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Consumer AI and the Consumer Customer Journey

Greg Ireland, Kelly Brown — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation leverages IDC survey results to show how the use of AI and AI assistants is already changing the ways in which consumers proceed in their customer journeys. Consumers are highly engaged with AI and highly engaged with using AI for shopping assistance. This Presentation explores the dynamics of AI's impact on the customer journey, including how AI users are more likely to begin a journey using AI than traditional search and advertising is poised to further augment AI experiences.

Google I/O 2026: Google Advances Android XR with Project Aura Smart Glasses and Intelligent Eyewear

Francisco Jeronimo, Ramon T. Llamas — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Google Says SEO Search Is Still SEO Exercise and Names GEO and AEO Hacks It Considers Unnecessary

Heather Hershey, Roger Beharry Lall, Tiffany McCormick — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note discusses Google’s May 15, 2026, publication of the company’s first formal guide to optimizing for generative AI search. The publication is best understood as one move in an ongoing battle for AI search dominance, not a neutral set of best practices. While Google is the first major LLM provider to issue public guidance of this kind, the document also serves its own interests by dismissing much of the GEO and AEO consulting/technology market and reasserting that AI Overviews and AI Mode are still SEO. Site owners are told to ignore llms.txt files, content chunking, AI-specific rewriting, paid mention campaigns, and most schema work, and E-E-A-T quietly disappears as a named framework. Skeptics will note that this advice arrives precisely as Google reduces brands to citation snippets in zero-click results and that guidance from one vendor cannot define optimization across a fragmenting AI search landscape that also includes ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude.

The Provider’s Blueprint in the AI Era: Delivering Data-Driven Cybersecurity Metrics for Boards, Executives, and Security Leaders

Philip D. Harris, CISSP, CCSK, Frank Dickson — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This Market Perspective discusses how organizations worldwide are failing to deliver cybersecurity metrics that serve their boards, executives, and operational teams — and how the emergence of AI has widened that gap. For technology providers and service providers, this represents one of the most significant product and service differentiation opportunities available in the governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) and cybersecurity market. This document, part 1 of a two-part series on cybersecurity metrics, defines the customer problem landscape and the three-tier metrics framework providers can build, deliver, and monetize.

The customer problem is well established but persistently unsolved: Cybersecurity grew bottom up, producing tactical metrics that never served governance or strategic audiences. AI has added two urgent new dimensions — AI-weaponized attacks that existing metrics frameworks cannot measure and ungoverned internal AI deployments creating a new class of enterprise risk. Providers that build solutions addressing both dimensions will occupy a dominant and defensible position in the GRC and cybersecurity market.

GRC platforms are uniquely positioned to address this need by consolidating intelligence across business, IT, and cybersecurity domains into an audience-specific metrics engine. Providers that extend this intelligence fabric to incorporate AI-specific signals — including AI model inventories, shadow AI detection, AI output logs, and regulatory compliance mapping — will deliver the next generation of cybersecurity metrics solutions customers urgently need and currently cannot find.

“The cybersecurity metrics market is at an inflection point. Customers are being held accountable for AI risks they cannot yet measure, and boards are demanding business risk context that most security tools still cannot deliver. Technology and service providers that step into this gap — with consolidated intelligence platforms, audience-specific metrics, and AI governance capabilities — will define the next generation of cybersecurity and GRC market leadership,” says Philip Harris, research director, Governance, Risk, and Compliance Solutions at IDC.

Consumer Market Model Highlights, 2Q26 — The New Consumer Economy

Kelly Brown, Greg Ireland — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation highlights key points from IDC's Consumer Market Model, 2H25, exploring how digital spending is reshaping consumer markets, behavior, and opportunity. The document examines the forces driving growth across entertainment, self-improvement, and peer-to-peer platforms; explores how AI, the creator economy, and non-buyer monetization are fundamentally altering how platforms compete; and assesses the accelerating disruption of traditional media and content industries. The survey concludes with strategic recommendations for organizations looking to differentiate and capture share in an increasingly competitive consumer digital economy.

"The consumer is no longer your end user; they are your competitor, your creator, and your greatest untapped revenue source," says Kelly Brown, research manager, IDC Consumer Markets.

IDC Market Glance: Commercial Revenue Orchestration and Protection Applications, 2Q26

Heather Hershey — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Glance is a taxonomy document intended to visually depict a concise current-state view of commercial revenue orchestration and protection applications, which help organizations acquire, convert, and retain customers while protecting revenue across digital and in-person commerce. These applications span the revenue life cycle from point-of-sale and payment platform enablement. As commerce architectures become more distributed, headless, and multiprovider by design, buyers are prioritizing interoperability and end-to-end observability across the revenue stack.

Use this information to understand the structure of the overall market or ecosystem; to assess market, business, and partnership opportunities; and to identify where their organization fits into the competitive landscape.

IDC Market Glance content is current on the date it is published. Representative content in this presentation reflects a qualitative snapshot that is regularly refreshed. Company logos are illustrative only and do not reflect an exhaustive view of the market.

IDC Survey Spotlight: Which AI-Enabled Engineering Services Command a Price Premium Among IT Buyers?

Francesca Ciarletta — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight explores the types of AI-enabled engineering services that command a price premium among IT buyers. The results are based on IDC’s AI Services Pricing Model Survey, conducted in November 2025 among 111 organizations across North America.

Same Models, Same Data, and Same Results: Why Retail AI Needs Competitive Potency

Ananda Chakravarty — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses the role of competitive potency in retail AI. AI has proven measurable ROI in retail. Companies such as Sephora, Kroger, Tesco, The Home Depot, and Dollar General have all witnessed the benefits of AI. However, widespread adoption erodes competitive advantage. The new game is competitive potency. This is the ability to exceed your competitors using AI, grow faster, capture more market share, and move ahead in the game. The gains AI brings are just table stakes; to move faster requires something more. More than just nuances of AI technology, one should learn how to use it to build competitive potency for their organization.

“When everyone has AI, competitive advantage vanishes. True potency lies in how you secure, differentiate, and trust your data, processes, and people,” says Ananda Chakravarty, VP Research, IDC Retail Insights.

The SpaceX IPO Prospectus: Starlink and Telecoms Ambitions

Simon Baker — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note provides an overview and analysis of the S-1 Prospectus document issued by SpaceX, which is embarking on a massive initial public offering. The prospectus document sheds some light on what has been a very closely held private company. The figures laid out for Starlink show a profitable and rapidly expanding satellite service, but one in which the continuing pace of growth is matched by falling ARPU. Its reliance for further expansion of service and reduction in costs on the new Starship Super Heavy Booster, which is yet to enter commercial service, is made clear.

Highlights of the Consumer Market Model: Buyers and Non-Buyers in the Consumer Digital Services Market

Greg Ireland, Kelly Brown — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation highlights data from the 2H25 release of the Worldwide Consumer Market Model with a focus on buyers (paying users) and non-buyers (non-paying users) across key selected consumer digital services. Non-buyers represent a large share of consumer users for music, video, independent content, and gaming services. Each service is broken down on a worldwide level to show the share of users that are buyers and non-buyers.