her name, she said: a rental car that ended up in a crash, an unpaid storage unit and a hotel room at an amusement park. Reuters was unable to confirm Smith’s account independently. “I went straight to the CFPB and I was navigated there to their consumer education tab where I was able to find out how to deal with fraud and scams. It gave me all the information I needed to knowmy rights,” she said. “That was very important for me to have this resource.” Without the CFPB, borrowers would once again rely on a hodgepodge of federal, state and other local agencies which lack the CFPB’s resources, expertise and legal powers, say consumer groups. “Prior to the CFPB coming around, we’d have to say, ‘write your attorney general, write to the FTC,’ whoever it was, and it became this sort of letter-writing campaign,” said Sam Hohman, who runs the Nebraska nonprofit Credit Advisors Foundation, which helps people get out of debt and offers consumer education services. As a result, people like Virginia resident Michael Johnson, 49, may have fewer options in future when they fall into trouble. After a kidney transplant and leg amputation several years ago left Johnson unable to work, he racked up credit card debt paying for basic expenses, he said. This summer he received court summonses from creditors seeking to collect on that old debt, according to court records. “I got in over my head unintentionally,” Johnson said in an interview. Using a CFPB database of credit card terms and conditions, Johnson learned that his creditors were required to use arbitration rather than sue in court, which could cost more than the underlying debts. Johnson represented himself in court and says so far one creditor has dropped its complaint while the other is considering its options. “It adds credibility to your defense that you understand your rights,” Johnson said. “Life happens to everybody.” Douglas Gillison, Reuters
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