Web Summit 2025: Key Takeaways from Lisbon

Here are my 8 takeaways from this year’s event

1. AI is everywhere. Not a single talk where AI was not in the title or the content. And indeed, all of us must be aware of what it can (and cannot) do. Statements like “70% of our cases in customer service are handled autonomously by agents” and “up to 20% of our cases are deflected by AI” are presented on stage and although this is anticipated to be the future, the reality is that this is not yet the case for most people I spoke to. So let’s “KEEP CALM and CARRY ON” as we bring the conference bubble to our customers.
2. Vibe coding for the win. With tools like Lovable (whose CEO made a great impression on stage) and Replit, there will soon be unicorn companies built by single entrepreneurs. If you believe that these tools are only fit for prototyping (“demo, don’t memo”), look again because their functionalities are expanding rapidly and allow everyone to turn their ideas into full-stack applications and websites at a speed unseen before.
3. Agentic AI is the new reality. The web will be full of agents exchanging information and taking action. Imagine booking a trip: your agent will know all your preferences and will reach out to other agents of booking and travel agencies to find the perfect stay, then book and pay on your behalf. This new reality is challenging us to rethink our business models, strategy and operations. Not at least around privacy & security: would you trust agents with your passwords, bank accounts, etc.?!
4. Digital AI will become specialized. Of course everyone knows about Grok, Copilot, Gemini and ChatGPT which are all general AI tools based on large language models. Now what if you have a very niche product with a specific information set? Then you don’t need a general AI tool and you might be better off building your own large language model attuned to your business proposition and in your full control. So the future might not hold 5 genAI models but 500.000.
5. Physical AI drives new spheres. While we talk about genAI and Large Language Models, for me the real discovery was in physical AI and the Large Motion Models that are being developed by Amazon and the likes. Turning muscle memory into code, robots with ‘finger-tip feeling’ and human-like robots that can turn their joints 360° round are developed to save humans from doing the dangerous, tedious and repetitive work. Clearly, the future of work includes systems that expand human capability, although the horizon for robots to enter into our private homes will still take at least a decade, said Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter on Center Stage.
6. Browser wars are inevitable. The time when we entered a search term, received a couple of blue links and clicked through to one of the websites of a vendor is about to end. As agents act on our behalf and all we do is enter text (or voice) into a prompt window, then the business model of search engines as we know them today is challenged. Small businesses will not get the visitors to their websites and the advertising model of Google is turned upside down. Who will win the race for the browser window? Will it be the most privacy-minded one?
7. Usage-based pricing is a unit economy. As AI layers into everything we do and we accelerate our work, then what is the final value of the product or service we’re offering? Is it the number of lines of code or hours spent? It will rather be outcome-based. This means you need to get on top of your unit economics (what is driving your cost and added value to the customer). Moreover, prepare your systems and processes for usage-based selling and invoicing before your competitors do! (Note: Understanding and implementing usage-based selling systems is precisely the expertise of REDITUS. Contact us for more info)
8. Ultimately we remain humans… At the end of the day, it’s not the autonomous vehicles that take us from A to B in the most efficient way that stick with us. We remember the small talk with the driver, the restaurant tip he gave you or the way he listened to your stories along the way. So despite all the advancements in AI, robotics and digital, it is the human connections and emotions that make it all worth it!

This is what we have seen and experienced at Web Summit: a large crowd of enthusiasts full of ideas seeking ways to help each other realize what’s not possible today. So, definitely, we’ll be returning to Lisbon but until then, we are focused on building cutting-edge agents and maximizing your revenue streams in a rapidly changing world.