Where to find new ideas in 2025
New ideas are valuable so it’s worth thinking where to find them. The fact that new ideas are risky is the first clue where to find them. You can find them in domains where there is lot of uncertainty and are hard to navigate. At the frontier.
Technology frontier moves faster than other domains say real estate or architecture, and is therefore harder to navigate so it’s a good bet.
Within technology, the areas with the best existing maps are least likely to produce new ideas, since they are by definition mapped out. If there is a playbook for what you’re building, you’re less likely to produce new ideas. A good example might be SaaS software. In 2025, it’s closer to optimization than exploration.
Conversely, large language models have just emerged and evolve almost daily. Hardly anyone knows what the next 12 months will look like so there’s a high likely hood of finding new ideas. So recency is also a good indicator: How long has something been possible.
Along with ease of navigation another factor you want to consider is popularity. Even if something is recent and hard to navigate, but the whole world is exploring it, it might be harder to come up with new ideas because there is so many others looking for them in the same place. When you do, others might be right on your heels competing for the value of your idea. So you want also consider popularity of the space when choosing where to look for new ideas. Generally you can think that those ideas would be found in any case if there is a gold rush towards to domain, but if you’re the only one exploring the space you might find an idea that would not be otherwise discovered and the world will be better for it.
The best changes of finding valuable ideas is looking at a domain that’s hard to navigate and where few people are looking.
It’s useful to consider why there might be fewer people looking for a particular domain where you could otherwise find new ideas. One good reason is that it’s just very hard and the needed skills take long time to develop. Another reason is social acceptability. If an area is frowned upon socially, there will be fewer people working on it because most people care what others think of them.
If AI will make solving hard technical problems comparatively easier, there might be more new ideas waiting to be discovered in domains that fall outside of what is culturally and socially acceptable. On the other hand, maybe solving hard technical problems is easier than most believe, and they don’t get solved not because they are hard but because people think they are hard. Hence it’s also cultural and more about whether a person believes in her own agency.
Maybe it’s always been about agency and AI just makes it more obvious.