2025!
The year that was !
We have seen it all. Systems are sort of overtaking each other and exhausting us in the process. At what point shall we breathe, I remember asking in one of the many AI videos I have seen on my socials.
This year forced a reckoning. Not about what AI can do, but about who controls it.
I spent 2025 writing through tension. Admiration on one side. Unease on the other. I just couldn’t get enough of Veo 3 Google’s leap in video generation blew minds. Paired with Gemini 3’s release and the new chip designs powering those jaw-dropping outputs (realistic physics, native audio with dialogue and ambient sound, cinematic quality that many struggled to match before), it felt like pure magic. Way before that high, though, the unease came into focus the moment Manus entered the picture.
The Year Through Your Reading
Your attention went to pieces that questioned momentum rather than celebrated it.
- Nano Banana: Why It Matters Innovation rooted in food, resilience, and local impact.
- DeepSeek and the FOMO Effect A look at how speed replaced understanding.
- Kenya as the ChatGPT Capital A snapshot of how deeply AI embedded itself into daily life.
- Communication in African Business Proof that clarity still beats automation.
- AI Deception and the Loss of Trust A warning about systems that sound confident even when wrong.
Each piece circled the same concern: We were moving fast without pausing to ask who benefits.
Manus Changed the Conversation
Manus did not arrive quietly. It arrived capable.
Before most people understood what it could do, Meta acquired it (late December 2025, in a deal reportedly over $2 billion). That moment mattered more than any product demo.
Manus was not a chatbot. It was an operator. It planned. It executed. It improved with minimal instruction. The acquisition signaled something clear: AI was no longer an experiment. It was infrastructure—profitable, scalable, and increasingly centralized.
That shift defined 2025. The question stopped being “What can AI do?” It became “Who owns the systems that decide?”
The Unease That Remains
I admire the progress Veo 3 and Gemini 3 reminded us how breathtaking AI can be, expanding creativity and possibility in ways that once seemed distant. Yet I distrust the silence around its consequences.
When tools act with autonomy, responsibility becomes blurry. When decisions scale through owned infrastructure like Meta’s post-Manus vision, accountability thins.
That tension shaped every post I wrote this year.
Looking Ahead
In 2026, my focus stays on:
- Human judgment in automated systems
- African realities inside global AI infrastructure
- Transparency over convenience
- Agency in an age of delegation
2025 did not offer comfort. It offered clarity through dazzling demos and quiet power grabs alike. And that may be more valuable.
Thank you for reading, questioning, and sharing the ride with me. Here’s to navigating 2026 with eyes wide open.
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