The Top 41 Trends of 2025

Before we explore the key trends, here’s a look at the fastest-growing keywords 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’s makeup sees a rise in demand

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

In contrast to women's products, marketing for male cosmetics 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.

Pickleball continues to dominate, as the fastest-growing large scale sport

Pickleball, the fastest growing sport 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.

Young adults are increasingly gaming as a way to make friends

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.

Interest in dairy alternatives accelerates

The demand for dairy alternatives continues to expand beyond just milk to include other products like butter, with options such as beef tallow gaining popularity. Additionally, the increasing trend of 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 edge closer to overtaking naturally mined diamonds’ market share

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.

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.

Use of fitness trackers and smartwatches increases activity through gamification

The use of smartwatches and wearable fitness trackers are playing a significant role in encouraging individuals to participate in physical activities. Many consumers look to “get their steps in” on a daily basis.

Generative AI explodes in popularity following ChatGPT’s launch

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.

Rising healthcare demand due to aging population

An increased demand for healthcare services is expected due to demographic shifts like daily retirement of 10,000 Americans. 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 makes its way to the US

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.

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 in the space see it, and its slew of competitors, as retail-killer apps.

Athleisure and comfort wear on the rise

Athleisure, the mix of sportswear into everyday fashion, owes itself 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.

The rise of food delivery apps has led to unprecedented analysis paralysis – and even apps to help consumers pick what to eat

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. 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.

Online food purchases drives growth of shelf-stable foods

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.

The rise of AI companions surges alongside the rise of the loneliness epidemic and an aging population

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 loneliness.

Meal replacement shakes continue to garner demand as consumers try to fit meals into increasingly busy days

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.

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.

Temu – the TikTok for shopping – continues its massive growth

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, like Tiktok but for shopping, is a discovery-first shopping app.

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 frontloading the product with lots of users early on, the companies have much more user data to work with and can therefore make a better product with better personalization.

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.

Rising K-pop influence fuels global Korean skincare demand

Korean skincare’s global appeal is fueled by the cultural influence of K-pop and K-dramas, which have popularized aspirational beauty ideals like “glass skin.”

Rise of telemedicine and virtual care

The rise of telemedicine reflects growing demand for convenient, accessible healthcare, enabling remote consultations and expanding services to underserved areas.

Clean beauty & ingredient transparency

Rising consumer demand for total transparency and simplicity in their skincare products has greatly influenced the shift towards ingredient-based shopping rather than brand-based shopping.