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2026 Strategy for Software Delivery: Mandates, Tactical Priorities, and Tech Investment Areas

George Mironescu — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation discusses the key software engineering mandates and technology investment areas for 2026. The presentation draws on insights from over 1,000 decision-makers surveyed from November 2025 to January 2026 for IDC's AI and Cloud-Native Software Delivery Survey.

The presentation provides insights into the thinking of various roles involved in shipping software, including application development, solution architecture, infrastructure and platform engineering, security, and IT leadership.

Drawing from 2025 initiatives and areas where delivery gaps persist, the presentation informs senior IT leaders about the most important tactical and strategic priorities shaping the agenda in 2026 and beyond.

A Unified Approach to AI Governance in K-12 Education

Matthew Leger — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines how unified AI governance can help K-12 districts harness AI to improve student outcomes, educator effectiveness, and operational efficiency while managing escalating legal, ethical, and security risks. It adapts IDC's unified AI governance model to K-12, outlining how strategy and oversight, organization and culture, core governance processes, and AI technology architecture work together to align AI use with student protections, community expectations, and global regulatory requirements. Drawing on case studies from leading districts worldwide, the report highlights practical steps for building cross-functional governance structures, establishing robust data and infrastructure foundations, balancing risk management with space for innovation, and embedding sustainability and responsible AI outcomes into everyday decision-making. It concludes with concrete recommendations for technology buyers on using procurement, support structures, and professional learning as levers to move from fragmented, reactive AI responses toward a coherent, districtwide governance framework.

"AI will not wait for schools to be ready, which is why K-12 leaders must treat governance as infrastructure, not insurance," says Matthew Leger, senior research manager, Worldwide Education and EdTech Digital Strategies, IDC. He also adds, "Districts that invest now in unified AI governance turn uncertainty into a strategic asset, building the trust, capacity, and technical foundations they need to scale AI in ways that are safe for students and sustainable for their communities."

AI-Powered Tools and Best Practices to Minimize Financial Crime in Corporate Banking

Maria Adele Di Comite — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective explores how AI-powered tools and best practices are transforming financial crime prevention in corporate banking. As adoption of instant payments and digital banking accelerates, banks face mounting regulatory and operational pressures to detect and mitigate fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes. Leveraging AI-powered advanced tools, continuous monitoring, and ecosystem collaboration, banks can enhance compliance, reduce losses, and strengthen trust, while adapting to evolving threats and regulatory requirements in a complex, high-velocity financial environment.

"In the race between instant banking and financial crime, AI-powered vigilance can ensure trust, compliance, and security in the digital corporate banking era to help banks fight financial crime," said Maria Adele Di Comite, research manager, IDC Financial Insights.

Adobe 1Q26 Earnings: Enterprise AI Is a Resilient Moat

Gerry Murray — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Adobe announced its FY 1Q26 earnings results on March 12, 2026, reporting continued growth across its three audience segments: business professionals and consumers, creators and creative professionals, and marketing professionals. The results highlight how generative and agentic AI capabilities are increasingly embedded across Adobe's product portfolio, enabling enterprises to accelerate digital content production, streamline marketing workflows, and deliver personalized customer experiences (CX) at scale.

Agentic AI Business Value Maximization Framework: A Practical Guide for IT Leaders to Unlock Business Value from Agentic AI

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation introduces IDC's Agentic AI Business Value Maximization Framework, a structured approach designed to help organizations effectively measure, manage, and maximize the business value of agentic AI investments. It addresses a key market challenge — difficulty in quantifying AI ROI — by expanding the focus from traditional return metrics to a broader, multi-dimensional view of value creation. The framework is built on six core pillars (strategy, use case prioritization, value mapping, cost modeling, risk adjustment, and continuous optimization) and provides practical guidance, tools, and governance models for IT and business leaders. Ultimately, this presentation positions agentic AI value realization as an enterprisewide responsibility, where CIOs and business stakeholders collaborate to align AI initiatives with measurable financial, operational, and strategic outcomes.

Braze Closes FY26 with Strong Fourth Quarter as Enterprise AI and Cross-Channel Engagement Drive Momentum

Gerry Murray — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Braze reported fourth-quarter revenue of $205.2 million, up 28% year over year, contributing to $738.2 million in full-year revenue (24% YoY). Growth was accompanied by improving profitability, with non-GAAP operating income of $14.5 million and $13.9 million in free cash flow in the quarter.Cofounder and CEO Bill Magnuson framed the quarter as part of a broader inflection point: large, sophisticated enterprises are increasingly standardizing on Braze as a foundational platform for AI-driven customer engagement.

