New Forrester analyst blog posts and research on marketing, CX, B2B, security and AI, collected every hour in one feed. Showing the 300 most recent of 516 articles.
Enterprises spent the last decade reducing risk through mulitcloud and resilience strategies. AI could bring that risk back. One of the strongest themes at TALOSCON 2026 was the increasing concentration of AI capabilities, infrastructure, and investment among a relatively small n
Cybersecurity platform vendor Proofpoint announced an agreement to acquire Varonis in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $6.3 billion. More people, applications, and AI systems need access to enterprise data, making understanding the data, controlling access to it, a
Way back in the late 1990s, Forrester convened its first Board of Clients — a group of customers that advised us on acquisitions, research, and product direction. Members serve for three yearly meetings (before becoming emeritus), and they have had outsized influence on the strat
Last week, AI startup Reflection released a new open weight model, Beam, claiming parity with leading Chinese open models and at only “a fraction of the token cost and inference time.” Days later, Mistral introduced open-weight model Mistral Large 4 (ML4), nicknamed Le Chonk in r
Partner Ecosystem Strategy Is Business Strategy For years, B2B partner ecosystem leaders have worked to prove that partner ecosystems deserve strategic attention. Our latest survey data suggests that this battle has largely been won. According to The State Of B2B Partner Ecosyste
B2B partner ecosystems are becoming larger, more diverse, and more complex, yet some organizations continue to apply an outdated, single partner demand strategy across fundamentally different partner business models. The consequences are clear: Investments are misaligned, resourc
In Q2 2026, service provider revenues were up a little, bookings were mostly flat, and revenue/employee were up nominally. The technology services industry has struggled to grow over the past two years as AI accelerates service delivery, thus undermining its core engine of growth
Now that we’re well into the second half of the year, I wanted to share some insights into how B2B marketing leaders are feeling about the state of their businesses and the profession. After Q2, we polled senior decision-makers in our B2B marketing online community, and their res
Most portfolio marketers have experienced their first AI victory — and probably their second, maybe even their third. They’re producing content faster. Competitive analysis is much easier. They may have even created a synthetic buyer persona. Nailed it! Mission accomplished! MBO
The environments where employees work have evolved faster than the security models designed to protect them. From browsers to AI-enabled workflows, security teams must adapt to a workplace that extends well beyond the traditional desktop and laptop.
Software supply chain security is no longer just about knowing which open-source libraries are in your applications. Attackers are compromising developer environments, build systems, trusted distribution channels, and even security tools such as container security and infrastruct
AI is absorbing many of the activities that have traditionally defined revenue operations. That doesn’t make RevOps irrelevant — it makes its current mandate obsolete. Learn why RevOps leaders must shift from operating processes to architecting how people, data, technology, and A
It’s time to delineate what is and what is not an AI agent for the marketing function. The ferocious pace of AI technology innovation, coupled with runaway AI hype and a relentless flood of vendors offering AI agents — most with de rigueur anthropomorphized names — creates an env
Forrester’s total experience framework is an excellent way for companies to measure performance with prospects and customers alike. Our growth grid (see below) maps brands into one of four quadrants: leading, churning, plateauing, and lagging. A successful growth strategy propels
We reviewed 116 brands and retailers to see how they responded to Amazon’s October Prime Big Deal Days 2026 event. Learn more.
MuleSoft Agent Fabric is MuleSoft’s recent enhancement to deliver an agentic AI control plane. During the Dreamforce keynote, I noticed something subtle but significant. I didn’t see “MuleSoft Agent Fabric.” Instead, I saw “Agent Fabric” with the MuleSoft branding dropped and the
I walked into my first Dreamforce as a skeptic. Salesforce has made several attempts at IT service management, and none of them have provided the technical depth needed by IT teams. After a single briefing on the latest product and then months of silence, I had filed the effort u
As AI systems become more autonomous, security alone isn’t enough to build trust. Learn how responsible AI helps organizations govern AI agents, manage emerging risks, and keep systems aligned with business goals and values.
This week, I published the GRC Buyers Guide summarizing how satisfied clients are with their GRC platforms. The report is based on customer reference data from the Forrester Wave Governance, Risk and Compliance, Q2 2026. Speaking to customers in evaluative research processes is m
Where you do work is changing. At the Dreamforce 2026 Slack keynote, Boris Cherny (the head of Anthropic’s Claude Code) approximated that 90% of his coding is done in Slack. Why is he using a chat tool to code? And how? Forgive the immediate use of a buzzword, but the answer to b
Enterprise AI conversations have moved from experimentation to implementation. At Capgemini SPARK 2026, the focus shifted from implementation to value realization. The gathering explored the theme, “Make it real: from action to value,” and how organizations apply AI at scale for
Last week, Infosys brought clients and analysts to Geneva for its 25th Confluence event in EMEA. We expected the usual AI promises. Instead, Salil Parekh opened the event with a remarkably down-to-earth message: Infosys is a delivery organization, its foundation is client trust,
At the October 8 analyst virtual summit — part of the Linux Foundation’s technology value umbrella — the Linux Foundation brought tokenomics, FinOps, information technology asset management (ITAM), and FinOps open cost and usage specification (FOCUS) together around a bigger ques
Linux Foundation Analyst Summit: Stop Counting Tokens Only, TCA (Total Cost Of AI) Is The New Economics Of AI At the October 8 Analyst Virtual Summit- The Linux Foundation’s Technology Value umbrella, the Linux Foundation brought Tokenomics, FinOps, Information Technology Asset M
Earlier this year, I had a conversation with Andreas Gieseke and Ragip Aydin of Raynet about software asset management and the specific value of generative AI there. Now, I spent some years at one of the largest US banks as the consulting architect for software asset management (
This summer, my colleague Diego Lo Giudice and I explored a deceptively simple question: What happens to enterprise software when AI makes software creation abundant? We found a paradox: Get more of what you want, and you also get more of what you don’t want. Get More Of What You
At Open Source Summit Europe 2026, one message surfaced repeatedly: organizations and governments that merely consume open-source remain dependent on others to shape their future. Those that govern, maintain, secure, and sustain open-source ecosystems gain influence, resilience,
SAP wants its process knowledge to become the operating context for enterprise agents. CIOs should decide where to grant that authority while retaining ownership of company knowledge, agent learning, and outcome measurement.
As a research director, I manage a team of analysts who cover a range of technologies outside my primary area of expertise (identity and access management). I’ve had to educate myself on these areas so I can oversee the quality of the analysts’ respective research and direct thei
Technology leaders have moved beyond asking what AI can do. Now they face four harder questions: Where should we invest? How do we scale? What needs to change inside IT? And how do we prepare for autonomous AI? Learn how Technology & Innovation Forum East helps answer them.
Technology leaders have moved beyond asking what AI can do. Now they face four harder questions: Where should we invest? How do we scale? What needs to change inside IT? And how do we prepare for autonomous AI? Learn how Technology & Innovation Forum East helps answer them.
