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From Assisted to Autonomous: Blue Yonder Bets Retail on the Cognitive Operating Model at ICON 2026

Ananda Chakravarty — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses Blue Yonder’s ICON 2026, held in San Diego (May 17–20). The event marked the third act of a three-year arc. The company now makes every deployment agentic from day one. The deeper message is that Cognitive is an operating model change, not a software upgrade. For retailers, it lands squarely on availability, full-price sell-through, merchandising, and omni-channel fulfillment. IDC organizes the week into four themes that mirror the decisions leaders now face. This document also examines the gamble Blue Yonder is making, why it framed the move as an operating model change rather than a software upgrade, and what it means for retail leaders.

“ICON 2026 made the strategy unmistakable. Blue Yonder is betting the company on Cognitive and treating it as an operating model change rather than a software upgrade. For retailers, this bet aligns across availability, sell-through, and the shelf. But the customers onstage were refreshingly blunt — the real work is not the tech but redesigning the roles and fixing the data to make agentic work,” says Ananda “Andy” Chakravarty, VP research, IDC Retail Insights.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled Financial Governance, Risk, and Compliance 2026 Vendor Assessment

Heather Herbst — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study evaluates 11 leading vendors in the worldwide AI-enabled financial governance, risk, and compliance (FGRC) market for 2026, focusing on solutions relevant to the Office of the CFO. The assessment highlights the shift of FGRC from a compliance cost to a strategic capability, emphasizing platform breadth, automation maturity, and AI integration. It provides comparative insights into vendor strengths, challenges, and strategic fit, guiding CFOs in selecting platforms that align with evolving regulatory, risk, and business continuity needs.

"Financial governance, risk, and compliance has shifted from cost center to strategic advantage. CFOs who master FGRC technology will define the future of resilient finance." — Heather Herbst, research director, CFO Buyer Insights

IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: AI-Fueled Organization in APAC, 2026

Xiao Liu — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

AI has moved from the periphery of the technology agenda to the center of enterprise strategy, yet scaling AI remains challenging. Many organizations continue to struggle to translate investments into measurable business value, and the rapid rise of agentic AI is adding a new layer of complexity to deployments. The AI-fueled organization is one in which strategy, governance, people, and technology are orchestrated so that intelligence is embedded across the operating model rather than confined to isolated pilots, supporting the full spectrum of AI technologies, including descriptive, interpretive, predictive, generative, agentic, and physical AI.

This IDC study presents the Asia/Pacific results from IDC’s MaturityScape Benchmark AI Survey, released in May 2026 across 1,900 organizations worldwide, of which 790 are based in Asia/Pacific. It is the updated edition of IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: AI-Fueled Organization Worldwide, 2025 (IDC #US53271725, March 2025) and applies the framework set out in the 2026 definition report IDC MaturityScape: AI-Fueled Organization 2.0 (IDC #US54450625, April 2026). The most significant change this year is the elevation of governance to a distinct fourth dimension alongside strategy, people, and technology, recognizing that trust, risk management, and responsible AI practices have become prerequisites for scaling AI. The benchmark assesses enterprise maturity across five stages and four dimensions, intended to guide line-of-business leaders, C-suite executives, and the IT and data organizations that enable the AI agenda, helping them understand where they stand relative to peers and prioritize moves that accelerate progress the most. Key findings in this benchmark study are:

Only 2.5% of organizations in Asia/Pacific have reached the most mature optimized stage, and just 9.3% have progressed to the two most advanced stages (managed or optimized), both below the worldwide averages of 3.1% and 12.8%, respectively. Becoming an AI-fueled organization is achievable, but in Asia/Pacific, it remains a sustained journey rather than the product of a single deployment.
Two-thirds of organizations in Asia/Pacific (65.9%) remain in the two least mature stages (i.e., ad hoc and opportunistic), which is a heavier concentration than the worldwide figure of 61.3%, underscoring how much foundational work in strategy, governance, and data still lies ahead before AI can deliver enterprisewide value across the region.
Asia/Pacific’s mean maturity score rose only modestly to 2.35 in 2026 from 2.29 in 2025, which trails the worldwide mean of 2.43. The near-flat result suggests that while the AI market is evolving at extraordinary speed, execution in the region is not keeping pace. The broad middle remains stuck in the early stages even as expectations, tooling, and competitive pressure escalate. The bright spot is at the top, where the share of organizations reaching the optimized stage climbed from 0.2% to 2.5%, which evidence that a small leading cohort in Asia/Pacific is beginning to separate from the pack even as the broad middle advances slowly.

IDC’s Worldwide Digital Transformation Use Case Taxonomy, 2026: Water Industry

Roberta Bigliani, Gaia Gallotti, Jean-François Segalotto, John Villali — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation provides a structured framework for mapping the strategic technology transformation underway across the water industry. It organizes the full landscape of digital and operational capabilities into a three-tier hierarchy (9 strategic priorities, 59 programs, and approximately 256 use cases) that spans the entire water value chain, from water abstraction and treatment to network distribution, wastewater and stormwater management, and customer engagement.

Each use case is assigned to one of three investment horizons based on current industry adoption rates from IDC’s Energy and Utilities Survey (March 2026). Horizon 1 covers mature, mainstream capabilities, with over 50% of utilities already investing; Horizon 2 captures emerging capabilities, with adoption scaling to 20–50%; and Horizon 3 identifies early-stage, exploratory areas, with adoption below 20%.

The goal is to provide water utility executives, technology leaders, and their vendor and advisory partners with a comprehensive, evidence-based map that answers three questions at once: what capabilities the industry must master to navigate water industry transformation, how those capabilities organize into coherent investment domains, and where each falls on the maturity curve. This enables capital, talent, and technology decisions to be prioritized against a shared industry benchmark and ad hoc internal assessments to be deployed more effectively.

