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Physical AI: Powering the Next Industrial Revolution

Abhishek Mukherjee, Mukesh Dialani — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Physical AI is transforming industrial operations by embedding advanced AI into physical assets, enabling autonomous, intelligent action in complex environments. This shift drives productivity, safety, and resilience across sectors, but success depends on deep domain expertise, robust integration, and disciplined engineering. Engineering service providers are critical in bridging technical gaps, orchestrating technology, and ensuring sustainable, enterprisewide deployment, positioning physical AI as a core driver of competitive advantage in the next industrial revolution.

"Physical AI is not just automating tasks, it is redefining the boundaries of what machines and humans can achieve together. As advanced intelligence is embedded into the very fabric of industrial assets, the next industrial revolution will be won by those who master the art of seamless integration, resilient engineering, and human-machine collaboration. The future belongs to enterprises bold enough to bridge the execution gap and turn complexity into competitive advantage." — Abhishek Mukherjee, research manager, digital engineering and operational technology services, IDC

Top 5 CPaaS Trends for 2026

Courtney Munroe, Melissa Holtz-Fremeijer — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective explores the top 5 CPaaS trends in 2026, which will be an amazing year for CPaaS platforms. Most companies are implementing sophisticated agentic AI orchestration, along with the provisioning of important new channels such as RCS and voice capabilities. However, ease of use and security are also important; enterprises are buying assurance as much as capability.

According to Courtney Munroe, research vice president, Worldwide Telecommunications Research, IDC, "Platforms that minimize operational ambiguity, abstract regulatory complexity, and demonstrate consistent execution enable internal teams to focus on business outcomes rather than platform risk." Vendors that fail to meet this bar are increasingly filtered out early in enterprise procurement cycles regardless of price or feature claims.

Retailers Move Toward Unified Decisioning at NRF

Ananda Chakravarty — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses how merchandising remains critical as retailers shift from agentic AI hype to practical, real-world application across stores, online, back offices, and distribution. At NRF 2026, the focus moved from point solutions to unified decision-making powered by integrated data, processes, and systems. Retailers are adopting holistic, systems-based approaches by combining AI/ML and modular capabilities to optimize operations and drive end-to-end outcomes.

"Retailers want their inventory data to correspond to pricing and to their financial planning, supply chain, and even online order management. To accomplish this, data and merchandising must become unified, not just in terms of a single source of data but a propagation of decisions across all aspects of the business — that's unified decision-making," says Ananda "Andy" Chakravarty, research vice president, IDC Retail Insights.

Beyond Customer Data: The Context Foundation AI Agents in CX Are Missing

Tapan Patel — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines why AI agents deployed across customer experience (CX) functions like marketing, sales, advertising, digital commerce, customer support, and field service systems require dedicated context foundation beyond unified customer data. It defines the three architectural foundations — knowledge graphs, semantic definitions, and context management — that enable agents to reason over shared context, coordinate actions across functions, and make autonomous decisions. The document provides guidance for both business and technology buyers evaluating context readiness for AI agents in CX.

“Customer data platforms gave us unified profiles, but that foundation alone is not sufficient for AI agents to make autonomous decisions,” said Tapan Patel, research director, AI-Enabled Customer Data and Analytics, IDC. “AI agents need a next layer — one that provides detailed understanding into CX relationships, shared business logic across functions, and runtime context that reflects customer intent, life-cycle stage, and prior actions to deliver real value.”

IDC Survey: SMB Communications Services Survey, 2025 — AI Adoption in SMB Communications

Jason Blackwell — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

AI investment is moving from exploration to structured deployment:

Generative AI is now the top SMB technology investment priority, with agentic AI emerging as well, confirming that SMBs are moving beyond passive evaluation toward structured spending plans and operational deployment in the next 12–18 months.

Competitive advantage is increasingly tied to customer engagement and data-driven decisioning:

SMBs are now viewing GenAI to reshape how they engage customers and use data to inform decisions, reframing AI from an internal efficiency tool to a growth and differentiation lever embedded within communications, collaboration, and analytics-driven workflows.

Execution readiness determines the pace of scale:

Although interest is high, scaling AI remains difficult due to challenges like regulatory and data‑governance requirements, cost control, and limited in‑house expertise. This underscores the need for secure‑by‑design solutions and well‑defined ROI models and marketing.

AI monetization will flow through bundled, managed connectivity models:

Broadband remains the anchor service in the SMB relationship, but strategic influence over AI/AIOps road maps is consolidating with cloud providers and integrators, pressuring telecom and cable providers to evolve toward integrated, managed, and consultative service models to protect wallet share and relevance.