Data governance and data security leaders often tell us they want the same outcome: They want people to use data (and use AI!) while keeping data protected. Unfortunately, that shared goal has not produced a shared way of working. Data governance teams define policies, definitio
Last month, CISA and the G7 Cyber Security Working Group put out a call to action for post-quantum readiness, listing five priorities to help with migration. It’s particularly welcome to see CISA and the working group highlight “integrating PQC into cybersecurity requirements and
Concentration risk used to be easy to picture: one supplier, one system, or one floppy disk seller. But in the era of AI, the single point of failure has learned to hide. Different AI providers can quietly converge on the same testing firm, infrastructure, data source, or control
Actually, many CX leaders risk investing where it doesn’t earn loyalty. That’s because traditional prioritization of journey drivers ignores that customers don’t stay loyal because you’re doing well. They stay loyal when you are doing better than competitors in the things that ma
You might assume that customers completing a journey equals success. But our data shows that’s not true. When customers complete their journey but are uncertain whether what they did worked, it undermines loyalty. This blog is part of a series how customer journeys drive loyalty
Yes. Customers, whose journeys end on a high and customers whose journeys include a positive surprise are more loyal. This blog is part of a series how customer journeys drive loyalty (scroll to the end for all resources). Our Data Confirms The Peak-End-Rule For Customer Journeys
Probably not. Loyalty is shaped by a handful of journey dynamics that most CX teams neither measure nor actively manage. This blog is part of a series how customer journeys drive loyalty (scroll to the end for all resources). Five Journey Practices That Strengthen Customer Loyalt
Why UiPath’s Strategy Aligns With Enterprise AI Adoption At this year’s UiPath FUSION event, we saw a clear shift in how automation vendors are positioning AI. Rather than promoting AI-first visions, UiPath emphasized trust, governance, and integration with existing automation in
We’ve been working on a technology investment forecast for global manufacturing with our colleague Paul Miller. For decades, manufacturers used to compete through scale, labor arbitrage, and optimized global production networks. But tariffs, geopolitical fragmentation, workforce
Get key findings from Forrester’s recently published US Retail Competition Tracker, 2026, which analyzes the retail and e-commerce performance of 60 leading US retailers to identify category trends, competitive dynamics, and growth strategies.
The role of state CIOs is evolving beyond just operating government IT. At the annual conference of the National Association of State CIOs last week, discussions about AI data centers and citizen identity showed how state CIOs increasingly influence decisions that shape economic
Microsoft is steadily repositioning Fabric from a unified analytics platform into a governed context layer for enterprise AI. An agent answering a revenue question needs to know which measure applies, how customers and transactions relate, and what information it may use. At FabC
Your product data was built for filters, not questions When shopping for real estate, a home listing can tell you the number of bedrooms, square footage, lot size, and age of the property. Those facts help narrow your search. But beyond dimensions and facts, homebuyers want to kn
Forrester’s 2026 Data & AI Impact Award recognizes organizations that are scaling AI beyond individual use cases to drive meaningful business outcomes through trusted, enterprisewide data and AI capabilities. This year’s winner exemplifies how a strong foundation of governance, e
Forrester’s 2026 Technology Awards recognize organizations that are using technology strategy and enterprise architecture to drive meaningful business outcomes. This year’s North America winners showcase how leading firms are translating innovation, AI, and modernization efforts
Step aside Disney-21st Century Fox, the biggest takeover in Hollywood history closes today (Tuesday, October 6). After 13 months of “will they or won’t they” boardroom and courtroom drama, the conclusion to the Paramount-WBD merger saga follows last week’s antitrust settlement ap
Choosing a Workday partner requires evaluating both provider capabilities and delivery team quality. Learn how to reduce risk and improve outcomes.
What does it take to turn total experience into an organizational discipline? Explore six lessons from Forrester’s 2026 honorees on aligning brand, customer, and employee experience.
Unily’s Unite 26 was held in London on September 29 and 30, bringing together digital workplace leaders representing internal communications, IT, and HR. In the opening keynote, Unily CEO Lokdeep Singh announced the launch of Content Studio. Described as a “creative engine for en
Unily Unite26 was held in London, September 29-30, bringing together digital workplace leaders representing internal communications, IT, and HR. Unily CEO, Lokdeep Singh announced the launch of Content Studio, in the opening keynote. Described as a “creative engine for enterprise
Recent media reports have highlighted Amazon’s decision to block Meta’s Muse AI agent from making purchases on its marketplace. Muse has quickly gained attention for its ability to research products, complete tasks, and shop on behalf of consumers, while Amazon appears focused on
Automation is eating advertisers’ workflows. Media buying — once dependent on traders’ skills of budget allocation and bid management — has become the push of a button, where self-attributing platforms auto-optimize for advertisers’ desired outcomes. And customer understanding is
Today, as a society, we agree on little: Politics. Climate. Health. Whether a hot dog is a sandwich. But one topic is bringing us back together: artificial intelligence! According to Forrester’s Consumer Benchmark Survey, 2026, nearly nine in 10 online adults in the US and the UK
Forrester’s ADVICE framework guides merchants to optimize content for discoverability in their owned environment — i.e., their sites and apps. Learn what to do.
Fresh from Forrester’s London events, a look at the provocative ideas, executive debates, and reading recommendations that got people talking.
At last week’s Oktane conference in Las Vegas, Okta unveiled its ambitious vision for transforming the Okta platform into a control plane for AI agents and extending deeper into AI security. The strategy was reflected throughout the event’s keynotes and product announcements, whi
Learn key lessons about deploying conversational AI from practitioners who have delivered self-service applications for their organization.
A model does not have to be smarter than us to be a problem. It needs a goal it is certain about, the resources to keep pursuing it, and nobody watching. Two of those three exist already. We took one doom scenario apart to find out how worried enterprises should be.
Recent moves from major players in the market are embedding both commerce and conversation into more experiences — learn more.
Don’t let AI doomsday headlines dictate your strategy. Stay grounded in what’s real, manage the risks you can control, and focus on the investments most likely to create new value.
Last week, we released The Forrester Wave™: Proactive Security Platforms, Q3 2026. This is the first evaluation of this market under this title, which has evolved from attack surface management and unified vulnerability management. Security teams have increasingly turned to vulne
As Accenture prepares to report its fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2026 financial results this Thursday, October 1, the tech consultancy has several market factors to lean on, including durable managed services growth, healthy bookings, and AI becoming commercially viable. A
AI failures, global outages, and physical disruptions will put security and risk leaders to the test in 2027. Explore three Forrester predictions and the steps organizations can take to strengthen governance, resilience, and readiness.
The debate over digital sovereignty is entering a new phase. In 2027, European leaders will move beyond ambition to action, making pragmatic decisions about what to localize, what to protect, and where global dependencies still make strategic sense.
Across B2B marketing, AI is no longer an emerging technology for experimentation or being tested on the sidelines. It’s now a core part of how marketing organizations operate, and it is already reshaping marketing teams. AI Nearing Majority Adoption Across Marketing Use Cases For
At Dreamforce 2026, Salesforce presented its most complete vision yet for the “agentic enterprise.” It shifted the core focus away from individual apps (like Sales, Service or Marketing) and unified them through a single architecture built around data, logic and AI agents. It inc
“Reality doesn’t care what you think.” Localization shapes experiences that most business leaders can’t personally evaluate and rarely examine closely, but whether you see the business impact or not, it’s there. Have you ever tried navigating a website in a language where you hav
The future of security depends less on isolated expertise and more on coordinated action. Explore how Security & Risk Forum brings teams together to address the interconnected challenges shaping trust, risk, and resilience in the age of AI.
