What a year it’s been for credentialing. In 2024, digital credentials transformed from a “nice-to-have” to a must-have, reshaping how learners showcase their skills and how organizations validate and celebrate achievements. Our Year in Review blog highlighted impressive milestones like 36 million digital credentials issued, 1.1 million learners embracing learning pathways, and innovative new use cases that turned credentials into career launchpads.
As we turn the page to 2025, it’s time to look ahead. What trends will shape credentialing in the coming year? To answer this, we asked some of the brightest minds in education, training, and credentialing to share their predictions for 2025.
Voting has now closed for the 2025 predictions. Follow us on LinkedIn for future predictions and voting opportunities and more regular insights beyond our monthly Certified Insights newsletter.
Without further ado, let’s jump into our ten predictions:
With the rise of AI resume builders, it’s easier (and quicker) than ever for candidates to submit a job application. Identifying whether candidates have the skills they need to thrive in a role is a huge challenge, one that digital credentials can help hiring managers overcome.
Ian Davidson, Chief Growth Officer at SmartResume, notes:
“RFPs will start calling for verifiable, portable Learning and Employment Records as the backbone of new workforce infrastructure. In 2026, it’s not about talking interoperability; it’s about doing it. Those who can’t will be watching the workforce boom from the bleachers. LERs won’t just be tech jargon — they’ll be the passport to participation in the future of work.”
He predicts that 2025 will lead to short-term strategies to understand which resumes have “real” hiring signals and longer-term investments in incorporating verifiable credentials into the hiring process.
Dr. Frank Sorokach, Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State University, sees an added benefit of using digital credentials to narrow the applicant pool: reducing bias.
“Microcredentials reduce bias by enabling hiring managers to focus solely on candidates who possess the required skills and allowing hiring decisions to be driven purely by skill alignment, [ultimately] promoting a more equitable selection process.”
Though AI is throwing a bit of a wrench into the hiring process, it can also be an invaluable tool for sorting through applications, particularly when paired with digital credentials. Curtiss Barnes, CEO at 1EdTech Consortium, points out:
“Education and industry will converge on shared standards. Employers will demand transparent, machine-readable credentials and comprehensive learner records that make skills visible, comparable, and portable. 2026 will be the year learning, skills, and work finally speak the same language and credentials become currency.”
David Leaser, Vice President at MyInnerGenius, suggests that AI will also improve the metadata within digital credentials to lend more value and trust across stakeholders.
“Intelligent agents will automatically enrich badges with stronger narratives, verified evidence, and dynamic alignment to current taxonomies, frameworks, and occupational data. This will allow badges to ‘speak the same language’ across systems, making equivalencies and transferability visible in real time.”
He adds that AI can even help detect whether badge holders have successfully applied their skills in real-world scenarios and update the badge metadata with endorsements or reviews.
Maise Hunns, Director of Professional Services at Accredible, sees real-time skill validation with AI as a stepping stone to something bigger in 2025, something she calls “Skill Oracles.”
“By knowing (and validating) learners' skills, AI models can build hyper-personalized learning journeys and use predictive analytics to shape workforce development. As these systems gather data, they can anticipate future skill demands, recommend and guide learners toward high-value competencies, and ensure their credentials are rich with evidence of achievement.”
Not only will this approach guide learners down more defined, highly customized paths, it will also help align talent with potential roles in new and innovative ways, opening the doors to new job opportunities.
If the past few years (and these first couple of predictions) have taught us anything, AI is here to stay. The people who learn how to weave it into their day-to-day are poised to excel — now and in the future. Danny King, CEO and Co-Founder of Accredible, anticipates:
“In 2026, we’ll move beyond issuance to scaled impact. The world’s largest private employer is now badging every frontline employee — not just for compliance, but for career development. One of the largest trade associations will soon issue millions across its career pathways. And one of the largest certification bodies will credential 500K+ professionals. Pilots are now pipelines for learner impact, workforce readiness, and enterprise-scale results.”
Credentials focusing on specialization and practical AI applications will shape the future workforce.
While 88% of education leaders view alternative and microcredentialing as essential for their future, many are still far behind the curve. Experts predict that 2025 will be the turning point.
As Noah Geisel, Micro-Credentials Program Manager at the University of Colorado Boulder, puts it, ‘2025 will be the snow globe-to-biosphere moment of awareness.’
“‘Embedded’ will be a hot new buzzword. Life is an integrated experience that doesn't conveniently silo experiences, and neither should our recognition and credentialing practices. As we embrace the ethos that all learning counts, leading practices will identify and embed disparate programming with related learning.”
Jim Fong, Chief Research Officer at UPCEA, sees this shift as a major opportunity for higher ed institutions as Gen Z graduates encounter challenges in adapting to today’s workplace.
