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In an age where every industry is oversaturated by AI, innovation can seem stagnant, but some of 2025’s most notable innovations stand out precisely because they were intentional about the way they interact with their audiences.
From Waymo’s autonomous robotaxis, to Labubu’s blind box strategy and big pharma’s weight loss wins, here are 5 of the most innovative business moves and trends in 2025:
Waymo
In a moment where nearly every industry is chasing automation, driverless cars could easily be dismissed as just another tech hype. And many are just that. But robotaxi company Waymo just passed a meaningful threshold on the road to true innovation.
Every year, more than 40,000 Americans die in a traffic accident as a result of human error. Waymo’s data suggests a different future: its vehicles have 81 percent fewer injury-causing crashes than human drivers and have caused zero fatalities to date.
To be fair, Waymo still operates on a small scale. Originally Google’s self-driving car project in 2009, Waymo currently operates in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles (although a unanimous decision by the city of Santa Monica has ordered Waymo to halt its noisy overnight operations at charging stations from 11pm to 6am after receiving complaints from nearby residents), Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Recently, the autonomous robotaxi service ramped up its expansion efforts, announcing tests in five new cities—Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando—and plans to officially launch early next year. The company has also announced additional launches in several major cities slated for summer 2026.
Although the cost of a Waymo ride is significantly higher than one with Uber or Lyft, it turns out that 70 percent of users who have experienced a ride with Waymo prefer a driverless vehicle over other rideshare or taxi options. 26.4 percent of users say they are willing to pay a premium for the added comfort of a private and driverless ride over forced social interactions with a human one. Waymo is also a considerable alternative for users concerned by reports of sexual assault occurances from other rideshare options.
Labubu
In a year consumed by political and economic uncertainty, emotional spending has been a defining consumer trend and a dominant force, behind 2025’s breakout product of the year: Pop Mart’s Labubu.
The elflike vinyl and plush figurine became hugely popular this year, thanks to celebrity endorsements from the likes of Rihanna and David Beckham, TikTok-hype—and a “blind box” strategy that has been the secret marketing ingredient behind its explosive success.
The formula is simple: Buyers don’t know which Labubu they have purchased until they open the box. Additionally, each series includes a secret Labubu with a 1 in 72 chance of being found. This fuels anticipation around drop dates both online and in-store, repeat purchases and a red-hot resale market—including one Labubu that sold at auction for $170,000. The boom has even created a wave of counterfeit “Lafufu” knockoffs flooding the market.
The Beijing-headquartered Pop Mart saw sales increase 245 percent between July and September of this year, according to The Economist. Though shares have reportedly fallen roughly 40 percent from their August peak. Labubu’s cultural prominence is undeniable, as evidenced by a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade appearance, a mention on “Whim Whamiee” featuring Lizzo, and reports that Sony executives green-lit a Labubu movie. Whether Pop Mart’s latest numbers may foreshadow a 2026 downturn, its 2025 run was nothing short of a global marvel.
Weight Loss (Well…everything)
To say the weight-loss market is having a notable year would be an understatement. Once a taboo option, a whopping 12 percent of American adults now report using GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Zepbound and Mounjaro)—more than double the rate in early 2024.
Maha-era policy shifts have also begun to take effect. In November, the Trump administration struck a deal with pharma giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to lower the cost of weight-loss drugs for Medicare and Medicaid patients through a new “TrumpRx” website. Novo Nordisk continues to lead GLP-1 development after announcing that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first-ever GLP-1 pill. The pill will become available starting January 2026, for $149 per month–-the same amount they struck a deal with TrumpRx.
Even so, Eli Lilly, the maker of Zepbound and Mounjaro, became the first healthcare company to reach a $1 trillion market valuation, an exclusive club typically dominated by tech firms. Morgan Stanley has even projected that the weight-loss drug market will reach $150 billion by 2035.
By far, 2025 has been a notable year for an opportunistic second market, especially for companies in the hospitality and CPG game. Take the rising trend of mini-meal offerings designed for GLP-1 users at restaurants or over-the-counter supplements from Hers or Kourtney Kardashian’s Lemme, as examples.
One unlikely trend connected to the weight loss market: the rise of protein. Nutritionists advise GLP-1 users to increase their protein intake to prevent muscle loss, a well-documented side effect of significant weight loss. But as the conversation around weight loss collides with social media’s appetite for simple, one-step solutions, the message has morphed into a broader belief that protein is the cure-all for everything.
Cue CPG companies pushing protein rebrands or launching protein products like Khloé Kardashian’s Khloud protein popcorn. Then there’s David, popular for its protein bars (and frozen cod fish, which took the internet by storm this summer) on track to make $100 million in first-year revenue. Meanwhile the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association found 46 percent of GLP-1 drug users are more likely to purchase a frozen food item if it is high in protein—even as a study by Cornell University shows that GLP-1 users “cut their grocery spend by 5.3 percent within six months of adoption.” The industry’s momentum suggests that it may not slow down anytime soon, especially as entrepreneurs move to cash in on the billion dollar industry.
