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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 Market Glance: FinOps Cloud Transparency, 2Q26

Jevin Jensen — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Glance is updated for 2026. It offers a graphical representation of financial operations (FinOps) cloud cost providers and vendors in the marketplace by product category. This overview illustrates key segments of the overall FinOps cloud cost transparency market, including FinOps software companies, hyperscalers, service providers, and niche vendors. The three main segments are AI, cloud IaaS, pricing optimizations; container optimizations; and SaaS management. Each segment includes most of the key players in cloud cost transparency for FinOps.

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

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.

Esri Positions Location as Core Context for the AI-Era Data Estate at the 2026 User Conference

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

At its 2026 User Conference in San Diego (July 13–17), Esri drew more than 18,000 attendees around the theme "GIS: creating a more intelligent world." The company wove AI across ArcGIS in three layers: AI assistants for everyday workflows, AI tools and models, and agentic AI that exposes authoritative GIS content to external agents through Model Context Protocol (MCP). Esri also introduced ArcGIS for ServiceNow, extended real-time capabilities with Velocity on ArcGIS Enterprise, and reinforced digital twins and cloud data warehouse integration. IDC views location as a critical but still under-exploited input to the enterprise data and decisioning estate, one the AI shift could finally push from the periphery toward the core. Esri's challenge is converting breadth into governed, integrated production systems rather than another data silo.

Galaxy Unpacked July 2026: Samsung Widens the Foldable Portfolio and Braces for Apple

Francisco Jeronimo, Nabila Popal, Ramon T. Llamas — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

At Galaxy Unpacked in London on July 22, 2026, Samsung launched three foldables at the same event for the first time, in its most consequential book-style redesign in seven years: the wide, passport-format Galaxy Z Fold8 at $1,899, the taller Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra at $2,099, and the Galaxy Z Flip8 at $1,199, joined by the Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and a brief on-stage tease of Samsung's Android XR "Galaxy Glasses." Samsung is moving early to define a new book-style format on its own terms and to make higher prices stick through a memory-driven cost cycle, with the decisive test still two months away, when Apple is expected to bring foldables into the mainstream and reset the category's economics. This IDC Link will cover the foldables lineup.

IBM Quantum to Acquire HRL Laboratories, Expanding Its Quantum Technology Portfolio and Developmental Roadmap

Heather West, PhD — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The acquisition of HRL Laboratories by IBM Quantum (further referred to as IBM) reflects a shift toward acquiring, rather than solely developing in-house, the complementary technologies needed to scale quantum computing beyond a single hardware modality. The deal adds silicon-spin qubits, quantum sensing, and advanced materials expertise to a growing set of IBM investments that increasingly resemble the foundation of a full-stack, distributed quantum computing infrastructure.

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.

Agents at Work: Salesforce CNX26 and What the Agentic Platform Looks Like in Production

Dorothy Creamer — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses Salesforce Connections 2026 (CNX26) and what the agentic platform looks like in production. At CNX26, Salesforce demonstrated an agentic enterprise platform spanning marketing, commerce, and service on its Customer 360 foundation. The June release for Agentforce Commerce and the acquisitions of Cimulate and Contentful extend that scope for retail, hospitality, and travel operators, adding composable commerce, intent-aware search, and enterprise content on a unified architecture. The primary challenge for buyers is not platform selection but the data readiness and organizational work that must precede deployment.

“Salesforce built its CNX26 presence around a unified story for agentic commerce backed by live production evidence. This refresh provides a pathway for intent-aware search, dynamic content, and composable storefronts, giving retail, hospitality, and travel operators a credible entry to the conversational, contextual commerce experience guests increasingly expect,” says Dorothy Creamer, senior research manager, Hospitality and Travel Digital Strategies, IDC. “What the platform does not provide is a shortcut around data quality. The strategic message for hospitality and travel operators is clear: Get your guest and transaction data unified, because the platform is ready to use it.”