Changes in the creative industry occur very quickly. From static materials to highly moving art, everything can now blur and even mimic reality.
One medium that has successfully evolved through time is animation.
With the current innovation in technology, audiences can definitely enjoy more engaging, realistic, and relatable animated video content.
In 2025, it is predicted that animation holds a bright promise to offer something different than what we have right now.
This year alone, animations have shown the potential to dominate content creation because of their popular demand in games, social media, virtual reality, and streaming platforms.
Before, animation materials made using traditional techniques were taxing, time-consuming, and hard. Hence, the emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning has made everything easier and more convenient for the benefit of every artist.
Generally, these AI-driven programs birth high-quality animations that are now trending, audience grabbers, boundary breakers, and a new level of motion art. Continue reading this if you wish to learn more about animation in 2025 and how you can catch up with its ever-shifting landscape.
Building from the insights above, there is no way for animation but up.
In fact, roughly $400 billion is the projected market reach of animation before 2024 ends.
Thus, the opportunities for animators and possibilities of joy for every viewer are limitless.
To help you, here are only some of the reasons why you should keep an eye on animation in 2025:
The way you tell your stories can move mountains through animation’s power to make every narrative remarkable.
Due to its engaging and immersive nature, animation is here to level up the game of creating characters, backgrounds, conflicts, and other storytelling components like in real life.
To demonstrate this further, I recommend you check out next: "51 Best Examples of Storytelling in Animated Explainer Videos"
The manner of depicting real-life scenarios will also take a greater leap in the field of animation because visualization and expressions will be positively affected by the rise of more innovative technologies and tools.
In this way, animations will become more convincing, blurring the line between what is real and what is not, giving the viewers more detailed and engaging content to consume.
Hyperrealism and better storytelling will only transpire because of a more streamlined production process.
With new platforms offering different animation tools, including character personalization features, AI-text-to-speech buttons, background removal, motion capture, and more — animation will become way easier than before.
These automated components can help every animator focus on their vision instead of allocating more time to doing manual procedures.
Leveraging RFP software tools boosts efficiency by automating the selection process, helping animators quickly find the right resources without manual evaluation.
Among such tools that are making an "automated" future of animated video production a reality, specially designed animation software are playing a huge role here.
To explore some amazing tools at the forefront of this trend, check out: "21 Best Free Animation Video Maker Software Tools"
If you are hesitating to jump in and try animation, then you should not be wary because, in 2025, animation will have broader accessibility for everyone.
The advancement of tools and pricing will become more friendly to every creator, giving space for starting and professional animators to meet halfway and maximize productivity.
Despite the accessibility, there is no way that animation quality will become lower; instead, demand will soar even higher. With this, they should take advantage of its broader accessibility because animation is deemed by 22.4% of marketers effective in improving their audience engagement rates with 60.8% of them applying it already on their social media postings to reach their target market.
Since everyone can become animators with proper training and familiarity with friendly tools, the content will become more interactive, engaging, relatable, and personalized.
You can make it your own and connect with people who matter to you the most or reach an audience that can resonate with your animation theme or messaging.
If you are an animator for games, you should still prioritize personalizing your material for your consumers to keep them loyal and engaged.
All of these thrilling animation trends are only a glimpse of what will happen in the next year.
The animation industry will surely embrace a huge change that will dominate various industries. Audiences will definitely get to enjoy more interactive videos and materials that are close to reality.
Hence, you should remember some of these upcoming animation standards that will make your life as an animator or viewer different in 2025.
The animation industry will not continue to bloom and flourish without the assistance of AI technology.
Due to AI’s outstanding improvements, its influence reaches the animation landscape by introducing different techniques, unique approaches, and novel processes.
Here are a few notes about the powerful collaboration of animation and AI:
One of the benefits of AI technology in animation is making things bearable, such as making every tiring task convenient.
Repetition has no place in the room because AI can automate some animation processes, including in-betweening keyframes.
As a result, animators can zero in on more important tasks rather than spending time on manual processes.
But how can AI really supplement your animated explainer video production?
