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As businesses scale up to enterprise size, they face some of the same challengessuch as keeping employees safe online, managing networks, and running productive meetings. These days, some may also need to ensure that theyre complying with AI-related laws. These honorees for enterprise tech bring innovative ideas to all the above jobs and more. Credo AIFor mainstreaming AI safety and governanceRapid adoption of AI has also made it harder to keep up with all the risks. Credo AIs platform helps clients like Mastercard and McKinsey more easily learn and comply with a growing number of AI local, state, and international laws. The startup also offers tools to detect risks, improve transparency, and enhance oversight of AI models, systems, agents, and datasets. Meanwhile, partners like Microsoft, IBM, and Databricks also help Credo AI make it easier to scale technical integrations, governance, guardrails, and communication between compliance teams and developers. Credo AIs new AI Lab helps test and validate with real-world situations, while its model trust score leaderboard helps clients choose models for various applications. IslandFor giving businesses their own browserWhile Chrome and Firefox have mainstream adoption, Islands browser is built specially for business. The startups platform offers a range of enterprise-grade tools designed for security, scalability, productivity, and flexibility. Instead of wrangling a hodgepodge of plug-ins, more than 500 customers now use Islands platform to gain granular control of web apps and protect sensitive dataincluding seven of the 10 largest U.S. banks and pharma giants like Pfizer. Islands enterprise-focused features include ways to monitor how users copy, paste, upload, and download sensitive information; tools for monitoring and investigating potential threats; and productivity tools like its AI assistant, password manager, and automated workflows. NetBrain TechnologiesFor developing self-healing network operationsNetwork automation is about as quintessentially enterprise as it gets. With a mix of large language models and AI agents, NetBrain helps companies like Nike and CVS prevent network outages and uncover risks, analyzing massive amounts of data to see what networks are doingand what needs to be fixed. The startups AI-driven platform helps with diagnostics and troubleshooting with real-time automation and no-code tools. Earlier this year, NetBrain debuted R12, a self-healing network that helps find and prevent outages before they happen. In July, the startup had a valuation of around $750 million after Blackstone acquired a majority stake. NileFor making networking a serviceNile is modernizing the old-school local area network, creating a network-as-a-service model, with AI-powered features for improving automation and security while cutting time and operational costs. The startup, founded by a team from Cisco that includes former CEO John Chambers, has raised $300 million since it was founded in 2018. The goal is to make network support easier and better for companies, smart buildings, and connected devices. NuvoFor creating a social network for B2B tradeBuying and selling physical goods like lumber and wine is a massive $11 trillion market. Now, Nuvo is bringing it more online. The startups Trade Graph enables a network based on customer references, credit and banking data, and other behavioral signals across tens of thousands of companies. The platform allows businesses to verify partners, automate onboarding, and more quickly extend credit, while also offering workflows for dynamic credit policies, fraud detection, and adaptive onboarding based on context. Founded in 2021, Nuvo has grown from a network of 15,000 businesses to more than 50,000 across materials, food and beverage, logistics, chemicals, and other sectors. The goal: to do for B2B trade what Stripe did for payments and Plaid did for finance. ZoomFor evolving from videoconferencing to AI companionsEveryone knows Zoom for its conferencing capabilities. But the AI-first platform has increasingly evolved to offer more than video calls. From an AI assistant to its custom-made small LLM, the company built technologies to help users schedule meetings, set agendas, capture and summarize notes, and tease insights and actions out of meeting data. Meanwhile, Zooms AI powers productivity tools, connects with third-party apps, streamlines work communication, and helps IT and HR teams do paperwork. Earlier this year, the company added more ways for users to customize AI companions and access new features, such as Zoom Whiteboard and Zoom Revenue Accelerator. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
Companies that endure beyond 15 years understand that innovation is not optionalits essential to fend off constant disruption, stay ahead of competitors, and sustain growth. The opportunities are endless, from modernizing entrenched processes to strengthening business continuity. AxonFor helping law enforcement coordinate manhuntsThe proliferation of public cameras, vehicle sensors, and other data sources can greatly aid law enforcement in locating suspects, but only if the information is efficiently collected and analyzed. Axon Fusus provides a unified interface that integrates video feeds, alerts, analytics, and vehicle data from Axon devices, community cameras, and partner technologies. The result is not just more effective pursuit but what one police captain describes as precision policing, where fewer innocent people are questioned. Fusion Risk ManagementFor turning static continuity plans into actionable simulationsBusinesses often focus on refining operations when conditions are favorable but approach contingency planning with less urgency. Fusion Risk Management‘s BC Plan inFusion