Healthcare has a history of using technology to do a heroic amount of work. EHRs were supposed to centralize patient data. Patient portals were supposed to simplify access. Automation was supposed to make operations hum. Much of that did not happen – at least not as neatly as the
AI is moving deeper into technology organizations, operations, and everyday work. For technology leaders, the challenge now is turning that momentum into meaningful business results. How do you move employees from experimenting with AI to using it consistently? How should IT oper
On September 21, a fiber outage supporting US air traffic control operations caused significant disruptions across major East Coast airports when the primary communications circuit failed and the designated backup circuit was found to have been previously damaged by construction
National Insider Threat Awareness Month is drawing to a close. This year’s theme, “Protect Our Potential,” speaks directly to the impact that insider incidents can have. According to Forrester data, insider incidents account for 25% of data breaches, and a third of those incident
We attended Infosys’ Confluence event in Washington, DC at the historic Omni Shoreham Hotel, the hotel the Beatles stayed in before their first live US performance. John Lennon’s handwritten setlist hangs in the lobby (see the pic below). Over the course of two days, we met with
Language AI has changed what businesses can localize, who can do it, and where it happens. It has also raised an obvious question: Do enterprises still need localization service providers (LSPs) when translation is being built into everyday applications? Last week, we published T
What Is An Agentic Supply Chain? In earlier research, we described a vision for the agentic supply chain where agentic AI transforms the supply chain from laborious monitoring and reacting to autonomous, goal-driven agent orchestration that proactively delivers business outcomes
What’s An Agentic Supply Chain? In earlier research we described a vision for agentic supply chain where agentic AI transforms supply chains from laborious monitoring and reacting to autonomous, goal-driven agent orchestration that proactively delivers business outcomes while kee
At Apsara Conference 2025, Alibaba Cloud positioned itself as an AI-native cloud provider, combining infrastructure, foundation models, and platform services into a unified AI stack. One year later, the company’s ambition has expanded significantly. At Apsara Conference 2026, Ali
Most B2B marketers track engagement and intent, but those signals don’t reveal whether buyers actually prefer their company. Learn how Forrester’s Preference Marketing Matrix combines market preference and buying group interaction to help organizations prioritize investments and
For years, B2B marketers have been taught to draw lines around their audiences: “These are our strategic accounts. Those are tier two. Here’s our vertical program. Everyone else goes into broad-based demand.” There was good reason for this. When insights are scarce, customization
It’s been a busy few weeks for Qualtrics. Two weeks after announcing its XM Data & AI platform — coming in 2027 — it held an (understandably) long-delayed coming-out party for its plans to dominate the healthcare industry. Although Qualtrics announced its intention to acquire PG
The Forrester Wave™: Revenue Orchestration Platforms, Q3 2026 just published. We evaluate 12 providers, conducted customer reference interviews, reviewed detailed product demonstrations, and analyzed how providers are evolving their platforms in response to rapid advances in AI.
All B2B companies tout their focus on customers. But not all reflect customer obsession in their priorities, actions, and metrics. Call it “lip service” or “all hat, no cattle.” Data from Forrester’s new State of Customer Retention, Growth, and Advocacy Survey, 2026, show custome
Technology leaders across Europe, the Middle East and Africa are under pressure to deliver more than resilient technology systems and efficient IT operations. They are expected to help their organisations grow, adapt, earn trust and turn emerging technologies, especially AI, into
AI agents are putting traditional identity and access management approaches to the test. Discover why identity context will be essential to securing autonomous agents and scaling agentic AI with confidence.
Why do some B2B experiences change behavior while others are ignored? The answer lies less in gamification mechanics and more in the value an experience creates for buyers and customers.
Much of this year’s agentic payments discussion has focused on protocols. At its merchant focused Voyage event on September 9 in Shanghai, Ant International took a broader view. Its senior executives argued that the most immediate AI opportunities lie in automating merchants’ exi
The subtext of Meta Connect 2026 was in some ways more interesting than the text: how much access are consumers, willing and unwilling, going to give Meta to their private lives—and at what price? Meta Connect 2026 launched an expected camera-free glasses product as well as a han
Payments companies often describe themselves as global platforms. But in Asia-Pacific, global reach matters little if a provider cannot make local payments work reliably. That was my main takeaway from Xendit’s recent analyst day in Kuala Lumpur. The company presented a platform
California’s recently enacted AI legislation may ultimately matter for a reason that has received relatively little attention. Senate Bill 813 and Assembly Bill 1405 are not just about governing AI systems. They begin to formalize expectations for the organizations that assess, v
Most enterprises have at least one application that refuses to retire. It solves an indispensable business problem, depends on obscure integrations, and runs on code that few people fully understand. Its interface may be decades old, but the business still cannot function without
Attending Technology & Innovation Forum East? Make the most of your time in New York with our insider guide to Hudson Yards and beyond. Discover top coffee spots, dining destinations, networking venues, iconic attractions, and walkable experiences just steps from Convene 30 Hudso
Visit the hub at B2B Forum EMEA to learn how Forrester AI, paired with Forrester’s Total Economic Impact™ content, can help marketers identify the questions shaping buyer preference and answer them with credible economic evidence.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke recently warned employees against tossing “AI slop grenades” to coworkers: using AI to generate something quickly, then shifting the burden of reviewing, interpreting, or fixing it to someone else. Marketing leaders should pay attention. It’s not enough to
For many B2B organizations, partner incentives have historically centered on market development funds (MDFs) and co-op funding. While funding programs remain essential, new data from Forrester’s Partner Ecosystem Marketing Survey, 2026 suggests that partner incentive strategies a
Last week, Forrester published The Forrester Wave™: External Threat Intelligence Service Providers, Q3 2026 | Forrester. Since our last evaluation in 2023, the market has undergone a significant transformation. This transformation has been driven not only by the growing sophistic
Make no mistake: we are not in the next feature cycle for enterprise applications. We are in the largest shift in business software since cloud computing. For decades, apps like CRM, ERP, HCM, and supply chain systems have operated as digital systems of record, where employees na
Most partner demand strategies were built for a buying environment that no longer exists. Buyers increasingly use AI to discover solutions, evaluate options, and inform decisions. Buying groups now dominate B2B purchases, involving on average about a dozen internal stakeholders a
When Spain’s women’s and men’s national soccer teams won consecutive FIFA World Cup titles in 2023 and 2026, their victories were not just the result of a single brilliant goal over England and Argentina, respectively. La Roja’s historic back-to-back World Cup wins reflect a disc
I have spent much of this summer working with my colleague Joe Cicman on a deceptively simple question: What happens to enterprise software when AI makes software creation abundant? Last week, Joe presented the first evolution of our thinking at Forrester’s Technology & Innovati
Seven months ago, Paramount outbid Netflix for Warner Bros. Discovery and set off one of the most dramatic merger battles Hollywood has seen in years. What followed was a real-world season of Succession: shareholder votes, global regulatory approvals, an antitrust lawsuit, a Marc
Every few years, enterprise architecture faces an existential question. Agile development raised it. Cloud computing raised it. Product operating models raised it. Now AI raises it again. As generative AI and autonomous agents begin interpreting requirements, designing architectu
The success (or lack thereof) that state CIOs have in funding modernization is frequently pinned to the funding model. That’s a myth. Talk to enough state CIOs and a different picture emerges: modernization succeeds or fails more because of how leaders manage competing priorities
One of the best parts about authoring a Forrester Wave™ is getting to speak to customer references. Every vendor in the Wave evaluation connects me with customers who talk about how they use the product, what they like, and what they wish was better. While a lot of that goes into
One of the best parts about authoring a Forrester Wave is getting to speak to customer references. Every vendor in the Wave evaluation connects me with customers who talk about how they use the product, what they like, and what they wish was better. While a lot of that goes into
Today’s B2B partner ecosystems include multiple partner types, diverse business models, and a broad range of value contributions. As partner ecosystems continue to evolve, organizations face an important question: Can yesterday’s partner program support tomorrow’s partner ecosyst
The first malware designed specifically for Android-powered vehicle systems signals that attackers now view cars as another endpoint in the broader technology ecosystem. Security leaders should assess how connected vehicles, mobile devices, and enterprise systems intersect as aut
AI’s rapid growth is colliding with real-world limits on energy, water, and infrastructure. Explore Forrester’s 2027 predictions to see how new regulations, community scrutiny, and digital product passports will reshape sustainability strategies.