Learn more by checking out: "AI Video Generators: The Scoop on 20 Innovative Tools"
In animation, it is vital to turn every character into as believable and realistic a persona as possible.
Their actions, expressions, interactions, and composition against the environment should stand out and imitate human motion to make every viewer happy.
Yet, this is not far from possible because AI-centered tools empower animators to improve the overall realistic impact of animation content.
In the pursuit of making animated characters more relatable, the knowledge of brand archetypes is coming in handy in almost every scenario.
This explainer video from Broadcast2World explores brand archetypes in much more detail which I recommend you check out
Using this knowledge, brands are building accurate character personas that not only speak to consumers but make them feel an offering's impact on an emotional level.
Aside from characters, AI tools can also influence aesthetics and visual effects.
The stimulation of clothes, elements like water and fire, wind or smoke, and other complicated assets can be easily made and produced.
Thus, the results will always be more immersive, experiential, appealing to the senses, and dynamic compared to other animations in the absence of AI tools.
To emphasize, once you employ AI in your animations, you can expect that the viewers will love them more because of the personalization that gets their attention.
If you just know how to harness AI-driven software, it will become a piece of cake for you to personalize your content and easily connect with your viewers and consumers' tastes.
Another remarkable impact of AI in animation is the efficiency of removing background through tools such as Removal.AI.
Because of accessible and advanced features like this, you, as an animator, can conveniently remove images’ backgrounds precisely.
This component is highly critical because animation requires clean backgrounds and suitable visuals for every character to make it convincing and eye-catching.
More than the process, AI also caters to the results. Artificial intelligence and machine learning value your success rate.
That's why most of them have built-in predictive analytics to help you measure the outcome of your work.
By having this, you can save yourself from failed animation works, avoid monetary risks, and make better choices in your journey.
Visuals are one thing, but audio should never be sacrificed. That is why AI also offers voice and lip-syncing features to influence your animation and make the entire audiovisual experience worth it for every audience.
With advanced components, AI can assist you in the lip movements of characters and accurately sync them with the dubbed voiceover.
In essence, AI technology arrives with a bang, making the animation landscape better with automation.
It is in the next few years that these AI platforms can help you focus on your creative vision instead of taking your time to overcome processes that are laborious and repetitive.
Are you ready for it? You should.
Every day, there is a new trend, regardless of platform or media format.
But for animation, 2025 will be an exciting year because there is so much to look forward to as an animator and viewer, respectively.
As I mentioned earlier, hyper-realistic animation will turn the animation world 360° because there will be a thinner line between real and virtual.
Simply put, characters, environments, sounds, and movements will become more authentic.
As an example, take a look at this video from Broadcast2World where they used detailed animation to help their client, Ewarenow, communicate their message:
There will be a point where the audience cannot tell what is real from what is man-made because the resemblance will be uncanny and the experience will be close to reality.
Expect that your animation will become more hyperreal, regardless of industry, such as video games, social media, films, and other formats.
Current animation platforms are great, but with AI, the process will become more streamlined, and you will become more productive.
AI can cut the time it takes to produce animation by up to 50%. These tools can help simplify complicated work for you, like modeling, simulations, making characters, turning movements and expressions more realistic, and other crucial aspects.
Overall, these AI-driven animation tools will take your editing buddy to greater heights as an animator.
Next year, there is a high possibility of breaking the wall between the animation and the audience because of virtual reality and augmented reality.
In fact, by the end of 2024, there will be 1.73 Billion anticipated AR users globally. Thus, once this trend dominates animation content creation, everything will become more hyperreal and immersive.
Many gaming industries and entertainment businesses will definitely benefit from this because it will result in a more active market persuaded through storytelling and realistic experiences.
To learn more about its impact, check out next: "How are AI, VR, and AR Shaping the Future of Online Video Marketing"
Aside from cutting costs and manpower, animation will also become more sustainable in terms of energy consumption and production processes.
In 2025, you can guarantee that there will be better practices, digital techniques, and easier ways of animating that are friendly to both producers and consumers.
Collaboration with other animators will become more productive because of animation platforms that champion accessibility, instant interactions, and healthy working conditions.
You can save projects on various cloud-based platforms that you can access instantly, wherever you are.
