(de-news.net) – On Friday, the Society for the German Language (GfdS) announced in Wiesbaden that the expression KI-Ära (“AI Era”) has been selected as the Word of the Year 2025. The institution explained that this designation was intended to capture the profound and far-reaching societal influence exerted by artificial intelligence. In its view, the term symbolizes not merely a technological development but a cultural and linguistic turning point.
It was emphasized that artificial intelligence has moved beyond the narrow confines of academic research and has firmly established itself at the very center of social life. The GfdS observed that an ever-growing number of individuals now rely on AI-based applications in their daily routines, whether for conducting online searches, animating photographs, or generating written texts. Such practices, the society argued, illustrate how deeply embedded these technologies have become in the communicative fabric of contemporary Germany.
The organization further recalled that the prominence of artificial intelligence had already been visible in earlier selections of Words of the Year. In 2023, the phrase KI-Boom was shortlisted, while in 2024 the expression generative Wende (“generative turn”) appeared on the list. From the perspective of the GfdS, these successive choices demonstrate that the emergence of a new era is unmistakable, one that is reshaping both technological innovation and linguistic expression.
The society contended that this newly inaugurated era is characterized by a dual nature: it offers significant opportunities while simultaneously presenting considerable risks. It issued a cautionary note regarding the potential misuse of AI technologies and warned of the danger that autonomous, critical forms of thinking, speaking, and writing might be diminished. In addition, the GfdS predicted that the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence would inevitably exert a lasting influence on the future development of the German language, altering not only vocabulary but also modes of discourse and patterns of communication.
