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IDC Survey: Early Adopters of Functional Agentic AI in Media and Entertainment, 2026

Alex Holtz, Nigel Wallis — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey examines how early adopters in media and entertainment organizations are approaching the six core agentic sourcing models, ranging from consuming embedded and prebuilt agents as delivered to customizing them, developing internally, and outsourcing development. It also looks at how the sector's preference for validation and creative control determines which initiatives reach production.

In addition, it evaluates how media organizations define strategy and road maps, who owns investment decisions, how governance is centralized, and which performance metrics and business benefits drive prioritization. It identifies the operational, data, talent, and governance factors that constrain scalable agentic adoption across the enterprise.

IDC worldwide surveys with a combined 2,951 respondents captured the views of early adopters involved in agentic AI strategy, adoption, and governance as their organizations advanced from experimentation toward production-scale deployment. A dedicated subsample of media and entertainment respondents (n = 133) was extracted to enable focused examination of sourcing approaches, governance models, and adoption patterns that distinguish the sector from the broader market.

"In a sector where content, rights, and distribution leave little room for error, media treats sourcing as a portfolio of bets rather than a single wager — running build, buy, and customize approaches in parallel at near-equal rates. Validation comes before commitment: the sector pilots more and explores less than the rest of the world, working to prove that general-purpose agents fit its specialized, high-stakes workflows before moving them into production," said Alex Holtz, research director, Worldwide Media and Entertainment Digital Strategies.

What Retailers Need to Know about Embedded Finance in Payment and Commerce/POS Platforms

Cristiano Quattrini, Margot Juros — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines how embedded finance is reshaping the role of payment and unified commerce/point-of-sale (POS) platforms in retail. As financial services become increasingly integrated into checkout, loyalty, marketplace, seller, and store operations, retailers must move beyond viewing payments as a transaction-processing function. Embedded finance creates opportunities to improve conversion, increase customer retention, support marketplace sellers, accelerate payouts, monetize ecosystems, and strengthen loyalty propositions. However, it also introduces new challenges around regulation, fraud, data governance, operational resilience, partner dependency, and customer trust. Retail technology buyers should therefore treat embedded finance as a strategic commerce capability that requires cross-functional governance, clear use case prioritization, strong platform evaluation, and measurable business outcomes.

“Embedded finance is changing the strategic role of payment and POS platforms in retail. These platforms are no longer simply where transactions are accepted; they are becoming the infrastructure through which retailers can deliver affordability, loyalty, seller services, faster payouts, and new financial experiences. The opportunity is not just to add more payment options but to embed financial value into the retail journey in a way that improves customer trust, operational efficiency, and ecosystem monetization. To succeed, retailers must balance innovation with governance, compliance, data control, and brand responsibility,” says Cristiano Quattrini, senior associate advisor, IDC Retail Insights.

IDC Survey: Telco Network Infrastructure and Cloud Priorities in META, 2026

Tolga Yalcin — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey explores how META telecom operators are prioritizing network infrastructure, cloud, AI, and sovereignty in 2026, benchmarked against global peers as part of IDC’s Worldwide Telco DX Network Infrastructure and Cloud Survey. Key themes include the region’s approach to AI deployment in network operations, edge and MEC adoption, data sovereignty as a baseline infrastructure requirement, and a preference for owning and controlling full-stack infrastructure over public cloud migration — alongside an accelerating push toward virtualization, cloudification, and satellite connectivity.

A CMO’s Guide to Google’s 2026 CX Strategy

Gerry Murray — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses Google’s 2026 CX strategy, which ushers in agent-driven commerce, integrating AI-powered agents, Universal Commerce Protocol, and persistent shopping experiences. Google aims to mediate and monetize the customer journey. CMOs must adapt by enhancing product data, enabling real-time decisioning, and redefining brand roles within Google’s ecosystem to ensure visibility, seamless interoperability, and consistent customer experience across both Google and owned channels.

“In the era of agentic shopping, first-mover brands that adapt to the new rules of agentic commerce will gain structural share advantages,” says Gerry Murray, director of Enterprise Applications and Agents at IDC. “Product visibility through commerce AEO will be equally or more important than brand visibility via content AEO.”

IDC Survey Spotlight: As Agentic AI and GenAI Commerce Solutions Top Hotel Operators' Investment Agenda, What Will Ultimately Determine Which Operators Turn That Ambition into Competitive Advantage?

Dorothy Creamer — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight looks at how hotels face an agentic commerce sequencing problem as investment plans outpace infrastructure.

Major hotel brands are racing to apply agentic commerce capabilities, but worldwide plans for agentic commerce are outpacing the data and infrastructure investments those capabilities depend on. And herein lies the issue. Hotels want agentic commerce as a salve for losing bookings to other channels — a familiar problem they faced when online travel sites emerged. The risk now is not being surfaced at all to potential guests who are shifting their discovery funnel into AI-led channels. This means investments in data modernization and the systems to support that discovery will be more important, but currently, the trend is tipping the other way.

