Print 2025: Six lessons learned and the way ahead
August 29, 2025
Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Security, Managed Print Services, Digital Transformation, Sustainability, Cloud print, Future of work, Research, Article, Trends
Quocirca’s ‘Print 2025’ report, published in 2017, called on the print industry to prepare for a new era of mobility and digital-first workplaces. Now, eight years on, the future is here. Despite a global pandemic that accelerated many of these trends, our key predictions have largely materialised. As we noted at the time in “Print renaissance: The value of print in the age of distraction,” print remains a trusted, tangible medium, even as the push for digitisation has continued unabated, profoundly influencing employee expectations for workplace technology and security. With print volumes in decline and customer expectations for mobility and collaboration rising rapidly, the study highlighted the urgent need for industry stakeholders to innovate with products, services, and business models to drive growth.
While it is tempting to attribute many workplace shifts to Covid-19’s impact, the findings of the 2017 Print 2025 report remind us that these transitions were already underway.
As Quocirca prepares to launch its ‘Future of Work 2030’ report, here are six key insights we’ve gained as these transformations have unfolded since 2017.
1. The ‘less-paper’ office is more about workflow than volume
The original report predicted that printing would remain important, but that print volumes would decline. In early 2020, the process accelerated, with the pandemic prompting print volumes to plummet as lockdowns led to deserted offices. Quocirca’s research since then confirms that print volumes have failed to regain pre-pandemic levels.
However, the rise of intelligent digital-first workflows has seen print establishing a new position as a critical touchpoint in digital ecosystems. The focus has shifted from managing print devices to enabling secure, connected, and automated workflows that transition effortlessly between the physical and digital worlds.
2. Security is an existential threat, not just a feature
The 2017 report identified security as a top investment priority, and the intervening period has proven this to be prudent as the threat landscape has grown and diversified. The rise of mobile and hybrid working expanded the attack surface, with home-based devices becoming a particular area of security concern, alongside the challenge of identifying and authenticating remote employees without impacting their productivity and ease of use.
The print infrastructure continues to represent a vulnerable gateway into corporate networks, handling large amounts of confidential data and connecting to multiple workflows and data sources. Consequently, print security is not just an add-on feature; it’s a multi-layered, sophisticated necessity, with manufacturers introducing advanced AI-driven features to harden devices and networks against attack. From secure authentication methods to proactive threat intelligence and zero-trust frameworks, protecting the print environment is now a critical component of a comprehensive corporate security strategy. Device manufacturers and independent software vendors are rising to the challenge, with quantum-resistant printers and advanced management solutions adding to print’s defensive posture.
3. The cloud’s role: Redefining print for a mobile-first workforce
In 2017, organisations anticipated that remote-working employees would comprise more than half the workforce by 2025. And, although mass remote work was necessitated by the pandemic, subsequent years have seen a gradual embedding of a more defined hybrid work structure. However, while we might have expected the pandemic to have resulted in a greater percentage of remote workers, the return-to-the-office mandates of the past 18 months have slowed the trend, with 44% of employees currently working either fully remotely or on a hybrid basis. However, the home working enforced by the pandemic undeniably led to greater investment in technology to support it, and the direction of travel remains towards remote or hybrid working, with organisations expecting 51% of the workforce to be working this way by 2030.
Cloud printing is a critical enabler of effective remote working. Since we highlighted its growing importance in 2017, it has become clear that a true mobile print isn’t just about printing from a smartphone in the office. It’s about enabling secure, on-demand printing from any location to any device, regardless of whether that device is in a corporate office, home office, or co-working space – and whether organisations are operating on-premise, in the cloud, or with a hybrid model.
Workers need straightforward but feature-rich tools that allow them to use MFPs as both output devices and on-ramps for digitising documents that are automatically analysed and integrated into workflows – all via mobile devices. Programmes such as MOPRIA are helping meet this need by developing industry standards for mobile-enabled scan and print.
The shift to mobile-first print solutions has also cemented cloud-based print management as the dominant and most pragmatic approach.
4. Sustainability is driven by data, not just good intentions
Sustainability was emerging as a theme in 2017, but today, it means more than good intentions. As sustainability and supply chain regulations have increased, enterprises now demand data-driven evidence of sustainability claims alongside demonstrable progress towards targets.
Customers want transparent reporting on a device’s environmental impact, from its raw material footprint and energy consumption to its end-of-life recyclability. The industry has responded by prioritising product longevity, remanufacturing, and incorporating a higher percentage of post-consumer recycled plastic into new devices. The circular economy is no longer a niche concept – it’s a core business strategy that vendors must back up with measurable data.
5. The future is data driven, and AI is the catalyst
In 2017, Quocirca identified machine intelligence and data analytics as an area of revenue potential and increased customer satisfaction. The interim period has seen an explosion in IoT devices, intelligently connected across digital ecosystems to deliver smart products, intelligent process management, and security, to name just a few focus areas. Systems powered by artificial intelligence are hungry for data from diverse multiple sources to drive efficiency, automation, generation, and insights.
As proponents of arguably the original IoT devices (in the form of MFPs), vendors have capitalised on their data expertise to expand their influence into customers’ deeper data infrastructure. Both hardware and software vendors have developed generative AI tools that build on a device’s digitisation capabilities, offer automated content summaries and intelligent redaction for security purposes, and integrate digitised information into AI-managed, adaptive workflows.
6. The print vendor evolved into a strategic IT
The 2017 report highlighted the potential for a shift in relationships, with influence moving away from hardware vendors in favour of greater reliance on IT services providers.
Today, the most successful print vendors have transcended their traditional role. They have become strategic IT partners, leveraging expertise in areas such as cybersecurity, cloud, and workflow automation. The convergence of managed print services (MPS) and managed IT services is well underway, reflecting the reality that a print vendor’s value now lies in its ability to support broader digital transformation goals.
As we look beyond 2025, the future of the print industry is not about a single device, but about an intelligent, integrated, and purpose-driven ecosystem that is secure, data-driven, sustainable, and adaptive to how people actually work.
In the course of eight years, the industry has undergone significant disruption, as anticipated by Quocirca’s Print 2025 study. Stakeholders have responded to the imperative to embrace change, seizing opportunities, expanding partnerships, and diversifying product and service offerings, while drawing on many of the industry’s core strengths in areas such as data analytics and workflow management. At the same time, vendors have continued developing products that perform well in terms of security, functionality, and sustainability.
The sector has demonstrated its resilience, innovation, and ability to adapt to changing circumstances – something that was highlighted as a concern by the industry executives Quocirca interviewed in 2017.
As Quocirca prepares to publish its Future of Work 2030 report, the pace of change continues to accelerate. Artificial intelligence adoption is now mainstream and set to revolutionise the way we work – and potentially what it means to work. The industry will have plenty of opportunity to put the skills and approaches refined over the past eight years into practice as it continues to navigate the challenges of the future of work.
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