A decade of media growth is giving way to a period of reinvention. Forrester’s 2027 predictions reveal how leading media and technology firms will adapt as subscriptions slow, search evolves, and AI transforms consumer discovery and advertising.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s essay this past weekend, “We Must Pace the Frontier,” argues that the AI industry should slow the pace of frontier model advancement until safety, oversight, and alignment mechanisms can catch up. His proposal includes embedded third-party evaluators
For years, smart building conversations have centered on connected sensors, automated systems, and operational efficiency. But the conversation is shifting. As organizations juggle hybrid work, sustainability mandates, and cost pressure, they’re taking a harder look at a deceptiv
The simultaneous disruption of multiple leading AI services exposed the hidden dependencies that can turn provider outages into businesswide interruptions. Learn why AI resilience, governance, and contingency planning must become essential as enterprises embed AI deeper into crit
The Forrester Wave™: Customer Feedback Management and Analytics Solutions, Q3 2026 finds a market in transition. Just as the “Amazon effect” raised expectations for customer experience, the “ChatGPT effect” is raising expectations for the software that helps organizations underst
Customers experiencing vulnerability or additional needs exist across every customer population, yet many organizations still only provide support after customers have encountered significant difficulties or harm. Leading organizations recognize that vulnerability is often dynami
While most organizations are deploying predictive, generative, and agentic AI, few can directly connect those investments to revenue, customer outcomes, or profitability. As AI becomes cheaper and easier to build, the quality of the problem being solved becomes the primary determ
When Open Standard announced Open USD on June 30, 2026, the initiative quickly attracted attention in the payments and fintech industries. At launch, I argued in my blog post that Open USD was an important development but not yet a proven payment network. A strong roster of suppo
When Open Standard announced Open USD on June 30, 2026, the initiative quickly attracted attention in the payments and fintech industry. At launch, I argued in my blog post that Open USD was an important development, but not yet a proven payment network. A strong roster of suppor
First, for some context: AI is creating a resurgence for “context” in the industry lexicon. Large language models rely on context to understand intent, resolve ambiguity, and generate accurate responses. As consumers and organizations adopt new AI technology, context plays a key
The organizations that thrive won’t be those with the most AI. They’ll be the ones that best combine AI-generated insight with human experience and judgment to create customer value.
Last year, we took the stage at Forrester’s Security & Risk Forum to challenge the story boards that executive teams were beginning to tell themselves about AI. That keynote became our new report, Resetting Security’s AI Narrative With Boards And Executives. We wrote it because C
Since Everyone Has Access To Increasingly Capable AI, Where Is Your Differentiation? When it comes to AI, B2B marketing leaders often focus on chatbots, prompts, content creation and agentic use cases, and model selection. Those topics are understandably relevant and where most o
From securing AI and modernizing identity to strengthening governance and resilience, security leaders face a rapidly expanding mandate. See how Security & Risk Forum 2026 can help you stay ahead of emerging challenges.
Qualtrics is betting that AI can finally make predictive decisioning practical at scale. Whether customers realize that value, however, will depend less on the technology and more on whether they have the data, governance, and operating model needed to put those insights into act
For more than 25 years, I’ve had the privilege of working across nearly every corner of marketing, from agencies and startups to global enterprise organizations. Along the way, I’ve held roles spanning demand generation, marketing operations, digital marketing, revenue marketing,
As consumers turn to AI for personal finance, trust becomes the key differentiator of financial guidance.
B2B event teams are operating under increasing pressure. Budgets remain constrained. Audience expectations continue to rise. CMOs want clearer evidence that events contribute to business impact. Yet not all event programs respond in the same way. Our analysis of Forrester’s 2026
On September 6, Jensen Huang declared that AGI has arrived. Hours later, Gary Marcus answered that there was no evidence and no definition behind the claim. Both men are arguing without criteria. We published ours in August 2025, and by that yardstick, the frontier just crossed i
At B2B Summit North America, VP and Principal Analyst Ross Graber argued that AI search should motivate marketing leaders to rethink how accountability is measured and align it more closely with business outcomes.
Over the past decade, B2B go-to-market (GTM) organizations have grown increasingly complex and fragmented. Revenue operations (RevOps) functions emerged to drive consistency, efficiency, and alignment across the GTM processes and systems that connect sales, marketing, and product
Marketing’s role is shaped less by strategy documents than by the expectations executives place on the function. New research reveals a significant gap between how companies currently view marketing and how marketing leaders believe the function should contribute to growth, strat
Forrester examined 24 CPG brands across the digital attributes that matter most for go-to-market success. For the e-commerce dimension, we reviewed direct-to-consumer buyability and Amazon storefront presence.
OT security has moved beyond simply identifying connected devices. Learn why leading organizations are shifting their focus toward reducing operational risk, strengthening resilience, and enabling safer IT and OT security collaboration.
We analyzed 24 CPG brands across the digital attributes that matter most. Social media is a critical part of the consumer discovery journey, particularly as younger consumers use social platforms not only for inspiration and research but also to buy products.
We analyzed 24 CPG brands across the digital attributes that matter most. Social media is a critical part of the consumer discovery journey, particularly as younger consumers use social platforms not only for inspiration and research but also to buy products.
AI Trust Starts Before Production AI-infused applications are moving into production faster than most enterprises can prove that they are safe, reliable, explainable, and even useful. That gap is now one of the biggest barriers to scaling AI. Our Forrester report, Trustworthy AI
Discover why financial institutions are using transaction foundation models and proprietary data to build a lasting AI advantage.
After years of vendors heralding the arrival of fine-tuned models to save enterprises from the latency, unpredictable costs, and strenuous upgrade lifecycles of cloud-based model APIs – the moment for fine-tuned models has finally arrived. While frontier models are massive, gener
AI agents for marketing are no longer a future state — they have arrived. Eighty-three percent of B2C marketing decision makers report actively implementing agentic AI into their workflows, and 85% agree that it’s delivering meaningful business value in their marketing efforts. W
As consumers increasingly turn to answer engines to research products, brands must ensure that their content is visible in AI-powered experiences.
s consumers increasingly turn to answer engines to research products, brands must ensure that their content is visible in AI-powered experiences.
Global tech spend grew 30% from $4.0 trillion in 2020 to $5.2 trillion in 2025. Yet data from Information Services Group, Inc. (ISG) indicates that spend per user was flat. In fact, the global spend per user benchmark from ISG fluctuated between $15,000 and $16,000 each year from
AI adoption is accelerating, but many security teams still lack the governance, operational foundations, data controls, and workforce strategies needed to scale it safely. Join hands-on workshops at Security & Risk Forum to tackle real-world implementation challenges, learn from
Building a CX business case can feel like an endless cycle. You’ve spent weeks gathering data. You’ve debated assumptions. You’ve refined the model three times. Then the business case comes back with a familiar request: “Can you do a little more analysis?” At that moment, the pro
For years, Indian banks competed on reach. Then they competed on products. Today, they compete on experience. Nearly every major bank now offers digital onboarding, mobile banking, and self-service capabilities. As these experiences improve across the industry, differentiation be
Like us, you’ve probably noticed that over the past two years, most discussions about AI in manufacturing have focused on what LLMs can do for engineers, planners, and other knowledge workers. Vendors have showcased copilots that summarize documents, answer questions, and generat
A conversation with David Walker, former chief technology officer of Westpac and chief technology officer of DBS AI models may increasingly provide the intelligence for how your workflows run, but people determine where AI is applied, which work should change, how risks should be
The Boring Truth About AI Everyone and their grandmother is talking about AI, and it’s just not interesting anymore. Let’s face it, once a technology topic becomes kitchen table conversation fodder, tech pros grow weary of discussing it. Yet, every vendor has a “game-changing” so
One of the top questions we get from Forrester’s B2C marketing clients is, “How should I restructure my marketing org?” And to be honest, that’s a loaded question as it assumes the org chart is the problem. (Spoiler: Most often it’s not). But AI is already changing how marketing
Microdramas — one of the fastest-growing new entertainment formats you’ve probably never heard of — are finding audiences in unexpected places. Built for feeds, powered by algorithms, and consumed in minutes, this serialized mobile-native storytelling is gaining traction… and qui
Many organizations still approach Workday negotiations as a software procurement exercise focused on maximizing discounts. That mindset misses where the real commercial risks and opportunities reside. As Workday expands its platform footprint, AI capabilities, and commercial mode
Answer engines like ChatGPT, AI Mode, and Claude mediate brand growth. They institutionalize word of mouth, determine consideration sets, and increasingly monetize. Marketers eager to influence how answer engines perceive their brands are rushing to enact answer engine optimizati
In London, we’ll celebrate two organizations that have raised the bar for how to operate, collaborate, and grow. Get a preview of their stories and join us later this month to learn more.
