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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

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.

新型企业级AI平台正在兴起

Yanxia Lu — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

本IDC市场演示文稿从企业级AI平台视角呈现了当前AI与智能体应用的全景图。研究发现，企业级AI平台正经历七大核心变化：从”技术玩具”走向”运营资产”，从单点问答演变为嵌入核心业务流，从应用孤岛转向统一AI底座，从人操作软件演进为人智协同，从绑定单一模型走向多模型动态路由，从IT主导交付变为业务自助构建，治理意识从事后补课前置为贯穿全栈。

面对未来建设，企业需重点关注六大方向：治理与安全必须前置贯穿；数据质量与语义化是AI效果的天花板；成本需精细管控到任务级；避免被单一供应商锁定；能力建设应遵循渐进路径，不可跳步；业务与IT融合及人才建设是关键保障。

平台建设应包含六层架构：AI基础层（多模型接入、算力管理）、数据层（数据编织、知识库体系）、智能体开发层（Agent平台、工作流编排）、流程与业务层（BPM融合、数字员工）、应用入口层（统一门户、场景化应用），以及治理安全层（可观测性、权限、成本治理）。

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 covers 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."