Brainstorming, editing, feedback, and updates will become more convenient too because of advanced software that advocates for more rewarding teamwork.
Hyperrealism will surely take animation’s center stage, but the existence of stylized and experimental approaches will also have a place in 2025.
Animators can spice up their works by using unconventional approaches in terms of visual effects, storytelling, and aesthetics.
Once practiced by animators, they can have more unique, personalized, and different material to offer to their respective audiences.
As we push for more inclusive and accessible content, animation should also become more cautious of the content they put out there.
Language, culture, and people’s beliefs should always be a top priority for animators. These should never be neglected just for the sake of providing a good visual animation.
Responsible animation should always be a trend everyone must follow and keep in mind. Besides, catering to those who struggle with disabilities is equally important.
An exciting animation editing trend is the arrival of cutting-edge background removal tools.
Software like Removal.AI will remove every photo background with precision and as quick as the blink of an eye.
Removing background and image enhancements is a great help in animation because these aspects affect the totality of the look and feel of the characters and environment.
Now is the time to acquaint yourself with how you can distribute your animation and connect with your consumers.
These are a few important things you should remember on how to deliver your animation work to the right audience:
If you are aiming to gain traction on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, you should produce short-form versions of your animated work.
These are easy to consume, share, and earn engagements once you get people’s interest.
Given the short attention span of modern audiences, promotional videos lasting less than 30 seconds are your go-to.
But how do you get started with short-format explainer videos in your video marketing campaigns?
Check out a detailed roadmap in: "Short-Form Video Content: The Key to Conveying Powerful Messages in Less Time"
You can hit two birds with one stone once your animation work is grounded locally but has a great global domination vision.
Localized video animation materials will never be a hindrance to connect to a wider audience because there are many ways that you can do, such as putting subtitles, voiceover dubbing, and making different culturally appropriate versions.
Since AR and VR will become a trend in the coming years, distributing your works and incorporating them into your animation will enhance your visibility, engagement, and marketability.
People are opting to spend their money on experiential things, and animation’s integration with augmented and virtual reality will become a good move. You can leverage this with gaming and educational animation to reach maximum results.
Technologies are dancing with time.
This only means that your animation works have platforms to maximize, such as smart televisions, VR headsets, and other cross-platforms.
As a result, you can gain more audiences, shift viewing habits, and efficiently target audience preferences from different walks of life.
A continuation of this trend is the strategic use of content repurposing that's helping brands make the most out of their existing video content across multiple different channels.
Like other entertainment content, gaining fans who are willing to rally behind your piece can help you stay relevant in the long run.
Loyal fans are good drivers of sales who will help not just consume but also distribute your animation material to a wider audience.
One avenue where you can get more fans is through social media where people discuss, share, and engage with your animation content.
Remember: The better the animation, the more organic people will support you.
An immediate example of this trend is the rising popularity of User-Generated Content (UGC).
Couple that with the rising popularity of videos, UGC videos are showing an upward trend when it comes to building trust and credibility using existing customers.
Once you know your niche and specialized content, you will have an easier way to distribute your masterpieces.
Never forget to explore various themes but master one genre that can hook viewers.
So as early as now, know your expertise and content topics, such as educational, entertaining, anime, or others.
Carbon footprint has been a growing issue in the entertainment and media industry.
That’s why there are longer strides to minimize it and advocate for a more sustainable initiative.
Consequently, you should become more responsible, and keep in mind how to become more energy-saver and environmentally responsible.
Exciting times are ahead for the animation industry as AI-powered tools are coming to assist and boost the entertainment and media landscape.
There are many trends that animators should be aware of as early as today because 2025 will become a highly competitive year for all industries.
Hyperreality, AR and VR, immersiveness and interactivity, and collaborative platforms are here to dominate the future.
Besides, mastering how you can productively distribute your animation to a wider audience is a must, such as through short-form videos, social media and cross-platforms, niche and specialized content, fans, and sustainability efforts.
After all, it is in your hands to decide how to stay relevant in the coming years and how to produce animation that breaks through the noise and piques people’s interest to achieve that success!