ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

AI Imperatives for Business Software Providers

Posted by Robert Kugel on 12 August 2026

I recently wrote about the distinction between personal productivity artificial intelligence (AI) and enterprise AI. Each has a role to play. An important challenge facing enterprises in the coming years will be encouraging and supporting the use of AI-enabled personal productivity applications for individuals and small workgroups while preventing their misuse in performing enterprise tasks and... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Supply Chain Planning, Business Planning, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, supply chain management, digital finance, Procure-to-Pay, Consolidate and Close Management, Order-to-Cash, AI & Machine Learning, Buyer Behavior, AI Governance

The Fourth Enterprise Control Plane Is Emerging Around AI

Posted by Jeff Orr on 11 August 2026

Enterprise architecture has traditionally been organized around three primary control planes: infrastructure, identity and applications. Each evolved to solve a specific challenge. Infrastructure established where workloads execute. Identity determined who could access enterprise resources. Applications standardized business processes and information flows. Artificial intelligence introduces a... Read More

Topics: Observability, IT & Technologies, Identity, IT Management & Operations, AI Governance, Control Layer, Enterprise Architecture, Policy, Runtime Control, Detection and Response

Exasol Shines on High-Performance Agentic AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 06 August 2026

Much like the emergence of cloud computing, agentic artificial intelligence is causing many data platform software providers to fundamentally rethink value propositions. For example, the ability to accelerate data workloads with custom hardware was an important differentiator in an era when almost all data processing was performed using on-premises server infrastructure but quickly became a niche... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Data Platforms, Generative AI, AI & Technologies

AI as Your Quiet Co-Manager in Performance Management

Posted by Matthew Brown on 05 August 2026

The most important artificial intelligence (AI) in performance management may not arrive as a flashy chatbot or new dashboard. It may work more quietly than that, sitting inside the performance tool, watching for patterns, connecting signals and nudging managers toward better conversations before performance problems become formal performance events. Not AI as the boss or the judge, and not AI as... Read More

Topics: Talent Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Who Owns the Number When AI Agents Join the Sales Team?

Posted by Barika Pace on 04 August 2026

AI agents are moving into prospecting, meeting preparation and opportunity management. This means the revenue engine is no longer powered only by human sellers, and CROs must decide how digital labor fits within territories, crediting and compensation. The complication is that most performance systems were designed around people and transactions, not autonomous agents that can influence multiple... Read More

Topics: sales engagement, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies

Oracle Fusion Agentic Apps May Address AI Cost and Control Issues

Posted by Robert Kugel on 30 July 2026

Oracle’s recent announcements around Fusion Agentic Applications represent a meaningful evolution in enterprise application architecture, especially as it facilitates automation and, ultimately, process transformation. Rather than following a prevailing view that assumes agentic systems must capture the nuances of every business process top-down, which would be prohibitively expensive and... Read More

Topics: Governance, Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, digital finance, Procure-to-Pay, Consolidate and Close Management, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies, Order-to-Cash, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies, AI & Machine Learning, Supply Chain & Operations

Boomi Enables Enterprise Data and Agent Activation

Posted by Matt Aslett on 29 July 2026

As an increasing proportion of enterprise software becomes replaced or augmented by artificial intelligence agents, capabilities for application, data and API management are evolving accordingly. Orchestrating communication and integration among applications, data, systems, tools and processes is essential to enabling agents to execute business processes through autonomous actions. Established... Read More

Topics: Operations, Generative AI, AI & Technologies, AI & Machine Learning, AI Governance

Providers to Watch in Sales Performance Management

Posted by Barika Pace on 28 July 2026

Sales performance management is shifting from a pay administration discipline into a strategic revenue execution capability. This means CROs, CFOs and revenue operations leaders can no longer view SPM as a back-office system used only to calculate commissions and resolve payout disputes. The complication is that many organizations still manage territories, quotas, incentives, forecasts and seller... Read More

Topics: sales engagement, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies

AI Is Making IT Asset Management Strategic Again

Posted by Jeff Orr on 23 July 2026

Artificial intelligence is giving IT Asset Management (ITAM) an unexpected second act. Over the past decade, Software Asset Management (SAM) gradually lost strategic visibility as organizations shifted toward SaaS subscriptions and decentralized technology purchasing. Business units acquired applications directly. Developers consumed cloud services on demand. Employees adopted productivity tools... Read More

Topics: ITSM, Observability, IT & Technologies, IT Management & Operations, AI Governance, Software Asset Management, SAM, Software License Management, SaaS Management, AI Asset Management

MariaDB on Track to Address Data Platform Requirements for Agentic AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 21 July 2026

I recently wrote about the ecosystem of products and providers related to the MySQL database, noting the long history of friction in the MySQL community regarding the ownership and licensing of the open-source project. Perhaps the clearest illustration of that friction is the existence of MariaDB, which was specifically created in response to concerns over the ownership and licensing of MySQL.... Read More

Topics: Data Platforms, AI & Technologies, Streaming & Events, AI & Machine Learning

More on the SaaS-Pocalypse That Won’t Happen

Posted by Robert Kugel on 16 July 2026

The “SaaS-Pocalypse,” which I commented on earlier this year, is a persistent yet cresting technology and Wall Street analyst narrative that rests on three flawed assumptions. First, advanced AI assistants and autonomous agents will make traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS) enterprise applications and their business models obsolete. Second, AI will allow ordinary workers to vibe code custom... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, digital finance, Procure-to-Pay, Consolidate and Close Management, Order-to-Cash

Is Your Learning Platform Smart or Just Full of Content?

