Growthmates with Kate Syuma

Growthmates with Kate Syuma

PLG 2025 Rewind: Biggest trends and major updates.

How onboarding evolved, what actually moved PLG, how AI reshaped UX, and more.

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Kate Syuma
Dec 16, 2025
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Hello everyone 👋 I’m Kate Syuma, and welcome to Growthmates.news — the newsletter where we explore growth stories to inspire your professional and personal growth. Join the community of 7,300+ Product, Design, and Growth people from companies like Amplitude, Intercom, Miro, Atlassian, Grammarly, Framer, and more.


2025 felt like the year PLG quietly rewired itself. After dozens of product reviews and advisory sessions, one pattern kept repeating for me: PLG is evolving faster than expected, and even last year’s playbooks already feel outdated.

Onboarding got more human (ironically, thanks to AI), activation became harder to earn, retention turned into the #1 growth pain across AI and enterprise SaaS, and “shipping fast” finally stopped justifying forgettable products.

If 2024 was about “AI inside the product,” 2025 became the year AI started shaping the product experience itself.

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Before we dive in… Meet Growthmates Partners 🚀

I curate the Growthmates Bundle to share not just ideas — but the tools I trust and use in my own work. Each one is a handpicked #1 tool for a key product area, and I’m proud to have them supporting this newsletter 🖤

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  • Framer — the fastest way to design and publish stunning websites (Growthmates.club is built on it).

  • Mobbin — the largest UX & UI reference library for deep product inspiration.

  • Obi by Cor — AI-powered onboarding voice assistant, I truly recommend.

  • Magic Patterns — The fastest way to prototype and test new features with AI.


What you’ll learn today:

  • The biggest PLG shifts I’ve seen across 2025.

  • How onboarding and activation quietly got reinvented.

  • Why quality became the new growth lever (and why A/B tests couldn’t keep up).

  • What AI actually changed in UX — beyond the hype.

  • And what all this means for your roadmap in 2026.

Now, let’s dive into today’s story 👇


PLG’s Biggest Trends in 2025.

👉 AI-native UX is redefining PLG.

AI copilots, assistants, and adaptive onboarding became standard in B2B SaaS. Products now personalize experiences and predict friction before it happens. We’re talking about hyper-personalised onboarding and other flows as the future of PLG, and it’s getting closer, and more predictions like this.

Example of a product that can enhance your PLG with AI

👉 Growth teams’ headache is Retention, not more Sign-ups.

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