Womens Sports Market (bars, apparel, tix sales, etc)
From underdog to the fastest-growing segment in sports, the global transformation of the women’s sports industry is one to watch–-and if you ask Reddit co-founder and Seven Seven Six Venture founder Alexis Ohanian, one to invest in. Projected to generate $2.35 billion in global revenue within a larger $417 billion sports market, the women’s sports sector is reinventing the playbook This year, women’s basketball alone is projected to account for 44 percent ($1.03 billion) of global women’s sports revenue, with women’s soccer following at 38 percent ($820 million).
What’s driving this rapid growth? Emerging talent, increased media coverage, social-media-driven engagement, and a rapidly expanding fan base, to name a few.
Athletes have long been thrust into celebrity culture, but in women’s sports, cultivating visibility has become almost essential. WNBA players Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Bueckers, to name a few, have disrupted the traditional path—one that often required leaning into media narratives to gain attention or going overseas for better pay—by building their own brands and entrepreneurial ventures. They continue to prove their marketability, as data shows women’s sports grew 4.5 times faster between 2022 and 2024 than male sports, and athletes have snagged record-breaking name image and likeness deals, brand partnerships in non-traditional categories such as beauty, and consumer goods, and even nabbed a coveted spot as a Victoria’s Secret Angel during the brand’s fashion show this fall.
Unrivaled, a new three-on-three women’s basketball league co-founded by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier—who publicly criticized WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert for “worst leadership in the world” —launched its own name image and likeness program securing top 14 women’s college basketball stars like triple-threat Flau’jae Johnson of Louisiana State University.
Togethxr, a media and commerce company co-founded by pioneering athletes, Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel and Sue Bird, partnered with Snapchat launching a first of its kind content accelerator initiative titled “Snap the Gap.” The program selected nine female athletes to receive direct mentorship from Snapchat and content development from Togethxr to help them grow their audiences, elevate their personal brands and build sustainable revenue streams.
Investors are taking notice. Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and husband of tennis legend Serena Williams, launched the influential early-stage VC firm Seven Seven Six. The firm’s portfolio includes Athlos, a women-only track and field league, and Angel City FC of the National Women’s Soccer League. It has also found creative ways to invest in the growing wave of women’s sports bars, including the widely covered The Sports Bra, based in Portland, Oregon which announced in June that it would be launching four franchise locations in Boston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, and St. Louis, completing what Jenny Nguyen, founder and CEO of The Sports Bra calls the “starting five”.
In June, Women’s Health reported 13 bars exclusively dedicated to showcasing women’s sports, as of this month a total of 23 have officially opened nationwide.
Nostalgia (as a concept)
A well-employed technique behind some of this year’s biggest campaigns? Nostalgia. That’s right—the warm, fuzzy feeling you get from a Levi’s jeans ad may have little to do with the jeans themselves—and everything to do with how the ad is crafted to tug at viewers’ heartstrings.
Research shows nostalgic content generates stronger emotional responses compared to non-nostalgic ads, making consumers more likely to purchase and creating a sense of trust and loyalty toward a brand–“especially in uncertain times.”
As it turns out, the technique isn’t confined to visuals, in fact, music largely drives those emotional responses. According to a study by Spotify, music is the number one driver of nostalgia.
A notable example is Gap’s “Better in Denim” campaign, which made headlines for its timely release following American Eagle’s controversial campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney.
Gap—well known for using nostalgia in socially and culturally resonant ways—featured Katseye, a diverse girl group entering the mainstream, in a choreographed video set to singer Kelis’s 2003 hit “Milkshake.” Perfectly timed for back-to-school season, the ad was a hit with online audiences, generating more than 8 billion impressions within its first month in August. Knowing how to creatively balance timeliness, cultural relevance, and virality—while uniting generations through a fresh artist and an early-aughts throwback—is a skill many brands have taken a stab at. Instacart and McDonald’s, for instance, also released their own nostalgia-driven campaigns this year.
The technique isn’t limited to advertising, either. Sports teams, like the Green Bay Packers, revived retro jerseys for the 2025 season to boost viewership and merchandise sales.
Still, nostalgia isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Coca-Cola—which famously shaped the commercial depiction of Santa as we know it today, back in 1931, through its Christmas advertisements—has been mocked online for the second year in a row for using AI-generated imagery, with viewers calling it “uncanny” and an “eyesore.” Despite the criticism, the ad remains one of the most talked-about holiday campaigns, drawing over one million impressions online, and 37 percent of social-media sentiment was actually positive. In a world saturated with AI, viewers seem to be thrown off when it’s used to evoke something as emotional as nostalgia.
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Victoria Salves
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