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Amazon's Advertising Strategy and Innovation Analyst Spring 2026 Update

Roger Beharry Lall, Alex Holtz — Fri, 22 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses Amazon's Advertising Strategy and Innovation Analyst Spring 2026 Update. Amazon Ads is rapidly evolving into a comprehensive, AI-powered advertising platform, expanding beyond its retail roots to offer full-funnel, omni-channel solutions. Key innovations include agentic AI, creative automation, and advanced measurement, all aimed at simplifying and scaling advertiser access. Success will hinge on Amazon's ability to foster openness, interoperability, and trust, ensuring its differentiated capabilities extend to partners and advertisers across the broader digital ecosystem.

"As Amazon Ads evolves from a retail media powerhouse to an AI-driven, full-funnel platform, its future will hinge not on what it keeps inside its walls, but on how boldly it opens its ecosystem. The next era of advertising will be defined by those who master openness, trust, and the seamless fusion of commerce, content, and technology." — Alex Holtz, research director, Worldwide Media and Entertainment Digital Strategies at IDC

"Amazon's ambition to be the infrastructure behind cross-platform advertising is clear, but the real test lies in democratizing its most powerful tools. Can Amazon extend its closed-loop advantage to partners and midmarket advertisers, or will the walls remain? The answer will shape the future of global advertising." — Roger Beharry Lall, research director, Advertising Technologies and SMB Marketing Applications

How to Become a Truly Data-Driven Enterprise

Karen D. Schwartz, Marlanna Harrington, Megha Kumar, Reid Paquin, Devin Pratt — Fri, 22 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses how organizations can truly be data driven. Organizations often assume that they are data driven, because they have dashboards, reports, and data teams. But when they try to deploy to make data-led decisions, they discover that their data can't answer simple questions or assemble complete customer views without missing records. Being a truly data-driven company requires treating data as the default language for decisions, with leadership, culture, and infrastructure all aligned and measured against that standard. It requires that every group and domain use the same framework across data, along with a data culture to back it up.

"Organizations that make the effort to become truly data driven will make better decisions, identify customer needs faster, and identify efficiency and product problems earlier, all with lower risk," says Karen D. Schwartz, an adjunct research advisor with IDC's IT Executive Programs (IEP). "It's a lot of work, but the payoff seems well worth the effort."

IDC Innovators: Cloud-Based PC Patch Management, 2026

Phil Hochmuth — Fri, 22 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Innovators presentation examines five leading vendors in the cloud-based PC patch management market: Atera, Action1, Adaptiva, Automox, and Fleet. These vendors represent a diverse range of approaches to solving the patch management challenge, from lightweight, specialized point solutions to comprehensive autonomous endpoint management platforms.

Is AWS Security Hub Evolving into a Multivendor Platform?

Frank Dickson, Philip Bues — Fri, 22 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses how AWS Security Hub is evolving from an aggregation tool into a multivendor security platform, now supporting unified operations across multicloud environments. By leveraging the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework (OCSF), integrating partner solutions, and centralizing management, AWS aims to simplify security operations and reduce tool sprawl. While the platform offers significant operational benefits, its strongest capabilities remain AWS centric, and buyers should weigh the trade-offs between convenience, ecosystem flexibility, and potential vendor concentration.

"AWS Security Hub is evolving: Does platform simplicity come at the cost of true multivendor freedom or is it the operational breakthrough security teams need?" — Frank Dickson, group vice president, Security and Trust at IDC

NAB 2026 Insights and Observations

Alex Holtz — Fri, 22 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective details NAB 2026 insights and observations. NAB 2026 marked a decisive shift for the media industry from technology experimentation to operational maturity, with agentic AI, hybrid architectures, and orchestration now foundational to scalable, resilient, and monetizable workflows. The focus has moved from adopting individual technologies to integrating them into unified, governable models, emphasizing execution, trust, and business outcomes over novelty. Leading vendors showcased agent-driven solutions that automate, optimize, and connect production, distribution, and monetization, signaling a new era of intelligence-driven media operations.

"As media enters a phase of operational maturity, the question is no longer which technology to adopt, but how intelligently do we integrate AI, cloud, and hybrid architectures to scale, monetize, and govern content. Execution, not innovation, now defines leadership in the media industry." — Alex Holtz, research director, Worldwide Media and Entertainment Digital Strategies

AI's Impact on Pricing Models for Business Consulting Services Buyers — Detailed Perspective Version

Bill Latshaw — Thu, 21 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines the commercial dynamics shaping how buyers of business consulting services evaluate, price, and contract for AI-enabled engagements. Drawing on IDC's November 2025 AI-Powered Services Pricing Model Survey (n = 178, North American buyers), it finds that buyers are willing to pay a meaningful premium for AI-enabled consulting when AI can be shown to improve analysis, strengthen recommendations, and support better business decisions. Discount pressure rises when AI is perceived primarily as a delivery efficiency tool. The document explores premium and discount dynamics, packaging preferences, value measurement practices, and the role of trust and governance in AI adoption decisions, with practical guidance for technology buyers on how to structure commercial relationships that deliver measurable AI value over time.