addresses this gap by eliminating the fragmentation and incompatibilities of traditional continuity plans using automated scenario testing, predictive modeling, and cross-functional coordination. Early adopters have cut manual plan-management time by more than 70%, while organizations that have faced crises report marked improvements in plan accuracy. Milwaukee ToolFor helping pipe fitters find a new grooveFor decades, professionals needing to groove pipes faced a trade-off: portable tools that were difficult to operate or large machines that were cumbersome to deploy. Milwaukee Tools cordless M18 Fuel Roll Groover changes that equation, using built-in intelligence for quick setup and eliminating manual ratcheting and cranking. After an operator enters pipe specifications, the tool calculates the ideal force, speed, and indexing, adjusting automatically to the material. One foreman estimated it saved his crew 40 to 50 hours on a projectmuch of it otherwise spent on exhausting manual labor. TraceLinkFor making the medical supply chain saferThe circulation of counterfeit or unsafe medications poses a serious public health risk. TraceLinks Opus is a supply chain management platform designed to bring order to a highly fragmented system spanning multiple transaction types and thousands of partners. Built for operations professionals without coding expertise, it helps ensure the safe and timely delivery of prescriptions. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
The coming years offer an opportunity to transform education. AI can provide precise insights about student needs and deliver lessons in a way that resonates with students interests and learning style. However, the technology also raises questions about academic integrity and the future nature of learning and teaching, questions that emerging tools are taking thoughtful approaches to addressing. Amira LearningFor accelerating literacy with AI and neuroscienceThe Amira Reading Suite is designed to capture virtually every aspect of a students reading performance, using AI and neuroscience to prioritize instruction needs. Thanks to a partnership with Anthropic, the platform now provides instruction via voice-based conversations. Working in collaboration with educators, the company says its tool has been shown to accelerate reading growth by up to 70% faster than traditional methods, which translates into an average of seven additional weeks of reading growth in a single school year. eSelfFor personalizing AI tutor avatarsMany students who could benefit from a tutor dont have that opportunity because of cost or location. eSelf is developing lifelike avatars that help students understand academic material, practice independently, and prepare for exams in more than 30 languages, with culturally relevant touches such as posing a question about baseball to a student in the U.S. versus one about soccer to a student in Brazil. In March 2025, the company teamed with Harvard and Israels largest textbook publisher to deploy its tutors to every school in Israel. GrammarlyFor tackling AI cheating at the sourceLong before ChatGPT started composing essays, Grammarly was helping millions of users polish their prose. Now the company is focusing on helping students prove that their work is authentic. Taking advantage of the 500,000 apps and websites on which its used, its opt-in Authorship tool can identify which content has been generated by AI, modified by AI, pasted from another source, or edited by Grammarly or a native spell-checker. Launched in October 2024, the tool was used to generate more than 4 million reports in its first eight months. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
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E-Commerce
If theres one thing businesses have in abundance, its datain some cases, far more of it than they know what to do with. AI can turn daunting mountains of information into knowledge thats accessible to staffers across the organization, regardless of their technical chops. These honorees are helping their customers unlock better understanding of data to do everything from supercharging sales teams to choosing the right music to license. BasetenFor giving companies big and small a head start on inferenceAnyone building an AI application has access to powerful open-weight LLMs such as DeepSeek-R1. But the fact that the models are freely available doesnt mean theyre easy to adopt. Running on thousands of GPUs spread across more than 10 cloud providers, Basetens Inference Stack lets startups build apps based on open AI without having to assemble and manage their own infrastructure, freeing them from the need to sweat details like uptime and capacity. Startups such as Descript, Abridge, and Gamma build on Basetens platform; its customer base has grown 5.5x in the past year, with larger companies representing a growing percentage of the mix. GongFor capturing the nuance of customer interactionsNo information is more valuable to companies than the data reflected in customer meetings, calls, emails, and other interactions. Gongs revenue AI is engineered to outperform general-purpose LLMs at extracting actionable insights from such data. The companys new AI Agents then use it to help revenue teams make strategic decisions relating to existing and prospective customers. In May, Gong announced a partnership with Microsoft that allows users to build custom autonomous agents for use in apps such as Teams, Outlook, and Dynamics 365 Sales. IncortaFor letting companies talk to their dataIncortas Nexus is a generative AI platform designed to help people throughout companies get more out of live operational data stored in systems such as Oracle, SAP, and Workday. Its copilot-assisted experience allows employees to retrieve information by posing natural language