For decades, critical applications have accumulated business rules, integrations, workarounds, and dependencies faster than organizations could document them. Documentation is incomplete, original developers have moved on, and application specialists are retiring with critical in
The customer data platform (CDP) category is graduating to a new phase. Marketers have unprecedented expectations for data as AI utilization explodes and marketing demands sophisticated insights, personalization, cross-channel execution, and measurability. To power the next gener
This week, I published the Risk Consulting Services Landscape Q3 3026 (Forrester clients only). This is our first review of the landscape for risk consulting firms advising risk, compliance and internal audit leaders. Until the introduction of AI into our lives in late 2022, serv
Cybersecurity spent decades trying to stop things from happening, identifying them, and then investigating what happened. Agentic AI challenges us with a much more difficult question: What was the system trying to do? Agents don’t just execute instructions. They interpret objecti
And it’s a wrap! We just closed two intense weeks shaped by our AI Forums in Singapore and Sydney. The events revealed both the extraordinary momentum behind enterprise AI and the scale of the reinvention still ahead. Across the two cities, we brought together close to 400 busine
The discussion about agentic payments often starts with consumer shopping. But agentic payments may create value sooner in B2B, where transactions already operate within defined workflows, approval rules, and commercial relationships. Forrester defines B2B agentic payments as: Pr
Innovation leaders partner with startups, universities, and all sorts of technology providers. The logic is obvious: no company can innovate fast enough on its own. Given current geopolitical situations like national protectionism and the AI arms race, there is an uncomfortable q
On August 19th 2026, Stripe agreed to acquire OpenRouter in a deal valued at more than $7 billion. OpenRouter gives enterprise buyers access to more than 400 AI models through a single interface, so they can compare, select, and switch models without building separate integration
Every era of enterprise technology has added a defining layer to the stack. Mainframes gave us the system of record. Client/server gave us applications. The web gave us services and APIs. Cloud gave us elastic infrastructure. Now agentic AI is adding the next layer. Where the app
Salesforce’s Claudeforce announcement ushers in a new era for CRM. This partnership establishes the technical and business connection to embed Sales Cloud data, workflows, and security controls directly into Claude Cowork through Salesforce-hosted MCP servers and plugins (with mo
H1 2026 earnings season told the story vendors wanted told: AI attach rates climbing, cloud backlog compounding, and platforms expanding into adjacent workflows. ServiceNow sustained approximately 19% subscription growth while increasing its 2026 AI commitment to $1.5 billion. Sa
Organizations don’t organically mature into effective AI adoption. At CX Forum West, Colleen Fazio explained how companies can build a solid human foundation in which they can ground their AI initiatives.
Organizations don’t organically mature into effective AI adoption. At CX Forum East, Colleen Fazio explained how companies can build a solid human foundation in which they can ground their AI initiatives.
Service providers from Accenture to Wipro and beyond are on the acquisition march. As Darwinian creatures born to survive, providers have a long history of buying what they need. Today, that means they are buying asset-centric firms to survive AI disruption and gearing up for the
Most enterprises govern the systems around AI agents, not the agents themselves. They control credentials, log tool calls, and route high-risk actions to a human approver. These are useful controls, but they were designed for software that follows instructions. Agents reason at r
Two weeks into a landmark case against Meta, a group of attorneys general have announced that they’ve reached a settlement laying the groundwork for significant changes to the way young users experience Meta platforms. Youth Access Will Take An Immediate Hit, But Adults Will See
Two weeks into a landmark case against Meta, a group of attorneys general announced they’ve reached a settlement that lays the groundwork for significant changes to the way young users experience Meta platforms. Youth Access Will Take An Immediate Hit But Adults Will See A Gradua
In June, we shared a high-level view of Total Experience for US Health Insurers. Since then, we’ve dug deeper into the data to uncover what separates leaders from laggards across brand experience, customer experience, and trust. The result is three new reports that explore the ke
Generative AI is changing the economics of B2B fraud. It enables criminals to create convincing supplier communications, impersonate executives, fabricate documents, and personalize business email compromise attacks faster and at lower cost. Agentic AI can push this further by au
The security singularity is here. AI is accelerating change faster than traditional security and risk practices can keep up. Learn how to build the trust, governance, resilience, and accountability needed to manage AI-driven risk, prove assurance, and lead confidently in the next
Organizations are flooded with AI ideas, pilots, and proofs of concept, yet many struggle to translate them into measurable business outcomes. The problem is not a lack of AI use cases. The problem is prioritization. Learn how to evaluate AI opportunities through the lens of busi
Agentic AI creates control, technology, and purchasing problems. Security leaders need to know which controls they must satisfy, which technologies can satisfy them, where existing tools already provide coverage, and where a new investment actually fills a gap. Far too often, we
What would you ask if you had 20 minutes with a Forrester technology analyst? Discover how a one-on-one analyst conversation at Technology & Innovation Forum Central in Austin can help you validate AI priorities, challenge assumptions, and turn big ideas into practical next steps
The promise of neuro-symbolic AI – which combines neural network pattern recognition with rule-based reasoning – will only be possible when underpinned by trusted, governed business context. Context has become a buzzword; with terms like semantics, ontology, semantic layer, knowl
For as long as I’ve been in cybersecurity, we’ve been trying to “adapt to the shifting threat landscape.” More recently, a number of vendors and security leaders alike have told me some version of a joke about how starting a microsegmentation project is a great way to get fired.
The rush to adopt AI and agentic technologies is capturing security leaders' attention, but it risks overshadowing the controls that stop attacks before they start. Learn why strong endpoint protections remain essential for reducing risk, limiting exploitation paths, and enabling
Security & Risk Forum 2026 brings security, risk, and resilience leaders to Washington, DC, a city where technology, governance, security, and public trust intersect every day. From iconic landmarks and Smithsonian museums to neighborhood cafes and networking-worthy restaurants,
For years, B2B marketers have invested heavily in buyer personas, interviewing customers, commissioning research, synthesizing insights, documenting motivations, and mapping buying roles. Yet too often, those valuable insights end up buried in PDFs, slide decks, or shared drives,
The most successful technology leaders combine strong peer networks, proven frameworks, and continuous learning to drive results. Technology & Innovation Forum Central’s special programs offer exclusive opportunities to connect with executives, earn certifications, strengthen lea
The 2026 narrative surrounding the “SaaSpocalypse” misses the bigger picture. While most commentary fixates on seat-based revenue compression (predicting that AI agents will kill off software licenses) that is only one of nine critical disruption factors. As a global research fir
How do you know when an AI use case is too risky to pursue? The answer has less to do with the technology itself and more to do with whether your organization has the governance, processes, and decision-making discipline needed to support it.
