The Top 41 Trends of 2025

Before we explore the key trends, here’s a look at the fastest-growing topics of the past year:

Now, let’s move beyond keywords to explore the key trends that our analysts have identified will shape 2025 & 2026.

Men enter the makeup aisle

While makeup is strongly associated with femininity, there's an ongoing cultural shift where male consumers are increasingly buying makeup products. The shift started in skincare: it was only a few years ago when men's moisturizer was looked upon as taboo, yet now there are dozens of men's skincare brands.

Now, that shift is expanding to cosmetics, leading men's makeup to become one of the top trends in makeup.

In contrast to women's makeup, marketing for men's makeup mainly focuses on utility. A product description on a male cosmetics site reads, "Your eyes tell a story. Don't tell a tired one. Use our Wake Up Eye Stick with Caffeine to help de-puff the bags under your eyes."

These brands also push back against the stigma by using models with highly masculine features - thick beards and defined facial features. They also typically use masculine branding, black and red colors alongside bold and all caps text.

Seniors fuel pickleball’s rapid rise

Pickleball, the fastest growing sports trend in the U.S., is most popular among a surprising demographic: the elderly.

Unlike many other sports, pickleball – a mashup of badminton, tennis, and ping pong – doesn't give much of an edge to age or experience. It also takes far less time to play a full match than with other sports, so couples will schedule regular pickleball dates as a way to establish friendships within a community.

As pickleball grows in popularity among the 60+ demographic, retirement homes are flocking to add the sport to their offerings and highlight it in their advertisements.

While the volume is low for such long-tail keywords, searches like "pickleball retirement community" have as high as $10 CPCs on Google, meaning that retirement homes are paying up to $10 for every click they get on their ads shown to users in Google search results. Because the elderly don't switch retirement homes as frequently as younger generations switch housing, the retirement homes are willing to spend more on acquiring those customers.

Gaming becomes Gen Z’s hangout

Gaming has become a top social activity for Gen Z and Gen Y, with nearly half of young adults reporting they made long-term friends while gaming. And 40% of Gen Z and Millennials reported socializing more in video games than in person. The rise of online multiplayer games and social platforms like Discord has taken things even further, making gaming an even more interactive and communal experience and sparking a host of new gaming trends.

Dairy alternatives expand beyond milk

The demand for dairy alternatives, already one of the most popular trends in food & beverage trends, continues to expand beyond just milk to include other products like butter, with options such as beef tallow gaining popularity.

Additionally, more people purchasing groceries online has boosted the appeal of shelf-stable dairy alternatives. Consumers are now more likely to opt for these convenient, long-lasting options, further driving the growth of the dairy alternative market.

Lab-grown diamonds challenge tradition

De Beers has spent the last eighty years selling diamonds at a huge markup, making the high price a part of the sales pitch and now they're selling a competing product for 80% less. Given their reliance on high prices, why sell lab-grown diamonds—and why sell them at such a discount?

While lab-grown diamonds are currently a smaller share of the overall market at around 15%, they're much cheaper than natural ones, and can only be distinguished using specialized equipment, leading them to emerge as one of the fastest-growing jewelry trends.

It's not the first time De Beers has faced the problem of increased supply. In the 1960s, Russia began mining diamonds in earnest; their diamonds were smaller than African diamonds, but the sheer supply threatened to overwhelm the market—so De Beers started marketing non-ring jewelry with smaller diamonds as a way to control market perception and keep their core business safe.

This time around, with lab-grown diamonds, De Beers can once again separate the market for engagement diamonds, protecting it from an increase in supply—and by choosing their own marketing messaging, and a low price-point, they can emphasize price rather than sustainability, obviating awkward questions about conflict minerals.

One very clever trick some diamond marketers, like the company Brilliant Earth, use on Facebook: targeting unmarried women with ads focused on getting them to share their partner's email under the pretense of dropping a hint. "Dreaming of the perfect ring? Click ’Drop a Hint’ on any item on our site to share your favorite ring styles." The most clever part of this campaign is that once they have the email address, advertisers can target the partner with ads for engagement rings. This solves the key problem in selling diamond rings: the person who wants the product is not the person who buys it. By convincing people who want diamonds to hand over the email addresses of the person who could buy them one, diamond companies outsource the engagement-ultimatum to a globally distributed team of copywriters, digital ad buyers, and conversion-optimization experts.

Wearables gamify personal health

Smartwatches and fitness trackers have become one of the most prominent macro trends in health & wellness, enabling people to increasingly self-monitor aspects of their health that were previously inaccessible or, at the very least, relegated to a doctor's visit.

Users can track various health metrics like heart rate, sleep quality, exercise strain, blood glucose levels, and more.

AI demand soars post-ChatGPT

Since ChatGPT’s launch in 2023, millions of businesses have integrated generative AI into their customer-facing products and internal processes. Consumers, too, are using AI for everything from therapy to medical advice to help with schoolwork and everything in between, leading it to become one of the top future trends in technology.