"Hospitality operators must tread a careful line," says Dorothy Creamer, senior research manager, Hospitality and Travel Digital Transformation Strategies, IDC. "Planning for the future requires a well-calibrated balance and sometimes the patience to make sure that systems are built properly, which requires scalability, security, reliability, and redundancy. While agentic commerce investments are warranted, prevailing wisdom tells us that failure rates will increase if the appropriate infrastructure investments are not made."

Market Forecast: U.S. SMB Communications Services Forecast, 2026–2030

Daniela Rao — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation analyzes and forecasts the revenue for the U.S. small and medium-sized business (SMB) communications services market. The presentation provides IDC's definitions of SMB and telecom voice and data categories, and it presents a detailed forecast, beginning in 2025 and extending through 2030.

"Small and medium-sized businesses understand the necessity to invest in technologies and services that address their operational challenges, but they will continue to have limited resources. Telcos targeting SMBs should design new value-creating propositions rooted in their networks, ecosystems, AI, and analytics capabilities to address the pricing challenges with services geared to remove friction between SMBs' daily operations and digital transformation road map." — Daniela Rao, senior research and consulting director, Worldwide Telecom and UC, IDC

Worldwide Digital Commerce Applications Forecast, 2026–2030

Heather Hershey — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Presentation provides a five-year forecast for the worldwide digital commerce applications market and examines how enterprise commerce is evolving amid growing pressure to modernize storefront, order management, and merchandising capabilities while cautiously exploring agentic AI. As organizations pursue commerce modernization and AI-enabled customer experiences, demand is shifting toward composable, API-first platforms that support incremental modernization without disrupting existing operations.

The study highlights how buyer expectations are changing as AI hype outpaces demonstrated ROI. Organizations are looking beyond experimental agentic capabilities and increasingly favor platforms that pair innovation with measurable business outcomes, digital trust, and regional compliance, all while supporting cloud-scale deployment without compromising enterprise control. This shift is driving demand for platforms that reduce implementation risk and provide clearer evidence of business value across commerce programs. The forecast also explores the factors influencing market growth through 2030.

Agentic Commerce: B2C Buyer Life-Cycle Opportunity Analysis

Ananda Chakravarty, Heather Hershey — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation looks at agentic commerce. As AI agents move from novelty to infrastructure, they’re quietly rewriting the rules of consumer retail. In this presentation, IDC analysts deliver the first rigorous, end-to-end map of what happens when shoppers stop browsing and start delegating purchasing decisions and execution to agentic AI.

Drawing on an analysis of 343 distinct factors across 5 journey stages and 4 stakeholder groups, the research cuts through the hype with a clear-eyed verdict: barriers currently outnumber opportunities, and the biggest disruption isn’t where everyone is looking.

The findings challenge conventional wisdom at every turn. Agentic commerce doesn’t just create new opportunities; it reallocates control, shifting competitive advantage upstream from brand influence to algorithmic selection. Merchants and brands emerge as the most exposed stakeholders, at risk of becoming metadata in an algorithmic race to the bottom of pricing. Perhaps most surprising is that the greatest value of agentic commerce isn’t in the dazzling front-end experience at all, but in the unglamorous back-end orchestration of fulfillment, inventory, and service.

For any leader trying to separate signal from noise in the agentic era, this research is essential strategic reading. It moves beyond “what AI can do” to the questions that will actually determine winners and losers of the agentic era of commerce:

What is agentic commerce?
Who absorbs the risk when an AI agent gets things wrong?
Who controls the interface of the experience?
Where does value ultimately consolidate?

The companies that internalize these lessons now will be the ones still visible if and when agents become the default front door to commerce.

IDC ProductScape: Worldwide Retail Marketplace Platforms Software Providers, 2026

Cristiano Quattrini, Ornella Urso — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The IDC ProductScape offers a comprehensive guide on the key functionalities of retail marketplace platforms, featuring products from AOE, Flipkart, Izberg, Lengow, LogiCommerce, Marketplacer, Mirakl, Nautical Commerce, Octopia, Rithum, Spryker, Ultra Commerce, and VTEX. The status of each functionality is categorized as fully supported, partially supported, partner provided, road map, or not supported, aiding technology purchasers in quickly identifying vendors that align with their changing requirements.

IDC Survey Spotlight: Which Factors Have Consistently Driven Extended Reality Deployment Success, and How Have Their Relative Importance Shifted from 2025 to 2026?

Ramon T. Llamas — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight examines the factors that organizations identify as most critical to the success of their extended reality (XR) deployments, drawing on a year-over-year comparison of responses from IDC's U.S. XR Commercial Surveys conducted in April 2025 and March 2026. It reviews how eight success factors, spanning solution design, technology choices, security, partner selection, and cost management, have shifted in relative importance across the two years.

The document describes which factors have held their standing, which have gained relevance as deployments mature, and which have eased in priority, providing a data-grounded view of how organizational focus in XR programs is evolving over time.