The merger of revenue enablement platform arch-rivals Seismic and Highspot is now complete. The combined company positions itself as a GTM performance company focused on revenue execution rather than traditional enablement, serving thousands of customers and millions of users whi
For most of my career, two things have remained constant: a fascination with technology and a willingness to embrace transformation. I’ve lived and worked across countries, sectors, and disciplines. I’ve worked with entrepreneurs, startups, governments, international organization
As cyber threats evolve and AI accelerates attacker capabilities, the most effective defenses remain the foundational practices many organizations overlook. Learn why recent attacks on critical infrastructure reinforce the need to focus on basic security principles before investi
If you’ve ever felt late-summer sadness, you’re not alone. Perhaps it’s because days are getting shorter or you feel the impending sense of a return to dull routines. Mental health experts recommend getting outside as much as possible to boost Vitamin D intake and squeezing in th
Over the last year, there has been a recurring theme in my client requests. Who makes the best AI upskilling content? What should I buy to upskill my workforce? What’s the fastest way to learn AI skills? At first, I responded by saying that the content market was evolving quickly
User interfaces and workflows built with agentic AI are emerging as the next frontier of digital experience tech’s evolution. For two decades, digital teams accelerated business results by implementing better software. Monolithic digital experience and content management solution
I’m a very inexperienced gardener. I’m lucky that the annuals in the yard I inherited from a previous green-thumbed owner are fairly hearty and thrive despite my lackluster efforts. But even I know that if I manage to nurture a seed into a seedling, I wouldn’t then start to measu
For years, B2B organizations have expanded their partner ecosystems by adding new partner types, routes to market, and strategic relationships. The result has been greater market reach, new growth opportunities, and increasingly complex partner ecosystems. A growing challenge for
The 2026 installment of the customer identity and access management (CIAM) landscape report has just published. The report identifies three primary drivers in the CIAM landscape. AI agents are a new identity type in CIAM. In our research, we found that CIAM solutions are increasi
The 2026 installment of the Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) Landscape has just published. The report identified three primary drivers currently driving the CIAM landscape. AI agents are a new identity type in CIAM. In our research, we found that CIAM solutions are
OpenAI is on a quest, chasing down Anthropic’s Claude toolkit to be seen as the enterprise frontier model. Here’s the push-pull-partner strategy we see unfolding at OpenAI: Push. CEO Sam Altman pushed a vision for an AI-powered world out into the global dialog. Investors, Boards,
Quantum computing has transitioned from theoretical curiosity into a phase of engineering reality. Vendors are showing real progress in solving scaling and error correction challenges. There are realistic roadmaps for shipping quantum computers that could deliver commercial value
If you are one of those tech leaders in a company that already has an agentic architecture with swarms of agents delivering some value and your challenge is how to optimize the cost and/or stitch these agents together across complex workflows, this blog may not be for you. But do
Outcome‑based pricing links a portion of provider fees to clearly defined measurable results rather than effort or time spent. For IT sustainability services, those outcomes are typically financial (cost reduction, efficiency gains) or environmental (carbon reduction, energy savi
Last year, we introduced the concept of the AI-native cloud, as we observed that the cloud industry was moving beyond commodity infrastructure toward platforms purpose-built for generative AI and agentic AI. We also identified two emerging paths in this transformation: AI infrast
The Q4 2025 Wave™ evaluation for Network Analysis and Visibility (NAV) solutions was the first iteration of the research to evaluate vendors on their post-quantum cryptography (PQC) capabilities, a decision that has become more pronounced in 2026. The rationale was compelling the
AI is creating real value, but the biggest opportunities will go to organizations that build the right foundations first. Explore five no-regrets investments that can help technology leaders govern, scale, and realize value from AI regardless of how the technology evolves.
Back in May 2026, Anthropic announced changes to its pricing model. Its original fixed-fee, per-seat subscription model was replaced with one that separates platform access from AI consumption. Customers still pay for access, but usage is now metered and billed separately based o
AI agents aren’t coming — they’re already here. And they’re not waiting for your security architecture to catch up. Learn how Forrester's new AEGIS framework can help CISOs secure, govern, and manage AI agents and agentic infrastructure.
As the IT singularity reshapes how organizations operate, leading technology executives are confronting new questions around governance, workforce design, and AI adoption. Learn how guest speakers from SailPoint, Applied Materials, Moeve, and EssilorLuxottica are navigating these
The Forrester Wave™: AI Platforms, Q3 2026 has just published, and if you’ve read previous evaluations in this category, prepare to recalibrate. Agentic AI has redrawn the boundaries of what an AI platform is, what it must do, and what vendors compete to provide it. The fifteen v
Black Hat 2026 generated more questions than it answered. Are we headed for a vulnerability apocalypse (aka vulnpocalypse), or are we clearing a backlog of flaws that AI can now find with ease? Can organizations patch fast enough? What should buyers expect from vendors when softw
AI-moderated interviews are an emerging research tool where an AI agent interviews human participants at scale by interacting with them in real time and facilitating the conversation based on their responses. AI moderators help teams collect qualitative insights at scale, lower l
Long before I joined Forrester, or even before I worked in cybersecurity, I volunteered with an informal group supporting my previous company’s security team. That experience stayed with me. It sparked my interest in cybersecurity and ultimately led me into the profession. Fast f
The biggest takeaway from Snowflake Summit 2026 wasn’t another AI announcement; it was a fundamental shift in what enterprises should expect from a data platform for AI. The conversation has moved beyond building models and copilots to operationalizing agentic AI at scale. It req
In nine days this month, OpenAI and Anthropic disclosed that their own models escaped safety evaluations and reached production systems at four other companies. No model malfunctioned. The governance did. Responsible AI now has to govern what agents do, not only what models decid
In 2015, I wrote an op-ed for Ad Age declaring the end of social media … as it was originally framed around community building. Back then, I asserted, “Social media marketing is now advertising. It’s largely a media planning and buying exercise.” For most brands, that statement p
AI doesn’t have to replace the human connection that makes B2B customer communities valuable. Used purposefully, it can help community managers reduce repetitive work, improve customer experiences, surface business insights, and connect community engagement to measurable outcomes
A potential Myspace relaunch is dependent on social media nostalgia, but consumers aren’t interested in going back in time.
Many marketers now know the best practices they must implement to get mentioned and cited by ChatGPT, Google, and Claude but still struggle to implement answer engine optimization (AEO). Marketers sync with web developers about the technical prerequisites of visibility: server-si
For years, B2B software companies obsessed over discoverability. Could buyers find their website? Could they rank in search? Could analysts, review sites, and influencers tell the right story? But a new challenge is emerging: Can AI buying agents find and understand your pricing?