"The pricing data from this survey tells a story providers need to hear: buyers are not asking whether AI belongs in consulting but asking whether providers understand what they are actually buying when they invest in AI-enabled advice. The answer to that question is what separates the firms that will define the next generation of consulting from those that will simply describe it." — Bill Latshaw, research director, Business Consulting Services

Ad Holding Companies Are Redefining Their Role in the Marketing Ecosystem

Gerry Murray — Thu, 21 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses ad holding companies that are redefining their role in the marketing ecosystem. Major advertising holding companies are fundamentally transforming their business models from traditional media buying and creative services to AI-driven systems integration, proprietary identity data, and autonomous agentic execution.

“The agency’s role is no longer defined by media buying or creative talent. It’s being redefined around AI-powered platforms. The new competitive moats are data, identity, orchestration, compression, and activation,” according to Gerry Murray, research director, Enterprise Marketing Apps and Agents.

Best in Security and Trust: Taiwan Business Bank Leads the Way in Redefining Fraud Defense for the Digital Banking Era

Sakshi Grover, Charles Cedric Joshua Tamayo — Thu, 21 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses the Best in Security and Trust Award winner from the IDC Future Enterprise Awards in Asia/Pacific and showcases Taiwan Business Bank's Smart Antifraud Network and its role in advancing identity-centric, AI-driven fraud prevention to strengthen digital trust in banking.

"Taiwan Business Bank believes that digital trust starts with intelligent protection and human-centered design. The Smart Antifraud Network reflects this philosophy, combining AI detection, cross-sector collaboration, and user-centric innovation, such as the App Senior Version and Transfer Limit Lock, to proactively protect every customer. However, technology alone is not enough. That is why the bank also invests in employee education, AI alert systems, and more than 150 fraud education campaigns every year, ensuring that protection extends beyond tools into awareness and resilience. The bank's vision is clear: to build a zero-fraud society in which everyone — from seniors to youth, investors to entrepreneurs — can enjoy a secure and trusted digital banking experience," says Lawrence Tsai, general manager, Taiwan Business Bank.

"In an era defined by synthetic identities and AI-powered fraud, digital trust is being redefined at the intersection of identity, intelligence, and real-time decisioning. Taiwan Business Bank's Smart Antifraud Network demonstrates a shift from fragmented, control-based security to an integrated, identity-centric architecture that combines real-time behavioral analytics, AI-driven detection, and cross-ecosystem intelligence. By embedding controls across the log-in, transaction, and device layers and leveraging federated learning to enhance fraud detection without compromising data privacy, the bank establishes a scalable model for addressing synthetic identity and AI-driven fraud. This approach reflects how financial institutions can operationalize trust by aligning security, user experiences, and ecosystem collaboration into a unified, intelligence-driven framework," says Sakshi Grover, senior research manager, cybersecurity products and services, IDC.

CMO's Guide to Agent Identifiable Information, Part 1: A Data Schema for the Agent-Mediated Customer

Gerry Murray — Thu, 21 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective is the first one in the four-part CMO guide to agentic identifiable information (AII). It defines agentic identifiable information and specifies the data schema that the rest of the AII operating model depends on. It positions AII as a subset of PII; introduces the knowledge graph view of customer, agent, account, device, payment, content, and consent relationships; and lays out schema principles, AII data domains, and the minimum viable AII profile that should govern every investment in capture, processing, and activation.

"Like PII, AII will be foundational to determining which brands gain or lose share in agentic commerce and marketplaces; brands will be unable to compete without it. AII is structurally different than PII and will require new data fields and schema to operationalize, and given the unpredictable but certainly near-term dawn of agentic commerce, most brands will be hard pressed to prepare fully, leading to some awkward conversations in the boardroom for CMOs," according to Gerry Murray, research director, Enterprise Marketing Apps and Agents, IDC.

Corporate Social Responsibility Technology

Zachary Chertok, Dan Versace — Thu, 21 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) technologies are now essential for aligning business objectives with social, environmental, and compliance outcomes. With 93% of companies acknowledging institutional responsibility for CSR, these platforms are critical for tracking commitments, improving employee satisfaction, and enhancing brand value. Adoption is strongest among large organizations, driven by compliance, operational efficiency, and stakeholder engagement, though challenges remain around buy-in and standardization. Effective CSR technology investment — recommended at 1–5% of employee experience and 1–3% of operational budgets — delivers measurable value, including improved ESAT, collaboration, and revenue outcomes. Key metrics for success include cost optimization, efficiency, quality, and audit readiness, with centralized platforms enabling transparency and compliance across diverse geographies. However, risks such as fragmented integration, compliance failures, and IT talent shortages can undermine impact if CSR is treated as an add-on rather than a strategic pillar. Success depends on embedding CSR into executive strategy, cross-functional collaboration, robust technology adoption, and effective partner selection. Leading solutions, such as Benevity, Blackbaud, Goodera, and CyberGrants, exemplify the market. Ultimately, CSR must be core to business transformation, driving measurable value and brand strength in an environment where responsibility is nonnegotiable.

"When CSR is treated as an add-on, its impact is diluted — true business transformation demands CSR be embedded at the core, driving measurable value, compliance, and brand strength in a world where responsibility is no longer optional," says Dan Versace, research analyst, Environmental, Social, and Governance Business Services.