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AI-ification of Retail Media

Ananda Chakravarty — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective provides a viewpoint of how AI is changing the game with respect to mapping current attribution metrics in retail media. The report also reviews how AI addresses audience targeting as well as attribution through a set of techniques being pioneered by firms such as Amazon, Walmart, and other retail media networks (RMNs). The report also highlights marketing mix modeling and how this may move the market toward a more holistic view of retail media. Finally, the report identifies the flaws of return on ad spend (ROAS) attribution and how AI may overcome these flaws through new attribution methods.

"When your retail media metrics say 10x returns, but you're barely breaking even, it's time to revisit attribution. AI is changing the retail media game. New AI models are being rolled out by the most sophisticated RMNs to drive precise attribution. It's time for a reset," said Ananda Chakravarty, research vice president, IDC Retail Insights.

Digital Engineering and Operational Technology Services Case Studies Showcase Report, Part 10: Software-Defined Vehicle

Francesca Ciarletta, Mukesh Dialani — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation showcases 17 software-defined vehicle case studies that highlight customers' business challenges, the solutions implemented, and the value delivered. The case studies were submitted by engineering services vendors and vetted by IDC. This is the 10th in a series of case study showcase documents focused on a broad range of engineering challenges, demonstrating how service providers can serve as valuable partners in helping organizations address complex technology and business requirements.

Enabling Telecom Omni-Service Monetization

Chris Silberberg, Peter Chahal — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective examines how telecom operators can monetize an expanding portfolio of consumer, enterprise, NaaS, and API-based services, and how BSS vendors are helping them do so. It sets out 6 structural challenges — business model diversity, catalog fragmentation, ecosystem and API commercialization, data fragmentation, regulatory divergence, and commercial agility — identifies the billing, charging, CPQ, catalog, marketplace, and settlement capabilities most relevant to each, and profiles 15 vendors serving this market.

"The rationale for telco BSS investment is shifting from a focus solely on TCO, or monetizing a specific product such as 5G FWA, toward investing in systems with the flexibility to sell anything. This is to unlock revenue growth and commercial agility by monetizing a wider range of services. Technical capability is just one part of the solution; telcos must also reconsider their processes and organizational setup if they are to overcome common challenges," said Chris Silberberg, research manager, Global Telecom Operations and Monetization at IDC.

IDC Market Glance: Persuasive Content and Digital Experience Software Ecosystem, 3Q26

Jordan Jewell — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The IDC Market Glance provides a structured taxonomy of the technology organizations to plan, create, manage, deliver, and optimize digital experiences across channels. The ecosystem spans 15 segments, including content management, digital asset management, digital experience platform (DXP), experience intelligence, commerce experience, and video platforms, reflecting the growing complexity of modern experience stacks.

Market Forecast: U.S. Mobile Consumer and Business Services Forecast, 2026-2030

Jason Leigh, Jitesh Gera — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study provides the five-year forecast for the U.S. mobile consumer and business services market and delivers insights into the drivers and inhibitors of growth.

Despite a saturated market, U.S. mobile connections continue to grow as consumers and businesses deepen their embrace of the digital experience and expand the number and types of devices they use to connect. DX initiatives and security concerns push business adoption ahead of consumer growth.

“Despite operating in a saturated market, U.S. mobile service providers continue to grow the total wireless subscriber base, with consumers diversifying their device types, and businesses--concerned about network and data security amid ongoing digital transformation initiatives--layering in more corporate-liable connections for their employees. At the heart of it all is a quiet, unacknowledged reality that 24 x 7 ubiquitous connectivity, far from being a mere commodity, is the quintessential foundation of modern society and the prerequisite for most future technological advances,” said Jason Leigh, research director, Wireless Services at IDC.

Retail and Commerce Media Networks — The Market Broadens Beyond Retail

Alex Holtz — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective sizes the worldwide retail media network and commerce media network (RMN + CMN) market at $218.7 billion in 2025, rising to $498.2 billion in 2030 at a 17.9% CAGR, and examines the redistribution of this growth across seven verticals. Retailer-owned networks remain dominant but decline from 87.0% of commerce media in 2026 to 82.6% in 2030, while non-retailer verticals compound at 25.9%. Format composition rotates at the same time: Search falls from 51.9% of the market to 36.1%, while video becomes the largest single format at 37.1%. This document identifies transaction frequency and breadth of use case, not data volume or audience scale, as the variables separating viable commerce media networks from data assets without a business, and it maps three distinct technology buying patterns emerging across the market.

"Commerce media is no longer a retail phenomenon. It is becoming an infrastructure layer across every transaction-rich industry, and the binding constraint has shifted from ad serving to identity, consent, and orchestration. The organizations that win will be the ones whose loyalty and consent infrastructure can support autonomous decisioning, not the ones with the most inventory." — Alex Holtz, research director, Worldwide Media and Entertainment Digital Strategies at IDC

UAE Licenses Starlink to Aid Telecoms Resiliency

Ahmad Latif Ali, Simon Baker, Tolga Yalcin — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note assesses how the impact of the Middle East War has affected the value of Starlink satellite broadband in providing communications resiliency when communications or power are knocked out. Only Saudi Arabia has yet to liberalize the full use of Starlink.

"The Middle East War has changed official attitudes to satellite broadband, and GCC countries are embracing Starlink use as a backup when other communications go offline," says Simon Baker, senior research director, Satellite and Non-Terrestrial Connectivity, IDC.

Dreamforce 2026: The Agentic Enterprise Comes to Life

Mickey North Rizza — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Salesforce held its annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, CA, on September 15–17, 2026. The event was well attended, with at least 43,000 onsite and thousands online for the keynotes.

Market Forecast: Worldwide Wearable Device Forecast, 2026–2030

Ramon T. Llamas — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation provides the five-year forecast for the wearable device market and delivers insights into the drivers and inhibitors of growth.

"The worldwide wearable device market will see slower market growth but still maintain an overall upward trajectory in 2026 and 2027, thanks to continued demand for its most popular products like earwear as well as steadily growing volumes from rings and glasses. Also helping are smartwatches and wristbands that, while declining slightly, will either rebound quickly or remain steady throughout our forecast. The result is a market growing at a CAGR of 2.3%." — Ramon T. Llamas, research director, Mobile Devices and AR/VR, IDC

Agentic Commerce Across the Payment Ecosystem

Aaron Press — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines how major card networks — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover/Capital One, JCB, and UnionPay — along with noncard players such as PayPal and emerging stablecoin and pay-by-bank rails, are building the infrastructure required for AI agents to discover, authorize, and complete purchases on a buyer’s behalf. It compares each player’s issuing, network, and merchant-acceptance solutions, highlights payment authorization and fraud prevention as the most difficult and consequential steps in the agentic commerce life cycle, and assesses the state of interoperability across competing standards, including AP2, ACP, UCP, TAP, and APOP.

Aaron Press, research director for Worldwide Payment Strategies at IDC, said, “Payment will be the most difficult part of the agentic commerce equation. Banks, networks, and merchant processors will have to work together to ensure consistent, trusted transactions. If any part of the ecosystem falters, the entire process will grind to a halt.”