By Lisa Singer and Beth Caplow For years, B2B software companies obsessed over discoverability. Could buyers find their website? Could they rank in search? Could analysts, review sites, and influencers tell the right story? But a new challenge is emerging: Can AI buying agents fi
Roseville, California just provided a case study in what happens when organizations confuse “AI-powered” with “AI-verified.” A Business Insider investigation found that Flock Safety’s AI license plate readers misread plates in 71% of the alerts sent to Roseville police over two y
The SVOD (streaming video on demand) industry is abuzz about Netflix’s engagement trends and declining viewership between first and second seasons. Why? Because it points to a bigger market question: What keeps streaming consumers engaged when their hit show isn’t on? While origi
Apple’s new Siri AI is one of the biggest threats to the bank-customer relationship since mobile banking, and most banks are about to underestimate it. Siri AI inserts itself not into the payment, as Apple Pay did, but into the relationship, where trust, growth, and primacy are w
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors are rapidly packaging autonomous operations as the next “platform” mandate, but the real constraint on the rollout of autonomous operations will be enterprise control — whether technology leaders can verify agent actions, govern consumpt
The traditional performance marketing model assumes that marketers can influence buyers once they enter the market, but today’s B2B buyers often begin their search with strong preferences already in place. Intent signals frequently reveal existing demand rather than create it, ma
Visa announced its intent to acquire behavioral biometrics vendor BioCatch for $2.4 billion. BioCatch uses JavaScript on websites and its own SDKs built into mobile applications to continuously analyze signals including typing cadence, touchscreen gestures, mouse movements, hesit
Cost mandates usually trigger cuts. Our new case study describes how Patrick Newbold, CIO at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), spun a 2025 cost reduction mandate into a modernization opportunity. In doing so, he created a playbook that both public and private CI
Eighty-eight percent of B2B marketing organizations have adopted AI tools or developed their own, yet marketing leaders continue to report unclear AI strategy, difficulty measuring impact, data infrastructure challenges, and uncertainty about where AI should be applied. In other
The enterprise data lakehouse is evolving. Once designed primarily to consolidate data for analytics, today’s lakehouse has become the operational foundation for agentic AI, delivering the trusted, governed, and real-time data that intelligent agents require to reason and act. As
The enterprise data lakehouse is evolving. Once designed primarily to consolidate data for analytics, today’s lakehouse has become the operational foundation for agentic AI, delivering the trusted, governed, and real-time data that intelligent agents require to reason and act. As
At AMD’s Advancing AI event in San Francisco, I expected to hear about faster GPUs, next-generation CPUs, AI PCs, and the company’s latest AI infrastructure roadmap. Those announcements certainly happened. AMD introduced new AI infrastructure, processors, software, and AI PC capa
The world’s most advanced AI companies just learned a lesson enterprises have understood for decades: Technology doesn’t create value. Solutions do. Our 2024 AI Foundation Models For Language Wave™ evaluated the models themselves, but raw capability predicts little about enterpri
Technology leaders across Asia Pacific are under pressure to deliver more than resilient systems and efficient operations. They are expected to help their organizations grow, adapt, earn trust, and turn emerging technologies, especially AI, into measurable business value. Forrest
Agentic software development is lowering the barrier to building applications, but it is also exposing a harder question for technology leaders: Who is accountable when AI-generated software becomes business-critical? My new report, Reinventing Software Development Services For T
After four years of decline, customer experience (CX) in the United States has finally ticked back upward. New findings from Forrester’s 2026 Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) reveal a modest but important improvement in overall CX quality, marking the first year-over-year in
This is the story behind writing Customer Zero Case Study: Optimizely Shows AI Success Requires Operating Model Governance. When I Went Looking For Agentic Marketing, I Found A Constraint Early in my career, my dad handed me a copy of The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. The book introd
To me, the most interesting part of Adobe’s customer zero story is that when AI disrupted how buyers learn, Adobe couldn’t buy a solution because the solution didn’t exist yet. This is a story of marketing and technology leaders adapting an operating model under pressure and feed
In April 2025, OpenAI announced that it will require formal, government issued national ID document-based identity verification (IDV) to its users. Now OpenAI announced that, effective September 1, 2026, Trusted Access Cyber (TAC) accounts will be required to authenticate using h
Deloitte named a forward-deployed engineering (FDE) practice back in December 2025. At the time, it read as a consulting rebrand with better vocabulary. Then, between May 4 and July 15 of this year, four technology providers committed roughly $9 billion to putting their own engin
AI agents are delivering measurable business value to CRM operations by closing the gap between data, decision, execution, and results. In interviews with dozens of consultancies and customers, we found that AI agents in CRM: Increase productivity and lower the cost to serve. A p
For years, enterprise software leaders focused on application transformation. Today, many are discovering that technology procurement may be the bigger obstacle to modernization. As organizations accelerate investments in AI, cloud platforms, enterprise applications, and cybersec
B2B leaders have spent the past few years asking how AI can make their teams more productive. That internal focus must transition to a bigger question that demands more urgent attention: How do we respond to AI changing how buyers discover, evaluate, and choose providers? That q
As artificial intelligence moves from experimentation to enterprise-wide deployment, sovereignty concerns now touch every layer of the of the AI stack. Organizations are no longer evaluating AI based solely on model performance, innovation speed, or cost. They are increasingly a
As commerce vendors embed genAI assistants into their platforms, digital leaders must balance productivity gains against growing governance risks to ensure AI-generated work remains visible, auditable, explainable, and aligned with organizational policies.
When every marketing team plans independently, buyers experience the consequences: overlapping communications, competing priorities, and inconsistent journeys. The solution isn't a new org chart. It's a new approach to planning.
Enterprise teams are moving agentic AI projects toward production faster than they are developing the architectural disciplines needed to build, govern, secure, and operate them. At the same time, many organizations are searching for a target-state agentic architecture that will
AI is no longer a future feature in application security; it is rapidly becoming a core part of how application security (AppSec) tools identify, prioritize, and remediate risk. Yet despite aggressive vendor investment, adoption remains constrained by trust concerns, questions ab
AI is no longer a future feature in application security; it is rapidly becoming a core part of how AppSec tools identify, prioritize, and remediate risk. Yet despite aggressive vendor investment, adoption remains constrained by trust concerns, questions about value, and uncertai
Paul Miller discusses his physical AI and autonomy highlights from this year's Farnborough International Airshow
For years, business process outsourcing (BPO) ran on a familiar playbook: labor arbitrage, process standardization, and global delivery. That era is rapidly slipping into oblivion. Our latest research on the BPO market points to a deeper shift — AI isn’t just changing how efficie
The US federal government experienced its first significant customer experience decline since Forrester began measuring federal CX in 2016. Learn what drove the drop, which agencies led and lagged, and the key factors shaping customer experience performance across federal agencie
Today, Microsoft announced Project Perception, a series of red, blue, and green team agents designed to be coordinated together in an agentic architecture to evaluate infrastructure and close gaps as close to autonomously as possible. The red team agents find potential paths to c
AI adoption is accelerating, but too many organizations remain focused on deployments and efficiencies rather than customer value. Learn why the most successful AI adopters build customer-focused strategies that drive trust, differentiation, and business outcomes.
Architecture and delivery leaders are expected to modernize platforms, accelerate delivery, enable AI, strengthen governance, and demonstrate business value, often with limited time and resources. Discover the sessions at Technology & Innovation Forum Central that can help you ad
Customers now navigate a world where they increasingly expect to be misled, manipulated, or deceived. That raises the stakes for every AI investment organizations make.
At B2B Summit North America, Ian Bruce and Kelvin Gee shared a sobering truth: Most B2B teams are chasing deals they’ve already lost. The remedy is a preference marketing strategy. Learn what that entails and how to adopt it to pull ahead.
The constraint marketing leaders are running into is no longer about content generation. It's scaling marketing without losing trust, quality, or control.
According to our recent research, most B2B marketing leaders (96%) see their function as a strategic partner or the primary driver of growth for the business. Yet they believe many of their peers (47%) see marketing as a support or promotion function that handles sales requests,
The AI market has finally come back around to the (correct) conclusion that people are important. Thank goodness. And on that note, The Forrester Wave™: Conversational AI Platforms For Employee Services, Q3 2026 (aka, AI to help employees) is finally live! To put it bluntly, the
Modern video games don’t make you read a manual before you start to play. They drop players into a simulated world, give them simple objectives, and let them learn by doing. Even board games take the same approach, with cut-down quick-start versions and even free downloadable con
The core question that has consumed analytics and business intelligence leaders for years is, “What is the one best way for business users to access data?” The answer has at times been reports, dashboards, or low-code GUI-based self-service analytics. The latest answer is generat
Discover the data, architecture, and governance foundations that banks need to scale conversational banking safely and effectively.
Two years ago, several of us wrote that Arlington, Massachusetts wasn’t “too small for cybercriminals” after a business email compromise diverted nearly half a million dollars from a town construction project. The criminals didn’t target a major enterprise or a household brand. T
The Workday services market has entered a new phase. Buyers are no longer looking solely for implementation partners that can deliver projects on time and on budget. Increasingly, they want strategic partners that can help them drive continuous transformation, operationalize AI,
On July 9, 2026, SAP reached a settlement with the European Commission that closes an antitrust investigation into SAP’s maintenance and support practices for on-premises ERP software. Importantly, this was resolved through binding commitments rather than a finding of wrongdoing
In our evaluation of B2B and B2C commerce solutions providers, we identified the most significant ones and researched, analyzed, and scored them. Learn more.
In our evaluation of B2B and B2C commerce solutions providers, we identified the most significant ones and researched, analyzed, and scored them. Learn more.
