Some LLM takeaways for 2025: reasoning as a signature feature, coding agents were useful, subscriptions hit $200/month, and Chinese open-weight models impressed
It's that time. It's been a hell of a year. — At the start we barely had reasoning models. X: Simon Willison / @simonw : Here's my enormous round-up of everything we learned about LLMs in 2025 - the third in my annual series of reviews of the past twelve months https://simonwillison.net/... This year it's divided into 26 sections! This is the table of contents: [image] LinkedIn: William Robertson : I keep up with developments in the GenAI/LLM world exclusively through Simon Willison's weblog. His end-of-year recap is a must read to catch up on what's happened this year: … Arvind Balasundaram : “If 2023 and 2024 were defined by AI prophecy—that is, by sweeping claims about imminent superintelligence and civilizational rupture … Simon Willison : I published my third annual roundup of the last twelve months in LLMs. This one has 26 sections, starting with reasoning models and coding agents … Bluesky: @daniloc.xyz : Claude Code alone has a billion dollars in run rate, I had no idea — Imagine telling anyone in 2020 that you could build a unicorn scale product on the command line — simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/31/ ... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Simon Willison has a great summary of LLM progress in 2025: — • Reasoning models have made LLMs useful for web search. — • AI agents now work well for Deep Research and Coding. — • AI image generation went mainstream. — • Vibe coding became a big business. … Mike Hadlow / @mikehadlow.com : Enjoyed @simonwillison.net 's wrap up of the year in AI. His is probably my favourite developer-focussed AI blog. Definitely worth a regular read: — simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/31/ ... Jeremy Morrell / @jeremymorrell.dev : I'm glad Simon puts these together. It's honestly hard to believe how much things have changed in just a year [embedded post] Mastodon: @Khrys@mamot.fr : From prophet to product: How AI came back down to earth in 2025 — https://arstechnica.com/... In a year where lofty promises collided with inconvenient research, would-be oracles became software tools. Forums: Hacker News : 2025: The Year in LLMs Lobsters : 2025: The year in LLMs