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Dreamforce 2026: The Agentic Enterprise Comes to Life

Mickey North Rizza — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Salesforce held its annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, CA on September 14-17^th, 2026. The event was well attended with at least 43,000 on site and thousands online for the key notes.

IDC Survey Spotlight: How Are Enterprises Using GenAI Across Each Stage of the Content Life Cycle?

Jordan Jewell — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight examines how enterprises are applying generative AI (GenAI) across 11 stages of the content life cycle, from planning and ideation to distribution and repurposing. The results, from IDC's June 2026 CX Path Survey, reveal near-universal adoption but significant variation in whether organizations use GenAI to improve efficiency or outcomes — or both.

IDC Survey: 2026 CIO Sentiment Survey Part 4 — Technology Purchasing Process and Partner Selection

Martina Longo — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey examines how CIOs and CTOs approach technology purchasing, procurement, and partner selection, based on responses from IDC's May 2026 Worldwide CIO Sentiment Survey.

This report covers who drives the sourcing process, what triggers a purchase, where CIOs and CTOs engage across the buying journey, what criteria are used to select vendors and partners, sourcing preferences and frustrations for AI providers, and how vendor performance and investment benefits are measured.

Survey findings highlight that sourcing authority remains concentrated in the CIO and CTO line, with security and finance leaders carrying more weight than the procurement function itself, and engagement peaking at the architecture and risk review rather than at contracting. Selection is driven by capabilities and regulatory compliance before price, while lack of transparency and overpromising on capabilities are emerging as the leading sources of friction with AI vendors.

IDC Survey: IDC Worldwide Supply Chain Survey: Manufacturing

Simon Ellis — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey provides insight into the supply chain challenges and opportunities manufacturing companies are facing, their current priorities, the drivers of change in the strategic focus of their supply chains, the impact of ongoing disruptions (protectionism/tariffs, economic uncertainty), and the use of modern digital technologies, particularly AI. The data for this presentation comes from the IDC's 2026 Supply Chain Survey and reflects the manufacturing respondent base across all regions polled. The sample size for this survey was 1,374, fielded in June 2026, with 792 specific to manufacturing.

IDC’s Worldwide and Regional Developer Census, 2026

Adam Resnick — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Pivot Table quantifies IDC’s modeled worldwide developer population for 2026. This IDC Pivot Table segments the population by IDC region and subregion and by developer type: full-time developers, business developers, and non-compensated developers.

The September 2026 release reflects a fundamental rebuild of IDC’s developer population model, incorporating a reconciled 187-country foundation, a broader evidence base, updated developer definitions, and more explicit population accounting. The 2026 census is also the common starting population for IDC’s low, middle, and high 2026–2030 forecast scenarios.

Overview

This IDC Pivot Table quantifies the worldwide developer population for 2026, segmented by the following dimensions:

What’s new in the 2026 model

Key enhancements in the rebuilt September 2026 developer population model include:

A hands-on building definition applied consistently across full-time, business, and non-compensated developers
A fully reconciled 187-country model underlying worldwide, regional, and subregional results
More explicit population accounting and improved geographic traceability
A broader evidence base and stronger external validation across multiple independent data sources
A common 2026 base population underlying the low, middle, and high 2026–2030 forecast scenarios

The rebuilt model draws on multiple source families, including national occupational statistics, ILO occupational data, OECD PIAAC Cycle 2, Eurostat, IDC’s 2026 Software Development and Application Modernization Survey, and other relevant developer and population data sources.

Definitions — Developer

A developer is someone who performs the hands-on work of building software or digital solutions, whether building is their primary profession or part of a broader professional role. Qualifying work includes writing and testing production code, prototyping, scripting, and configuring digital tools. It excludes people who participate without building, such as stakeholders who only review or comment and users who test without contributing to the build.