Aging population strains health systems

An increased demand for healthcare services is expected due to demographic shifts, like the daily retirement of 10,000 Americans, driving a range of healthcare trends. This group tends to reduce spending on almost everything except healthcare. In fact, the average healthcare spend of 75+ demographic is almost 2.5x that of the 45-54 demographic.

Live selling mimics social feeds

America’s fastest-growing marketplace looks more like a social app than a shopping site. In fact, many of the participants aren’t even there to buy, they’re there to be entertained.

It’s called Whatnot: a live-selling site founded just 3 years ago and recently valued at nearly $4B. The site holds auctions alongside a live group chat, strategically combining two of the most powerful levers in conversion, social proof and urgency, to spark one of the future trends in shopping.

With similar dynamics to live, in-person auctions, Whatnot buyers are heavily influenced by other buyers’ excitement as the auction escalates. What’s more, the perception that there’s a large crowd, all going after the same product, reinforces trust and appeal. And the numbers are impressive: engagement metrics resemble that of a social app while conversion metrics match that of a high-performing ecommerce marketplace.

While live selling is a growing phenomenon in the US, it’s been exploding in China for years. For the first time, in 2020, Chinese live-streamed shopping GMV ($137B) surpassed total US digital ad spend ($135B). Many view Whatnot and its competitors as a leading example of future trends in retail, potentially redefining how Americans shop.

Formal fashion declines, athleisure rises

Athleisure, the mix of sportswear into everyday fashion, is one of the top fashion & apparel trends. Its growth is owed to the decline of formality in American fashion and the desire to be seen as healthy. Yoga pants, tights, sneakers, leggings, gym shorts, and so on.

A century ago, there'd be separate clothing for the restaurant, clothing for the gallery, clothing for the street - all different categories of dress. Those barriers have come down in a big way and athleisure is the poster child of that movement.

Food delivery apps drive analysis paralysis

The rise of food delivery apps has led to unprecedented analysis paralysis, with consumers taking to TikTok and Reddit for advice. Posts titled, “What should I eat?” rack up millions of views.

Some apps like Tiny Decisions and Food Picker (Featured in Feb 2023) are designed to help users break the deadlock for the sake of deciding, producing answers that are either truly random or close to it.

The Which One app has emerged as a blend of decision-making meets social media. Users can post polls for questions like, “What book should I read next?” or “Which picture should I post on Instagram?”, providing a dual opportunity both for posters to make decisions and scrollers to feel their voice is heard. If your favorite creator or artist pops a question, it even presents a unique chance to be on the inside of their creative process.

While any opinion may be valuable for lower-risk decisions, others require more trustworthy input. Emerging as a modern replacement for business consultants, some startups are developing apps that use AI to provide trustworthy guidance, capitalizing on modern technology trends. Platforms like Rationale help business owners and managers to think through the possibilities using simplified analysis.

An increasing number of tools could soon support decision-making across a wide range of fields and perhaps, ironically, introduce a paradox of choice in selecting the right app for the job.

Shelf-stable foods rise with increased online shopping

Mass adoption of electric lighting in the 1900s is, surprisingly, the reason consumers first switched from cooking with animal fats to cooking with vegetable oils.

At that time, Proctor & Gamble was largely in the business of making candles and candle demand was falling as electric lighting took off. P&G’s massive infrastructure for processing cottonseed oil, the key ingredient in their candles, was in danger of becoming obsolete so they started using the same material to produce shortening, turning into the massively popular cooking product Crisco in 1911.

Consumers were initially hesitant to switch from their seemingly healthy and natural lard to what they saw as processed candle wax, but P&G pushed hard to convince the world that Crisco was superior. To do so, they sent samples to food scientists and hospitals, then later advertised the fact that hospitals and schools used it. They also embarked on a massive campaign to put out cookbooks with recipes that called for Crisco.

More recently, it’s becoming popular again to cook with animal fats like beef tallow. Aside from the supposed health benefits of tallow, demand for butter alternatives is on the rise. As more consumers buy food online, there’s a clear advantage to tallow–which has a long shelf life without the need for refrigeration, helping it fit into the standard ecommerce supply chain better than food like butter.

Interest in beef tallow regained momentum when factory farms attempted to figure out how to repackage their byproducts into something they could sell. Some brands, like Ancestral Supplements, lean directly into the saying that “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure”. The company has a unique business: taking the parts of agricultural farm animals that are usually discarded, and selling them for a premium as ”Grass Fed Beef Brain Supplements”. Their top products, including Beef Organs and Beef Liver, each have several thousand reviews on Amazon and are one of the top supplements & vitamins trends.