In a move straight out of a horror movie or techno-dystopian thriller, OpenAI’s model did what Anthropic threatened its model could do (but didn’t): a frontier lab’s own models escaped containment during an authorized evaluation and breached another company to finish the task and
If you remember the childhood story of The Tortoise and the Hare, you already understand more about the future of AI agents than you might think. Right now, the AI market looks like a field full of hares. SaaS agents from vendors like Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, and G
Networking is more than a side benefit at Technology & Innovation Forum Central. Explore the programs, roundtables, and leadership communities designed to help technology leaders connect, learn, and grow alongside their peers.
So, you’ve blown through your AI budget. Join the club. Blaming token consumption may have worked once. But as the adage goes “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…” You know the rest. Token consumption is a combination of multiple factors and not conclusive on its own. Henc
Real-Time Payments, Orchestration Engines, And AI Fraud Detection Drive Capital Efficiencies Commercial banking is undergoing a structural metamorphosis, shifting from rigid, batch-processed legacy systems to a model of autonomous, event-native finance. The convergence of ISO 200
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to take over coverage of the Product Information Management (PIM) space from my colleague Chuck Gahun, and it has been a fascinating journey. I’ve immersed myself in myriad vendor briefings, dug into historical and more recent Forrester res
Last Friday, I tuned in as the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) merger moved from boardroom to courtroom . A coalition of 12 state attorneys general asked a federal judge to temporarily block the $110 billion transaction while their antitrust lawsuit proceeds, arguing that
AI is accelerating enterprise transformation, but it has not rewritten the rules. As trust concerns and faster cycles make transformation less forgiving, enterprises must apply the fundamentals of strategy, operating-model design, change management, and disciplined execution fast
Treating answer engine optimization (AEO) best practices like checklist activities ignores answer engines’ impacts on brand strategy and interdisciplinary workflows. Effective, differentiated AEO requires marketers to understand answer engines’ role in the funnel and the new ways
In some countries, the debate around technological sovereignty has been framed as a race toward independence. Governments have invested billions in sovereign cloud initiatives, national AI programs, semiconductor manufacturing, and critical infrastructure under the implicit assum
We know that companies right now are heavily investing in customer service technologies with embedded AI capabilities. Companies are using these technologies to agentify the way that they deliver, manage, and optimize customer service. This is because these technologies are reall
After three decades in IT, I’m now watching the fifth major innovation cycle of my career: I’ve seen PC networking, internet/dotcom, enterprise integration and automation, cloud and mobile, and now AI. As this next era takes shape, becoming an analyst with Forrester felt like the
Microsoft’s July 2026 announcement that passkeys will become the default authentication method for all users in Microsoft Entra ID is a clear inflection point for phishing resistant MFA adoption. Beginning September 1, 2026, Microsoft will automatically enable passkeys for users
Following the UK’s move to tighten protections for minors online, the European Union is now considering its own youth social media measures. The details are still emerging, but the direction is clear: Europe is increasingly willing to intervene when social platforms risks to youn
AI is changing how B2B brand and communications teams invest, operate, and prioritize work. As companies look for practical ways to apply AI across marketing, leaders are reevaluating program investments, talent needs, and the capabilities required to drive growth. Forrester’s Br
B2B marketers have long relied on agencies for scale, specialized expertise, and execution support across brand and communications. In fact, 93% of respondents to Forrester's 2026 B2B Brand and Communications Survey use agencies in some capacity. What is changing is the relations
The technology industry has always been immature compared with the manufacturing, automotive, telecommunications, and oil and gas industries. In those industries, tier-one suppliers are deeply embedded in the operations of the end producer, tier-two suppliers are embedded in the
Agentic AI is moving fast. Enterprises are shifting from experimentation to real deployments – they’re using AI agents to act, not just answer. This should put integration at the forefront. Afterall, an AI agent without integration is merely an answer engine. It cannot take actio
Budget optimism is rising as 2027 approaches — but more spend alone won’t improve outcomes. Use this moment to reset your AI investments. Prioritize the readiness, governance, and context required to make it truly work.
We’ve all been there: saying yes to one too many things, overcommitting promises we can’t keep and then realizing we can’t show up fully when it matters most. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my own life is that saying yes to everything is how you end up deliver
Agentic development platforms (ADPs) move AI-enhanced development from experimentation to enterprise decision-making. As AI coding assistants evolve into platforms that can coordinate agents, manage context, and automate work across the software development lifecycle (SDLC), tech
Agentic development platforms move AI-enhanced development from experimentation to enterprise decision-making. As AI coding assistants evolve into platforms that can coordinate agents, manage context, and automate work across the software development lifecycle (SDLC), technology
PlayStation recently made an announcement that starting in January of 2028, they will stop producing physical game discs. Going forward, games will only be released as digital versions in both the PlayStation store, and at physical retailers. Sony claims that this is in respon
AI Changes The Work Before The Role Every CMO I talk to right now is asking a version of the same question: What roles do I need on my team for the future? It is a fair question. It is also the wrong one to lead with. AI is not changing marketing by introducing a […]
Even as more organizations adopt advanced measurement techniques, the perceived actionability of that measurement hasn’t kept pace. According to Forrester’s 2025 and 2026 global marketing surveys, adoption of marketing mix modeling and incrementality testing increased substantial
Last October, I published a blog proposing a different mental model for AI agents: treat them as cognitive skills and products, not as digital employees. That framing has since resonated strongly with Forrester clients, particularly technology leaders building agentic capabilitie
For the past two years, many AI stories have followed the same script: Automate work, reduce headcount, and cut costs. IKEA chose a different path, and its results offer an important lesson for leaders navigating the AI era. Even though this story is years old, it holds key insig
As AI adoption accelerates, many organizations are discovering that spending is rising faster than their ability to control it. Building the right cost management capabilities is becoming essential to scaling AI without sacrificing financial discipline.
AI is accelerating the pace of product innovation and forcing portfolio marketing and product management leaders to rethink how they allocate resources, measure value, and bring offerings to market. To keep pace, Forrester’s new report, Budget Planning Guide 2027: Portfolio Marke
Customers can achieve the goal of their journey and still feel uncertain, frustrated, or less loyal afterward. Forrester launched an annual journey benchmarking study to understand what makes journeys so valuable to customers that they reward the brand with their positive emotion
Customers can achieve the goal of their journey and still feel uncertain, frustrated, or less loyal afterward. Forrester launched an annual Journey Benchmark Study to understand what makes journeys so valuable to customers that they reward the brand with their positive emotions
NPS results from post-journey surveys most likely overstate customer loyalty. That’s because most surveys include only customers who complete their journey and surveys are sent before customers know whether what they did worked. NPS Differs Vastly Depending On Goal Achievement
In less than 12 months, wars escalated and re-escalated, markets swung wildly, trade tensions intensified, and even rice prices elevated, causing chaos. The pace of change has been relentless, and that’s before considering the volatility facing security leaders from AI or cyberse
Growth momentum is one of the most sought-after objectives in business. When it builds, buying groups move with greater confidence, internal teams align almost effortlessly around common priorities, and individual successes compound into larger business outcomes. Many B2B organiz
We wrapped up a multimonth evaluation of 10 AI consulting service providers: Accenture, Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Capgemini, Deloitte, EY, IBM, KPMG, McKinsey & Company, and PwC. It’s available to Forrester clients as The Forrester Wave™: AI Consulting Services, Q2
B2B marketing leaders entering the 2027 planning cycle must rethink traditional budget planning and shift toward focused, outcome-driven investment strategies. In an era of AI-driven disruption and market volatility, success will depend on where organizations concentrate spend, d
European marketers are rapidly adopting AI, but most applications remain focused on efficiency rather than customer value. New research reveals a growing gap between AI adoption and customer impact, highlighting the need to move beyond productivity gains and use AI to create diff
SpaceX is a rocket company. It also became an AI company the day their founder Mr. Musk folded in xAI – inheriting a frontier model in Grok, the planet-scale Colossus training cluster, and the live data feed of the X platform (formerly Twitter). The IPO headlines fixated on the t