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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.”

A Strategic Approach to Asset Life-Cycle Management

John Villali — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines the strategic imperative for utilities to adopt an integrated, cloud-enabled approach to asset life-cycle management that encompasses enterprise asset management (EAM), asset performance management (APM), and field service management (FSM). Drawing on IDC Energy Insights research and market intelligence across the utility sector, this document defines the distinct purpose and strategic importance of each platform, articulates the operational and financial case for their integration, and provides actionable guidance for utility technology and operations leaders navigating ALM investment decisions in an environment of aging infrastructure, accelerating energy transition initiatives, and rising regulatory accountability.

“Utilities can no longer afford to manage their assets through fragmented, siloed systems. The integration of EAM, APM, and FSM into a unified, cloud-enabled asset life-cycle management architecture is the strategic foundation that positions utilities to manage aging infrastructure with precision, execute energy transition initiatives successfully, and demonstrate the operational and financial accountability that regulators, investors, and customers demand,” said John Villali, senior research director, IDC Energy Insights.

Technology Strategies Empowering the Clinical Trial Site of the Future

Nimita Limaye — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines the technology strategies that will empower the clinical trial site of the future. It maps the key challenges sites face today (burden, recruitment, fragmented data), the evolving technologies reshaping site operations (GenAI; agentic AI; econsent, esource, and EHR-to-EDC interoperability; and unified eclinical platforms), and the perceived risks (data integrity, bias, privacy, equity, and hallucinations) that gate scale. It profiles a representative vendor landscape and looks ahead to disruptive capabilities, from self-driving trials to digital twins to point-of-care research.

"The trial site of the future will be defined less by any single tool and more by how well sites transition from the existing 'point-solution tsunami' to unified AI-enabled platforms and by how technology disappears into clinical workflows, freeing site teams to focus on patients," says Dr. Nimita Limaye, research vice president, Life Sciences R&D Strategy and Technology at IDC.

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.

BMC's July Release Lays the Foundation for Agentic AI with Governed MCP Access

Matthew Flug, Jim Mercer — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

BMC Software's July 2026 release establishes a governed foundation that prepares organizations for future agentic capabilities by connecting the Control-M and BMC AMI portfolios to live operational data as Model Context Protocol (MCP) clients. By making governance, visibility, and auditability preconditions for how agents will come to access production systems, the release lays the groundwork for control for BMC's stated goal of governed, agentic mainframe operations, an end state the company is building toward.

IDC PlanScape: Digital Sovereignty for Regional and Local Governments

Alison Brooks, Ph.D., Ruthbea Yesner — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC PlanScape gives regional and local government IT leaders a framework for understanding, evaluating, and operationalizing digital sovereignty. It also gives technology vendors the buyer context they need to engage effectively with government clients. The guidance draws on IDC survey data, industry research, and conversations with government technology leaders globally. Three key findings shape the document. First, sovereignty for regional and local government centers on access control, legal authority, and auditability — enforceable controls matter more than where data is physically hosted. Second, most government IT estates span workloads with different sensitivity, risk, and regulatory profiles, making a multimodel sovereignty strategy the practical norm. Third, AI governance has become part of a sovereignty strategy: across all regulated industries IDC surveyed, increasing control over AI model governance and transparency was the leading driver of sovereign cloud adoption for AI workloads.

“The governments that will get sovereignty right are not the ones that deploy the most restrictive controls everywhere; they are the ones that know exactly which workloads require them and have the contracts, audit infrastructure, and organizational processes to prove it,” said Alison Brooks, research VP, WW Smart Cities and Spaces.

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.

The Technology Adoption Divide: How Energy Technology Ownership Reshapes the Customer Relationship

Gaia Gallotti — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation demonstrates that energy technology adoption not only helps customers manage their bills; it also fundamentally reshapes their relationship with their energy provider. To a dramatic extent, customers who have invested in energy technologies are more satisfied, more interested in further investment, and more willing to trust their provider to actively manage their energy. They are, in short, better customers by every metric that matters. Customers without technology are the opposite: dissatisfied, disengaged, and increasingly at risk of being left behind as the transition accelerates around them.

IDC’s 2026 Energy Consumer Affordability & Trust Survey, conducted among 1,507 energy customers in 18 countries, suggests that the prize for doing so is greater than many utilities may realize.

The opportunity for utilities is to recognize this divide as the most actionable segmentation variable in their customer portfolios and to design product bundling, go-to-market strategies, and service models that move customers through the adoption curve deliberately. The technology is affordable. The customer appetite is there. What remains is the strategy to connect the two.

Healthy Organizational Alignment Around Security Risk, Responsibility, and Prioritization

Joel Sandin — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective provides a framework by which organizations can assess their security initiatives against three pillars: risk, responsibility, and prioritization.

What causes IT security efforts to struggle? While organizations can point to the wrong technology choice or deployment issues, many efforts falter even when the technology used is sound. These initiatives suffer from more insidious issues around alignment, and the effects can be more destructive and harder to diagnose without dedicated effort. A failure to align a given effort and establish consensus on risk, responsibility, and priority among all involved parties can impede or kill security efforts long before any solutions are deployed.

Alignment issues manifest in three key areas. Some failures begin with misaligned efforts that focus on the wrong risk, fail to account for the full scope of the problem, or misjudge the business’ risk tolerance. Similarly, poor accounting of the authority and responsibility of the people involved can lead to failures to engage the right parties and effect change. Finally, prioritization errors can miss the mark entirely.

Solid technical execution won’t make up for these insidious issues. What’s worse, these challenges are pervasive: They can manifest strategically, but they are also present in everyday interaction and smaller efforts. Despite the importance of alignment, many IT organizations fail to take a structured approach to assessing the health of these factors. In this report, we identify pillars of successful security alignment, illustrate what can go wrong when they are not consistently in place, and present a simple, tactical assessment framework to identify and correct gaps in security efforts.

“Most security efforts present challenges due to misalignment, and the nature of security work makes these issues more the rule than the exception,” said Joel Sandin, adjunct research advisor for IDC’s IT Executive Programs (IEP). “Building consensus and clarity around the risk being addressed, accounting for key operational responsibilities and approvals needed, and thoughtful prioritization around risk reduction can avoid costly pitfalls and put security efforts of any scale on a path to success.”

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Virtual Events Applications 2026 Vendor Assessment

Wayne Kurtzman — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study highlights a rapidly evolving market, shaped by shifting buyer and attendee expectations, aggressive vendor road maps, and significant industry consolidation. Geopolitical pressures and economic uncertainty are driving a resurgence in virtual events, as is the need to maintain a fresh revenue pipeline. AI-related features, especially those focused on intent and content development, were prioritized over non-AI features, but that pendulum is swinging back toward the middle. Buyers now demand advanced AI capabilities, seamless CRM and application integrations, and, most critically, richer engagement formats with outcome-based metrics. As browser tracking cookies phase out, first-party data from virtual events and community platforms is gaining newfound importance. This study, based on interviews with vendors and customers, evaluates their products, strengths, and challenges, and when to consider them.

"People are not attending in-person events at the same rate as before, yet when virtual events provide ways to engage attendees and allow them to connect with the people they need to, they can energize a brand," according to Wayne Kurtzman, research vice president, Social, Communities and Collaboration, IDC. "People do not want a broadcast; they want a meaningful engagement experience. Many vendors are now providing products that enable client organizations to grow."