CIO Peer Perspective — Exploring Evolving C-Suite Dynamics Between the CIO and CMO

Teodora Snoddy, Sudhir Rajagopal — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses CIO peer perspective on exploring evolving C-suite dynamics between the CIO and CMO. To examine the evolving relationship between the CIO and CMO in the era of AI-fueled business, we brought together IDC's CIO Research Advisory Board and our subject matter expert, Sudhir Rajagopal, research director of the CMO Advisory Practice. In the discussion, we analyzed the new expectations for the role of the CIO and CMO and how they must work together to succeed.

"AI-fueled business is reshaping dynamics across the executive layer. Both the CIO and CMO roles are expanding beyond their traditional mandates, and for their partnership to succeed, the CIO must go beyond IT metrics and center on revenue enablement," said Teodora Snoddy, research manager, IDC.

Enterprise Core Platforms: Stewardship, Integration Risk, and Strategic CIO Decisions

Clay Miller — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective maintains that most organizations are solving the wrong problem in core platform decisions. By treating these commitments as onetime procurement events that optimize for current feature sets and initial pricing, enterprises defer the governance decisions that will actually determine long-term outcomes. In an environment where more than half of organizations are considering switching their primary ERP or CRM vendor, where 68% of CIOs are running active vendor consolidation initiatives, and where 40% of organizations are already projected to miss their 2026 AI goals because of implementation complexity and governance gaps, the cost of this deferral is rising sharply.

The document provides a stewardship framework organized around three phases of the platform life cycle: the point of commitment, the transition period, and ongoing operations after go live. It identifies the four internal capabilities that disciplined platform stewardship requires: integration governance authority, strategic vendor relationship management, active contract management expertise, and a defined AI governance architecture. It also identifies the four architectural warning signals that indicate strategic control is being lost faster than governance can track. Drawing on the BFSI sector as the most extensively documented proof of concept for long-term platform stewardship, and cross-referencing findings from IDC's concurrent research on agent vetting, IT operating model design, and enterprise software replacement, the document provides actionable guidance applicable across manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and the public sector.

"Platform decisions are increasingly measured in months and years, not decades," says Clay Miller, adjunct research analyst, IT Executive Programs (IEP), IDC. "AI-first delivery and agentic automation are compressing enterprise planning horizons. CIOs must treat platform stewardship as a strategic discipline, supported by a clear framework for platform decisions, to preserve control over platform integration and automation economics as consolidation continues to accelerate."

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide People Analytics and Performance-Driven Workforce Planning 2026 Vendor Assessment

Zachary Chertok — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study looks at the field of vendors driving buyers to maturity in performance-backed workforce planning and placement from different points of entry in each component space. People analytics now form half the basis for how organizations are looking to better understand how they can organize skills on hand to optimize workforce performance against business expectations. Qualitative context in people analytics supports workforce operational optimization in quantitative and performance-driven workforce planning. Behavioral insights help HR leaders and line-of-business (LOB) managers discern who is right for working groups and teams from the pool of candidates with the right current and potential skill sets to close competency gaps across organizational change and transformation.

"The drive to continuous workforce planning is increasingly tying in performance context through insights from people analytics to ensure that individual skills contributions are optimized within skills supply as the organization changes and transforms," says Zachary Chertok, senior research manager for HCM Applications and Agents at IDC, "As demand for qualitative and quantitative insights assimilation grows, technology vendors must tune themselves to the types of buyer that pair best with their solutions. Variable insights and data maturity coupled with varying degrees of planning competency conspire to categorize buyers differently relative to what service, support, and guidance they will need from their vendor partner."

IDC PeerScape: Peer Insights for Accelerating AI-Driven Underwriting Transformation in Insurance

Inci Kaya — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

"Insurers that leverage AI to automate specialty underwriting and endorsement processing are achieving measurable gains in speed, accuracy, and compliance. The shift from manual research to unified, data-enriched profiles empowers underwriters to make confident decisions and strengthens broker relationships. As regulatory scrutiny intensifies, explainable AI and robust audit trails will be key differentiators in the insurance landscape." — Inci Kaya IDC Research Manager, Digital Strategies - Insurance Worldwide