Meta's Newest Commerce Strategy: Partnering with Shopify, Payments, and AI to Close the Transaction Loop

Roger Beharry Lall, Heather Hershey — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Friction is the enemy of impulse. Frictionless checkouts almost always convert better than the alternatives. That's exactly what Meta is partnering to tap into via the strategies announced at Shoptalk on March 24, 2026. Meta wants to reduce or eliminate redirection off its platform for the completion of purchases to compress the customer journey to maximize impulse-driven opportunities.

Beyond Stripe, Meta is building out a broader payments ecosystem that gives merchants flexibility at checkout. Initial rollouts center on Stripe and PayPal, both of which power the current one-tap, in-app transaction flow. Additional integrations with Adyen are already planned, with merchants able to select their preferred provider at the point of purchase.

Stripe brings modern, developer-centric infrastructure; PayPal contributes global wallet reach and consumer familiarity; and Adyen extends enterprise-grade acquiring and international coverage. The result is a flexible checkout architecture where Meta owns the interface and optimization layer, while payment execution is distributed across specialized partners. Beyond this, Shopify is providing a layer of commerce orchestration to the table that makes for a more complete offering for catalog management, checkout, fulfillment, and reporting.

Interestingly, Meta shut down its own native checkout (Facebook/Instagram Shops) as of mid-2025, moving buyers back to merchant sites to complete the transaction. The aforementioned partners are essentially building what Meta stepped away from.

This IDC Link will focus on Meta, Stripe, and Shopify, since those three companies have been the center of the announcements to date.

Digital Advertising Market Review, 2026

Alex Holtz — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The IDC Perspective on the Digital Advertising Market Review, 2026, highlights the transformative impact of AI, generative AI, and agentic AI on digital advertising strategies, campaign management, and measurement. The report underscores rapid growth in platforms like CTV, mobile in-app, and retail media networks, driven by advanced personalization, automation, and ecosystem partnerships. As the market shifts toward autonomous, data-driven workflows and cross-platform integration, organizations embracing these innovations will gain a competitive edge.

"In 2026, digital advertising is no longer just about reaching audiences it's about AI-driven orchestration, where autonomous agents, predictive analytics, and immersive platforms converge to create hyper-personalized, closed-loop campaigns. As technology and partnerships redefine the rules, the winners will be those who embrace agentic AI and composable ecosystems. Are you ready to compete in a market where machines are your new media strategists?" — Research Director Alex Holtz, IDC Worldwide Media & Entertainment Digital Strategies

European Enterprise Communication Service Provider Profile: AT&T Business

Masarra Mohamed — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation provides an in-depth analysis of AT&T Business’ strategy, operations, and market positioning in the enterprise communications sector. It begins with IDC’s view, highlighting AT&T’s focus on delivering secure, scalable global connectivity and enabling digital transformation for multinational corporations. It first provides an overview of AT&T Business’ organizational structure, leadership team, and strategic priorities, emphasizing its role as a network-enabled technology provider integrating connectivity, edge computing, and cybersecurity. It then examines financial performance, noting the shift toward next-generation connectivity, which now accounts for 60% of AT&T Business Solutions’ revenue, despite overall revenue pressure from legacy declines. The presentation also assesses AT&T Business’ competitive positioning compared with Europe-headquartered telcos. It also details AT&T’s global infrastructure assets, portfolio, partner ecosystem, and go-to-market and messaging strategies, which enable the company to deliver consistent managed services across more than 200 countries. Finally, IDC recommends that AT&T enhance marketing visibility, promote its NetBond platform, and leverage automation and AI to expand beyond traditional large multinational corporations.

European Telco Diversification Beyond Connectivity and Devices in the SMB Market

Daniela Rao — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective focuses on European telcos' digital solutions propositions for SMBs, beyond connectivity and devices. These digital solutions encompass a wide range of services to address SMB customers' digital transformation, efficiency and flexibility needs, to compete successfully in the European digital economy.

"Telcos' success in the SMB market depends on their ability to propose digital solutions in which security, trustability, and resilience are embedded in scalable, user-friendly suites that increase customers' agility," said Daniela Rao, senior research and consulting director, IDC Telecom and UCC Global Team.

Consumer AI and the Replatforming of the Consumer Digital Economy

Greg Ireland, Kelly Brown — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study highlights developments in the consumer AI market. As we look at the ways in which consumer use of AI changes other online behaviors, we see a replatforming of the consumer digital economy in which consumers rely less on traditional search and websites and more on AI assistants. AI assistants are already the starting point for many consumer customer journeys. This represents monetization opportunities for AI platform providers and opportunities for these providers to reshape a growing number of online consumer experiences.