Nijisanji, Hololive, and others found a trend in the vtuber sphere that Kizuna Ai and her adjacent vtubers overlooked until it was too late. That trend was live-streaming. Unless Hololive starts to decline, anything that overtakes it will have to find a trend that Hololive overlooked in the same way.
I predict the next big trend in vtubers will be VR. Most fans of content creators are looking for someone who's "real," so even though AI vtubers might be a thing, they will never be accepted by the general public for very long since they seem too fake. Also, with the rise of AI-generated influencers, people are going to be looking for signs that the vtuber they're following is a real person. VR is a possible solution for this. They can let vtubers get closer to their fans than live-streaming ever can, and fans will be able to tell quickly if the person they're interacting with is a real person or a robot by their body language and other subtle cues.
The only thing holding VR back at the moment is accessibility, but I predict improvements in AI are going to drastically reduce the cost and learning curve of VR and make it more accessible.