Definitions — Developer Type

Full-time developers are people for whom qualifying software or digital solution building is the primary compensated professional activity.
Business developers are people for whom qualifying building is a substantial secondary part of a broader compensated professional role. For population sizing, IDC uses an operational threshold of 10+ development hours per week.
Non-compensated developers are people engaged in ongoing qualifying building who do not have a compensated development role. They may be employed in a non-development role.
Total developers are the sum of full-time developers, business developers, and non-compensated developers.

Comparability with prior editions

Because the estimation architecture and evidence base have been substantially rebuilt, differences from prior editions may reflect methodology and source improvements, as well as underlying market change. The September 2026 release should therefore not be interpreted as a simple like-for-like revision of the prior series.

Market Analysis Perspective: Worldwide Cloud-Native Software Engineering, 2026

George Mironescu — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Analysis Perspective provides insight into the current and future state of the cloud-native engineering software market. It includes an overview of the current market landscape, a technology buyer perspective, a market outlook, and IDC’s advice for technology suppliers/service providers.

“Success with AI at scale depends on the maturity of the cloud-native delivery engine powering it. Without well-industrialized cloud-native engineering environments, operationalizing AI falters. To execute on the AI strategy, organizations need to prioritize maturing the cloud-native capability across their delivery infrastructure,” said George Mironescu, associate research director, Software Development, Software Delivery, and Software Engineering at IDC.

OpenAI Turns Frontier Cyber Capability Into an Operating Model for Defenders

Katie Norton, Grace Trinidad — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

OpenAI released a frontier model with significant advances in cybersecurity, subsidized access for frontline defenders, and an operating model for continuous vulnerability management at its Intelligence at Work: Cyber event. OpenAI is treating cyber defense as an operations problem it can help solve, a position that extends its reach from model capability into how security work gets done.

Quantum World Congress 2026 Reflects Growing Coordination Across the Quantum Ecosystem

Heather West, PhD — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Quantum World Congress 2026 demonstrated growing coordination across the quantum computing ecosystem, with hardware vendors, technology providers, governments, universities, and manufacturers increasingly working together to advance quantum computing, infrastructure, applications, and workforce development. The breadth of activity reinforces IDC's view that progress in the quantum market will depend not only on advances in quantum hardware, but also on the development of the partnerships, talent, infrastructure, and supply chains needed to translate those advances into commercial and scientific value.

Salesforce Unveils AIforce and an Enterprise AI Harness, Extending the Agentic Platform to Developers and Third-Party AI Surfaces

Adam Reeves — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Ahead of and during Dreamforce 2026, Salesforce introduced a trusted enterprise AI harness with a new AI control plane, then introduced AIforce, a headless interface powered by Headless Toolkit that carries Salesforce data and logic into Claude, Slack, and Lightning (with more to come), alongside a refreshed developer toolchain built around autonomous coding agents. Together, the announcements consolidate several previously separate initiatives into a single governance-and-delivery narrative, signaling that Salesforce is betting on governed context and developer tooling rather than model selection as its lasting differentiator.

The Autonomous IT Operations Imperative: How Agentic AI Is Reshaping AIOps

Deepika Giri, Daeil Chun — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective analyzes the imperative for autonomous IT operations powered by agentic AI, focusing on Asia/Pacific enterprise adoption, operational readiness, and the critical role of unified observability. Drawing on IDC survey data, the document highlights how agentic AIOps is enabling organizations to scale production AI, overcome operational bottlenecks, and meet emerging sovereignty requirements. The document also provides actionable guidance for IT leaders to sequence investments, assess vendor claims, and build the foundation for resilient, policy-compliant AI operations.

“Agentic AIOps marks a fundamental inflection point, not merely advancing IT automation but establishing the essential architecture for enterprise-scale AI. Enterprises that converge observability, operationalize reasoning-driven agents, and architect sovereignty from inception are not just optimizing — they are redefining operational leverage and systemic resilience beyond the reach of legacy paradigms. The gulf between innovators and followers is accelerating; the strategic groundwork laid today will irrevocably shape tomorrow’s competitive landscape,” says Deepika Giri, VP, Asia/Pacific Artificial Intelligence Platforms and Advisory, IDC.