Agentic Orchestration Becomes the Operating Model of Advertising in 2026

Alex Holtz — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines how agentic AI orchestration platforms (Publicis Groupe's CoreAI, Omnicom's Flywheel + Annalect AI, and WPP Media Open Intelligence) are turning closed-loop advertising into a business cycle flywheel for the 2026–2030 window. It quantifies the device foundation (mobile + CTV) and channel overlays (social and retail media networks) against the worldwide 2025–2030 forecast, maps the ecosystem partners that close the loop (Amazon, Walmart Connect, TTD, LiveRamp, Vizio, Samsung, YouTube/Google TV), and frames three reusable archetype activation stacks (archetype 1, Amazon + Roku, championed by Omnicom; archetype 2, Walmart–Vizio, championed by Publicis Groupe, and archetype 3, walled garden + clean room, championed by WPP Media) that buyers can use to choose a primary closed-loop architecture and the agency of record that follows from it. This document also flags the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) and live event streaming measurement gap, assesses the impact of the 2025 Omnicom–IPG combination on holding company concentration, and May 2026 Publicis Groupe–LiveRamp announcement on the identity layer. It also introduces the independent advisor layer: management consulting practices outside the holding companies that help buyers build and run commerce media businesses on their own terms, with McKinsey & Company's commerce media practice as the neutral advisor case in point and Accenture Song as the hybrid advisory and execution alternative.

"The closed loop is no longer a thesis; it is the operating model. Picking a primary archetype, such as Amazon + Roku, Walmart–Vizio, or walled garden + clean room, is now the same decision as picking an agency of record. Advertisers that make the pick deliberately will pull further ahead of those who run all three in parallel every quarter the flywheel turns," says Alex Holtz, research director on worldwide media and entertainment digital strategies, IDC.

Alphabet 2Q26 Results: AI Investments Drive Commercial Returns

Matthew Eastwood, Dave McCarthy — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Alphabet reported 2Q26 earnings on July 22, delivering another strong quarter as the company's multiyear AI investments increasingly translated into accelerating commercial momentum. Revenue grew 24% year over year to $119.8 billion, marking Alphabet's 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, while operating income increased 30% to $40.8 billion with operating margin remaining a robust 34.0%. Net income increased significantly, driven primarily by $98 billion in unrealized gains on equity securities.

How Do You Substantiate the Value of AI in Your Organization?

Heather Herbst — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective highlights the critical need for finance organizations to establish a clear, data-driven baseline before deploying AI agents. Without a pre-deployment measurement of current processes, claims of AI-driven value lack credibility and cannot withstand board scrutiny. The document outlines a disciplined, KPI-based approach to quantifying agent impact, ensuring that efficiency, quality, and risk improvements are real, measurable, and defensible for CFOs and technology buyers.

"You can't measure the future without measuring the present. Without a baseline, every claim of AI value is just a story, not evidence." — Heather Herbst, research director, CFO Buyer Insights at IDC

IDC MaturityScape: Enterprise Architecture 2.0

Serge Findling, Rob Baigert — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC MaturityScape provides a comprehensive framework for guiding the evolution of enterprise architecture (EA). Designed for CIOs, C-suite executives, senior IT executives, enterprise architects, and business leaders, it defines five stages of EA maturity — from ad hoc (architecture in silos) to optimized (adaptive architecture) — assessed across five critical dimensions: vision, strategy, and value realization; adaptive architecture and delivery; technology platforms and digital ecosystems; trusted processes, risk, and resilience; and people, collaboration, and EA operating model. This framework allows organizations to assess their current state and chart a purposeful path to reach their desired maturity level.

"Architecture maturity is ultimately measured by one key factor: pivot velocity. This refers to the speed at which an enterprise can reallocate its technical assets, redefine strategic targets, and adapt smoothly to changing market demands," explains Serge Findling, adjunct research advisor for IDC's IT Executive Programs (IEP). "Effective CIOs utilize enterprise architecture to transform technology from a series of projects into a unified capability for growth, resilience, and innovation."

Saucy, Audacious, and Human: Winning in the Era of Intelligent Collaboration

Wayne Kurtzman — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses how the worldwide collaboration applications market continues to grow, yet many enterprises struggle to convert tools into tangible collaborative success. IDC's research reveals that effective collaboration hinges on three interconnected elements: a culture that prioritizes people over process, a highly integrated stack of collaborative applications grounded in AI capabilities, and continuous learning, often through peer mentoring and modeling. This research shows how companies are winning at collaboration, and how their collaborative technology stack and cultures are evolving their businesses.

"Culture eats everything. The secret sauce isn't hiding in the latest collaboration technology; it's in how you empower your workforce to collaborate and upskill to make the latest technology your market advantage," says Wayne Kurtzman, research vice president of Social, Communities and Collaboration at IDC. "Companies integrating AI with their core systems, including the collaboration platforms, and upskilling their workforce are creating new revenue streams. They are using collaborative environments with trust and experimentation to make their own market advantage."

The Open Imperative

Marlanna Harrington — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines the maturation of open table formats as the default foundation for enterprise data platforms and the governance challenges that have emerged above the storage layer. The document covers the open table format landscape, the emerging Open Semantic Interchange standard, catalog interoperability dynamics, and the implications of agentic AI for data consistency and semantic governance.

"Open table formats have settled the storage question. The harder work is now above the format layer, governing catalogs, anchoring semantic definitions, and ensuring that AI agents query data that is consistent, trusted, and auditable," said Marlanna Harrington, senior research analyst, Data Platforms, IDC.