the next big thing

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

whatever innovation, trend, person, or development is expected to become the dominant force or most significant advance in a field in the near future; the phrase captures the culture of anticipation and hype that surrounds technological and cultural innovation, in which commentators, investors, and consumers compete to identify and position themselves relative to emerging phenomena before they achieve mass adoption; the next big thing in technology has successively been the internet, social media, the smartphone, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and so on, with each succeeding wave rendering previous predictions outdated; the phrase can be used earnestly or ironically, acknowledging the tendency of hype to outrun reality