questions, reducing their reliance on IT and data engineering teams. The list of big customers Incorta has signed upincluding Broadcom, Genworth, Shutterfly, and Skechersconveys Nexuss broad applicability. KnownFor building an AI operating system for marketersMarketing agency Knowns Skeptic applies AI to an array of challenges faced by its clients. It can perform automated bidding on their behalf, track media spend efficiency, and score assets for brand compliance. A tool called The Big Lebotski helps marketers pinpoint Reddit conversations they might want to join. In the past 12 months, Known says, Skeptic has led its clients to more than $500 million in growth opportunities and savings. SongtradrFor turning music into actionable dataSongtradr has used AI to generate more than 18,000 data points about each of the more than 200 million audio tracks its analyzed. That wealth of information powers multiple tools for its customers, including music licensing recommendations, MusicIQ scores that help brands connect with audiences, and enhanced search for global music platforms. More than 400 audio dimensions are covered by the companys analysis, including energy, genre, instrumentation, and mood. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
The next frontier of consumer tech isn’t just about adding more screens to your life or boosting your devices’ processing power. Instead, it’s empowering users to accomplish more, from powerful new maker tools to more efficient skincare solutions. On the home front, assistive robots are suddenly in reach, and AI cameras are learning to provide better pet care instead of just surveilling humans. Of course, there’s cool screen-related stuff too, including wildly thin foldable phones and increasingly immersive AR glasses. AnkerFor 3D printing onto pretty much anythingPrinting 3D textures onto materials such as wood and metal usually requires industrial-grade tools, but Anker has plans to bring this technology home. Its $1,699 EufyMake E1 is about the size of a desktop computer and uses an ultraviolet lamp to cure a special kind of ink. Hobbyists can use it to print custom patterns and textures onto phone cases, glass bottles, ceramic plates, and more. Anker says it’s close to shipping the first units to early backers on Kickstarter, where the idea raised nearly $47 million. HonorFor putting slimmer batteries in new placesHonor continues to prove that its foray into new battery chemistry isn’t a fluke. With its Magic V5 foldable phone, Honor has pushed battery capacity to 6,150 mAhversus 4,400 mAh on Samsung’s rival Galaxy Z Fold 7while still offering the slimmest foldable on the market. New efficiencies in its silicon carbon anode battery chemistry allow it to incorporate a record 25% silicon content, for an even denser battery. Honor has also brought the same type of battery to its MagicPad 3 tablet, hinting at a future in which all of our gadgets last longer on a charge. L’OréalFor taking skincare analysis below the surface levelTo help folks find the right skincare products without months of tedious trial and error, L’Oréal believes it needs to get under the skin. With its Cell BioPrint assessment device, the company can analyze skin cell samples to determine their biological age and look for underlying issues such as chronic inflammation and mitochondrial dysfunction. Machine learning algorithms then generate personalized recommendations within minutes, based on how the skin might react to different ingredients. L’Oréal says it’s the culmination of more than a decade of research into the biomarkers that indicate potential skin problems. It plans to launch the tech in Asia later this year. PetlibroFor building a pet cam with purposeFor pet owners who want to keep track of their furry friends throughout the workday, Petlibro aspires to do more than just capture video. Its Scout camera uses on-device image processing to recognize individual pets from multiple angles, then uses cloud processing to understand when they’re playing, eating, drinking, or using a litter box. Eventually, Petlibro hopes to flag signs of potential stress or illness so that owners can take action earlier. As a way to stay informed about pet behavior, it beats setting up a general-purpose webcam that surveils your entire family in the process. RoborockFor giving a hand to robot vacuumsNew versions of robot vacuums tend to be pretty boring, with incremental upgrades to cleaning power or room mapping. Roborock‘s Saros Z70 includes something truly new, with a five-axis robotic arm that can pick up small objects and carry them to predefined spaces. While the arm’s only purpose right now is to move things out of the way while cleaning, it could also clear a path to more ambitious home robots that tackle a wider range of tasks. XrealFor busting the AR glasses field wide openPeering through augmented-reality glasses can feel a bit claustrophobic, with narrow fields of view that squeeze whatever projected screen is in front of you. Xreal’s One Pro glasses represent a big step forward, with a 57-degree field of view that stretches the picture to your peripheral vision. For now, Xreal’s glasses mainly act as portable monitors that can plug into gaming systems, phones, and laptops, but a true foray into augmented reality is coming. The company is partnering with Google on a separate set of lightweight glasses for Gemini AI, codenamed Project Aura, with motion sensors for gesture control and cameras to interact with the outside world. The companies and individuals behind these technologies are among the honorees in Fast Companys Next Big Things in Tech awards for 2025. Read more about the winners across all categories and the methodology behind the selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
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