“Universities have an opportunity to draw students back through supplemental education and microcredentials that bolster employability. By offering targeted programs that focus on skill areas like technical communication, teamwork, and leadership, colleges can position themselves as lifelong learning partners, providing ongoing support for Gen Z alumni and an appealing value proposition for Gen Alpha’s future.”
The risk of not pushing the boundaries of online education, skills development, and credentialing? Barely hanging on. Erik J. Froelich, Senior Director of Innovation, Technology, and Design at Wharton Online’s take:
“The threats to public education and funding opportunities in the USA, coupled with ever-soaring costs of colleges and universities, leave open the door for alternate credentials to be ever more valuable. I foresee a continuation of the trends where the 'haves' are innovating and demonstrating value in their offerings, and the 'have nots' are looking in from the outside.”
Learners have long hoped for receiving “credit” for their accomplishments no matter where they earned them, how they are described or documented, or where they try to apply them. Derrick Anderson, Senior Vice President of Education Futures at the American Council on Education, believes 2025 will be the year we finally break down barriers between work and learning.
“2025 could be the year when credit for prior learning becomes standard practice in higher education. Whether an organization issues credentials, evaluates them, or receives them, everyone needs to be able to show how they are adding transferable value that learners can use whenever and wherever they want.”
Nontraditional credentials and prior military, work, and life experiences built into degree pathways will give learners more avenues to success and empower education providers to respond to evolving workforce demands.
With today’s economic pressures and rapid changes in job requirements, companies have a choice: adapt through upskilling or risk falling behind. Accredible CEO Danny King sees digital credentials as the way to keep teams agile, competitive, and future-proofed in an unpredictable market.
“Economic pressures and rapid change will push organizations to lean on digital credentials as their go-to for closing skill gaps, mapping employee growth, and creating agile workforces. Credentials won’t just validate skills. They’ll become the new corporate currency, a way to align employee growth directly with business strategy.”
Holly Garner, Vice President of New Channels and Head of Workforce at Junior Achievement USA, sees this shift coming, too:
“What feels like a villain — genericized resumes and overwhelmed hiring systems — is actually accelerating the shift toward skills-based hiring and verified credentials. As AI blurs traditional signals, it creates powerful tailwinds for a future where talent is recognized through proof, not paper.”
For true workforce transformation, companies will need to turn inward and actively chart employee development paths — ideally with credentials that demonstrate their skills and knowledge.
Credentials can tell you a lot about someone’s skill set, but they can’t paint the whole picture. At least, not yet. According to Rochelle Ramirez, SVP of Product at Accredible:
“In 2026, employer-issued credentials go high-stakes. Employers have become the largest issuers of credentials, but most stay locked inside internal systems. As hiring platforms begin accepting verified employer credentials as trusted hiring signals, internal programs will start to carry real market value.”
This shift will push the credentialing industry to evolve, offering richer, more dynamic representations of learning — helping us finally realize the promise of Learning and Employment Records (LERs).
Building on their role as comprehensive learning records, digital credentials must also become portable and universally recognized to fulfill their true potential. In 2025, Holly Zanville, Founder/Lead of Learn & Work Ecosystem Library, predicts that the credentialing world will make strides toward global standards (even if the process is slow-moving).
“While countries with rigid educational systems may resist or complicate recognition agreements, this work will be driven by the need for a more mobile workforce and digital work environments. International frameworks for credentialing will allow individuals to carry verifiable, transferable credentials across borders. Digital credentialing platforms will facilitate the recognition process, using blockchain and other technologies to secure and authenticate credentials.”
Rochelle Ramirez, Accredible’s SVP of Product, highlights that digital credentials that are transparent, verifiable, and trusted across borders are especially helpful in unlocking new career opportunities for underserved communities, “ensuring skills are valued no matter where they’re earned.”
Your learners can be your biggest advocates. But what if they weren’t the only ones endorsing your coursework? Stephen Buckley, Consultant at Digital Credentials Ltd, sees 2025 as the year of credential endorsements:
“Recruitment and admissions teams are being swamped with polished, template-driven CVs and applications that all look the same on paper. To cut through the noise, employers and universities will begin to require digital credentials as part of their standard processes. Applicant tracking systems and student information systems will need to ingest, display, and filter on verifiable credential data as easily as they handle CVs today.”
Endorsements are significant because they provide third-party validation of digital credentials by employers, industry bodies, and professional associations, effectively bridging the gap between learning achievements and professional requirements.
If these predictions got you even more excited about the future of credentialing, you might enjoy our monthly newsletter, Certified Insights.
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Accredible is the world’s leading digital credential platform, enabling education and training leaders to increase learner engagement and drive program growth.
Accredible is the world’s leading digital credential platform, enabling education and training leaders to increase learner engagement and drive program growth.