AI companions for the loneliness epidemic

Replika.ai, a site where people can befriend an AI chatbot, is often used for romance, but there’s a growing opportunity to build a massive business with a fascinating monetization loophole: AI companions for the elderly.

Recently, a number of companies have experimented with giving robotic pets to nursing home residents. Remarkably, one business called Paro got the FDA to classify their companion robots as a medical device.

This significant milestone allows the product to be eligible for insurance coverage and shifting the spend from the consumer to the insurance company means a whole lot more revenue potential and less price sensitivity.

Caretaking robots and AI companions have several significant advantages over humans. Unlike their human counterparts, they’re unlikely to ever become frustrated or impatient or forget doctors' appointments or reminders to take medication. And they won’t defraud or abuse their patients, a surprisingly common problem in the industry.

As AI becomes more capable, we can expect to see new players enter this untapped market of helping elders cope with the loneliness epidemic, one of the most significant mental health trends.

Convenience culture fuels liquid meals

For many people these days, time is the ultimate currency. And while meal replacement shakes have been around since the 1950s, it's the marketing that has shifted to focus on productivity that has given this category a comeback as one of the key recent trends in dieting.

Back then, meal replacement products were marketed with great success as weight-loss tools — today’s iterations are marketed instead as healthy meal alternatives to productivity-minded professionals and on-the-go consumers. Metrecal, which led the craze half a century ago, likewise used convenience as a selling point, encouraging customers in one ad to keep the cans in their car’s glove box.

Today’s other category leader, Soylent, first sold itself as the non-food of choice for too-busy-to-eat Silicon Valley workers, but it’s now facing a rising tide of competition.

Huel says its customers include doctors, students, and shift workers on top of fitness buffs and efficiency-obsessed tech executives. The focus is on offering "nutritionally complete" meals rather than low-calorie products — a message that mirrors the broader cultural shift toward health and wellness over weight loss.

Related is the growth of snacking trends as consumers aim to eat enough without spending as much time in the kitchen.

Temu mimics TikTok, dominates shopping

In late 2022, a then-obscure shopping app quietly became the most downloaded free app in the U.S. in both the Google Play store and the Apple App store, surpassing TikTok, Amazon, and YouTube.

Temu, often described as ‘TikTok for shopping,’ capitalizes on growing interest in "social commerce." This new form of shopping emphasizes product discovery over traditional intent-based purchasing and has emerged as one of the mega trends in shopping.

While US companies are increasingly looking down on unprofitable paid growth, Chinese companies tend to see it more as an opportunity to accelerate a data advantage. By rapidly growing its user base early, Temu harnesses large-scale data collection strategies and capitalizes on advancing trends in AI, resulting in a better-tailored shopping experience.

It’s what TikTok did in order to launch in the US: They spent $1B on US ads in 2018 alone. They knew they needed a sticky recommended page from the get-go and Temu is following the same playbook.

It’s also what SHEIN did. One key ingredient used by SHEIN, and very much needed for fully-optimized product recommendations is a massive product line. While the average Target store has 80,000 unique products for sale, SHEIN adds 6,000 new items every single day, making it likely that a perfect set of recommended products can be generated for any given user.

Another key ingredient Temu is bringing from China to the US is discovery-based online shopping. Amazon is a very high intent site where users go when they know what they want. Brick-and-mortar shopping malls are the opposite and while China has successfully brought the shopping mall experience online, the US has not. Now, just like how TikTok gives users an endless feed of entertaining videos to scroll through, Temu is giving consumers an endless feed of products to buy – and ones they didn’t even know they wanted.

Taobao is another app in China that’s successfully done discovery-based shopping. Many Chinese consumers open the Taobao app when they’re bored, with no product in mind. Over the course of several days or weeks, users will build a shopping cart and even use built-in social features like asking friends’ opinions on items in their cart. These features don’t make sense on a site like Amazon where users often purchase with time sensitivity and 2-day shipping, but they do with discovery-based social shopping.

Korean beauty rises with pop culture

The global cultural influence of K-pop and K-dramas have affected a range of industries, from introducing popular skincare trends like “glass skin” and to sparking Korean-inspired alcohol trends.

Convenience drives telehealth adoption

The rise of telemedicine has become one of the macro trends in healthcare and reflects growing demand for convenient, accessible healthcare, enabling remote consultations and expanding services to underserved areas.

Savvy shoppers drive label transparency

Ingredient-focused shopping has become one of the biggest trends in skincare, as consumers care more about what’s inside their products than the brand name.

As skincare information becomes more ubiquitous, consumers are employing this new knowledge and searching for ingredients directly, running alongside rising consumer demand for total transparency and simplicity.

Brands have taken notice of these shifts in consumer behavior and many have found that by focusing on ingredients like squalane, they can cater to both sides of the market – the novices who are looking for simple solutions, and the beauty aficionados who feel they can be their own at-home chemists by focusing on single-ingredient products.