Posted by Matthew Brown on 16 July 2026

Your learning platform may know what content you have. That does not mean it knows what your workforce needs. That is the uncomfortable distinction many L&D leaders need to confront as the market fills with promises of personalization, AI-powered recommendations, skills intelligence and adaptive experiences. The language has evolved quickly. In many enterprises, the operating model has not. Many... Read More

Topics: Employee Engagement, Learning Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Moving Towards a Holistic Approach to Data Management and Operations

Posted by Matt Aslett on 15 July 2026

As enterprises embracing artificial intelligence move from initial pilots and trial projects through deployment and into production at scale, many are realizing the critical importance of reliable data management and agile, responsive data operations (DataOps) processes to improve trust in the data used for AI and business intelligence. With an emphasis on agility, automation and continuous... Read More

Topics: Operations, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies, AI & Machine Learning, AI Governance

Personal Productivity AI Versus Enterprise AI

Posted by Robert Kugel on 14 July 2026

In the first stages of any major technology breakthrough, there is often a three-blind-men-describing-an-elephant effect at work. In the case of artificial intelligence (AI), its vast potential has people looking at it from their single perspective to the exclusion of others. It’s that narrow focus that has lent itself to the “Saaspocalypse” meme earlier this year. AI is already having a... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Supply Chain Planning, Analytics, Business Planning, Workplace, Enterprise Resource Planning, supply chain management, Digital Business, Generative AI, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies, Vertical Industry, AI Governance

Verint Unveils Its Post-Calabrio Direction

Posted by Keith Dawson on 09 July 2026

Any merger creates a certain amount of uncertainty about how it will impact customers: Questions about the roadmap or duplicate product lines invariably arise. In the case of Verint and Calabrio (now collectively named Verint), June’s Verint Engage customer event was an opportunity to finally discuss the changes and demonstrate how it plans to move forward. And expectations are high: The industry... Read More

Topics: Calabrio, Contact Center, agent management, Customer Experience Management, CCaaS, Intelligent Self-Service, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence

Databricks Unites Operational and Analytic Workloads on the Lakehouse

Posted by Matt Aslett on 08 July 2026

I recently wrote about the emerging category of data platform products that facilitate the deployment of Online Transaction Processing workloads on data lakehouse architecture. Databricks Lakebase is a prime example of this OLTP-on-lakehouse approach, which was added to its Databricks Data Intelligence Platform in 2025 and became generally available earlier this year. At the company’s recent Data... Read More

Topics: Governance, Data Platforms, Generative AI, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies, Streaming & Events, AI & Machine Learning

NiCE World: How Cognigy Looks One Year In

Posted by Keith Dawson on 07 July 2026

Ten years ago, NiCE acquired inContact, and, in the process, began a radical transformation from its core business as a workforce application provider into a full-blown CCaaS and platform provider. It was a transformation as audacious and (ultimately) as well-executed as any I’ve seen in this industry. Now it’s clear that buying Cognigy last year will turn out to be just as significant a bet on a... Read More

Topics: Governance, Contact Center, agent management, Intelligent Self-Service, Conversational AI, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Cognigy

AI in Learning: What Helps and What Just Looks Cool

Posted by Matthew Brown on 07 July 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) has given the learning market new energy, but not all of it is pointed in the right direction. Providers are racing to show generative AI (GenAI) features, buyers are trying to understand what matters and the media cycle keeps rewarding whatever sounds most futuristic. That creates a familiar market problem. The easiest things to see are not always the most valuable... Read More

Topics: Learning Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Digital Commerce in the Agentic AI Era: Why the Storefront Is Becoming a Decision Engine

Posted by Barika Pace on 02 July 2026

Digital commerce is moving from a transactional storefront to an intelligent decision environment. Buyers no longer expect a site to simply display products, accept orders and process payments. They expect it to understand intent, guide comparison, reduce uncertainty and help them make the right decision faster. This changes the role of digital commerce leaders. The storefront can no longer be... Read More

Topics: sales engagement, Revenue Performance Management, Revenue Lifecycle Management, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies

IBM Addresses Autonomous Database Administration for Db2

Posted by Matt Aslett on 01 July 2026

I have previously written about the emerging requirements for database management systems, including the use of artificial intelligence to automate and accelerate the execution of database administration tasks. These emerging requirements have provided an opportunity for new and established data platform providers to differentiate in a crowded and competitive market. IBM is a prime example of an... Read More

Topics: Operations, Business Planning, Data Platforms, Generative AI, AI & Technologies, AI & Machine Learning