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Claude Cowork Legal Plugin: Assessing the Impact to CLM

Patrick Reymann, Ryan O’Leary — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

Anthropic’s Claude Cowork Legal Plugin introduces lowcost, AIdriven contract triage, redlining, and playbook execution for inhouse legal teams, reframing expectations for “AI for contracts” without replacing endtoend CLM. While its utilitystyle pricing and review capabilities challenge CLM vendors that rely on generic AI review as a differentiator, it does not address the broader lifecycle needs that CLM platforms serve. The plugin is best understood as a specialized legal utility and potential onramp that may push more organizations toward full CLM adoption and integration. CLM providers will need to respond by evolving their pricing and positioning toward outcomebased value across the full contract lifecycle.

Google-Apple Partnership: Will the Next Siri Update Open an Agentic Market of More than 2 Billion Shoppers?

Gerry Murray, Tapan Patel, Ornella Urso — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses the Google–Apple partnership, which marks a pivotal shift toward agentic commerce with the potential to transform Siri into a seamless gateway to Google's expansive retail AI network. This collaboration is set to replatform digital commerce, driving frictionless, AI-mediated shopping experiences across billions of devices and compelling brands to rapidly adapt their infrastructure and strategies to remain competitive in an evolving, intent-driven marketplace.

IDC Market Glance: Collaborative Product Innovation, 1Q26

John Snow — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Glance provides an overview of the collaborative product innovation market, covering the following innovation segments: early-stage development, design and virtualization, product innovation platforms, service providers, commercialization, and social communities. Although technology vendors and service providers may supply more than one product or offering to the market, only the parent corporation is listed.

OpenClaw Hints at New Class of Assistant But Requires Caution for Now

Nancy Gohring, Maureen Fleming, Tim Law, Shari Lava, David Schubmehl — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

Originally called Clawdbot, then Moltbot and now OpenClaw, this new breed of AI assistant is the latest technology to take the AI world by storm. Enterprises should tread very carefully for now but take inspiration from the possibilities that OpenClaw presents.

Partner Ecosystems in Transition: Highlights from IDC’s 4Q25 Partner Advisory Board Session

Andreas Storz, Stuart Wilson — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note summarizes key themes and insights from the 4Q25 session of IDC’s U.K. Partner Advisory Board (PAB). Anonymized quotes capture partner sentiment and provide a lens into ecosystem dynamics in 2026.

Retail Digital Infrastructure Today: AI and Data Imperatives Fuel Big Shifts in IT Spending

Margot Juros — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation covers key IT spending shifts and trends as retailers face a fast-changing/volatile landscape with macroeconomic uncertainties and heightened customer expectations and demands. Retailers are shifting investment to modernized infrastructure (cloud/edge, AI, networking, data) and connected/integrated systems and solutions needed to enable the greater agility, efficiency, and innovation that today's landscape demands for competitive success.

The AI Basic Act: Enterprise Implications and Opportunities for the Korean and Asia/Pacific Technology Ecosystem

Sakshi Grover, Yih Khai Wong, Min Kim — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

The AI Basic Act introduces mandatory obligations for Korean enterprises, including human oversight, risk management, user notification and accountability for high-impact AI implementations in industries such as healthcare, transportation and public sector services.

For Asia/Pacific enterprises, the AI Basic Act is enforceable even without a physical Korean presence, as long as AI services are delivered Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), platforms or models that are accessible in Korea.

The introduction of the AI Basic Act underscore Korea's dual strategy of regulating and promoting AI services to strengthen industry competitiveness, especially in the Asia/Pacific region. While there might be compliance costs, the Act provides strong governmental support through AI infrastructure, data access, talent programs and procurement incentives.

API Considerations for Procurement Application Providers and Buyers

Patrick Reymann — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note discusses the procurement application sector that is undergoing a major transformation driven by GenAI and AI agents, which are shifting teams from manual tasks to strategic, data-driven roles. The full potential of these AI agents depends on robust, flexible, and secure API connectivity, which enables seamless data exchange and real-time orchestration across platforms. APIs are now essential for integrating autonomous agents, automating workflows, and enhancing agility in sourcing — making open, interoperable architectures a competitive necessity. Buyers face challenges in evaluating API quality, documentation, security, and pricing, while providers must balance openness with control and profitability. Both sides must prioritize transparency, scalability, and support to maximize value and minimize risk. Ultimately, API connectivity is the foundation for innovation and resilience in procurement, and those that embrace agentic integration will lead the industry's evolution toward smarter, more efficient supply management.

Brother Bids for Mutoh

Tim Greene — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This week Brother announced that it has made a bid to acquire Mutoh as part of its strategy to grow its industrial printing business. This IDC Link comments on the potential for the acquisition.

CoreWeave ARENA and the Shift Toward Production-Ready AI Labs

Dave McCarthy — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

As the AI industry transitions from the era of experimental "sandbox" research to large-scale commercial deployment, a critical friction point has emerged: the discrepancy between synthetic benchmarks and real-world production performance. CoreWeave's announcement of CoreWeave ARENA (AI-Ready Native Applications) represents a strategic shift in the cloud infrastructure market.

ARENA is a production-ready AI lab designed to provide "evidence before production." By mirroring live settings, including complex orchestration, high-throughput storage, and InfiniBand networking, ARENA allows enterprises to validate workload performance and cost certainty before committing to massive infrastructure investments.