Visual thinking tools have continued to grow in quantity and variety, according to the 2025 Visual Thinking Tools Roadmap. This visual summary now includes 220 applications in 18 categories. This represents 30% growth since the last report in 2023.
New categories for 2025 include visual AI workspaces, visual storyboarding and systems mapping.
Categories with the greatest growth in number of applications since the 2023 edition (which contained over 170 applications) include visual whiteboards, Kanban boards, presentation tools and infographics.
Trends in this year’s roadmap
In the 2023 roadmap, I devoted an entire section of the roadmap to AI-enhanced visual thinking tools This year, the impact of this technology has become so pervasive that it no longer makes sense to call them out as a separate set of application categories. AI has also made possible new types of tools. A case in point: visual AI canvases like Poppy AI, which I have reviewed on this blog. Instead of building lengthy text notes and lists of resources to give AI agents context for your prompts. these new tools enable you to build collections of knowledge, information and instructions much faster using mindmap-like structures.
This model overcomes a major shortcoming of AI-enhanced mind mapping tools. Instead of utilizing a single map branch as the basis for an AI query, these tools enable you to build complex visual structures of information you can feed into the AI engine, leading to better, more nuanced output.
I’m also seeing an evolution of AI-enhanced tools from simple prompting to more value-added roles. A case in point: A visual knowledge management tool called Sublime acts as an on-demand “serendipity machine.” When you’re writing a note in this application, it uses AI to automatically serve up related notes from your personal knowledge base AND any Sublime users that have mad their notes public. The result is an unbelievable boost to your creativity!
Why visual thinking tools continue to grow
In 2023, I pointed out: “Uncertainty in business is more than pervasive than ever. Under these circumstances, executives need to elevate their thinking. More specifically, they need to break out of habitual ways of thinking to consider new possibilities. They also need help communicating their ideas and plans with coworkers, stakeholders and others in clear and compelling ways. Visual thinking tools can help.”
Uncertainty is a bigger problem than ever. But the antidote to that is clarity – which helps the users of these tools conduct research more efficiently, discern patterns in the information they’ve gathered, make better-informed decisions and accomplish more.
I look forward to continued growth in visual thinking tools as more busy executives and entrepreneurs discover all they make possible!
Download the 2025 Roadmap
Click here to download the 2025 Visual Thinking Tools Roadmap as a PDF
Click on the image below to view a larger version.
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