Analyst Perspectives

I previously wrote about the importance of knowledge graphs to data intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI). A knowledge graph can surface information about the relationships and dependencies between virtual and physical objects by providing a structured representation of data that identifies the connections between entities and attributes. This representation of enterprise knowledge can be...

Tokenization is an emerging topic for business software providers. Tokenization is the process of representing something valuable or complex with a simple computer-readable substitute to enhance security or improve the efficiency and usability of a system. Tokens are already widely used in commerce. It’s now common for sensitive data used in a transaction, such as a bank account number or credit...

Analyst summits are not where software providers go to make news, it’s where they seek to clarify and validate what they’ve already done and lay out strategies for the future. October’s NiCE summit in Vienna was an opportunity to take stock of the enormous changes artificial intelligence (AI) has wrought in the service industry and put NiCE’s recent moves into context.

Enterprise CIOs are under pressure to operationalize artificial intelligence (AI) while preserving governance, cost control and regulatory compliance. Oracle’s latest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) software announcements from Oracle AI World 2025 focus on unifying data and AI pipelines, simplifying multicloud consumption and strengthening software‑defined networking to deliver predictable...

Over the past two years, I’ve led and operated as a practitioner in a sustained, feels-like-a-seven-day cadence to build what I believe is the most comprehensive enterprise software research foundation in the industry. Joining ISG after two decades of being a CEO and Chief Research Officer running a specialized research and advisory firm—Ventana Research—the new mandate was clear: expand software...

There is a different kind of friction emerging in the HR technology market today. It is harder to quantify but easier to feel if you are inside the decision-making process. It is not a lack of interest or even budget. It is fatigue.

As I recently explained, treating data as a business discipline—rather than a technical one—is a critical component of delivering competitive advantage through investment in data processing, analytics and artificial intelligence. As enterprises embrace data as a business discipline, it is increasingly important that the products used for data processing and management enable collaboration between...

I attended Salesforce’s Dreamforce event in San Francisco to learn more about the company’s expanding vision for artificial intelligence (AI) and its newest capability, Agentforce Revenue Management. Salesforce has steadily evolved from being a CRM leader to positioning itself as an AI-first business platform. The introduction of Agentforce marks the company’s most ambitious step yet in...

As an authoritative and trusted source for 92 consecutive quarters, the ISG Index has delivered independent, fact-based insight to Wall Street, service and software providers, and enterprises tracking fundamentals and the quarterly and yearly shifts across technology services and software.

The recent Oracle AI World event did not unveil much that was stunning “new” news for its business applications, because much of what has been evolving was presented already and has been in front of analysts for some months. What was on display, though, was steady progress to its advancing capabilities coming out every quarter. The company has focused on the development of agents and an agentic...

You can’t examine an HR software roadmap today without encountering AI—ubiquitously. Natural language search, skills inference, personalized learning, intelligent automation, adaptive planning, worker twins, conversational agents... These aren’t just new features; they represent a new organizing principle. A new architecture for how platforms structure work and how individuals engage with systems.

I am excited to announce that I have joined ISG as Research Director for the Office of Revenue practice, where I will lead coverage across a spectrum of revenue, sales and product technologies that shape how organizations operate and engage customers, align go-to-market functions and operationalize growth. This includes CRM, Commerce, Partner Relationship Management (PRM), Product Experiences,...

There’s a subtle but important truth I’ve seen play out across dozens of organizations: HR software doesn’t define your strategy—but it will expose whether you have one. Too often, organizations treat the HR software stack as a series of independent decisions: a new ATS here, a learning platform there, maybe a refreshed core HRIS every few years. Each decision is justified on its own. Each serves...

Oracle NetSuite’s presentations and announcements at its recent user group meeting, SuiteWorld, focused on an initiative called NetSuite Next, a set of artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI capabilities that will be an inherent part of the NetSuite suite of applications starting in 2026. The company’s objective is to facilitate customers’ transition to this AI-centric...

Enterprises with established Identity Access Management and Privileged Access Management must extend governance to non-human identities to protect APIs, services, automation and agentic AI. Effective evaluation of NHI security software hinges on risk-driven prioritization, integration fidelity and measurable outcomes. CIOs, CISOs and IT leaders should align the identity strategy with enterprise...

I recently explained the significance of data management as an enabler of strategic adoption of artificial intelligence. Data management enables enterprises to ensure that data is valid, consistent and trusted for operational use cases and analytic decision-making. Large volumes of data are required to train models, making data management and data governance critical to AI. Data quality and data...

Skills software is everywhere right now. Talent marketplaces, intelligent learning platforms, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered upskilling tools—the market is saturated with promises of personalized growth, agile workforce planning and dynamic career pathing. And to be clear: the vision is compelling. The idea of surfacing internal talent, guiding career development and aligning skills to...

Enterprises are accelerating digital initiatives powered by APIs, services, IoT and agentic artificial intelligence (AI), expanding non-human identity (NHI) risk faster than legacy Identity Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) can govern. CIOs, CISOs and IT leaders need an identity strategy that treats NHIs as first-class identities, integrates with IAM/PAM and advances...

I previously wrote about the role that data intelligence catalogs play in enabling business leaders to understand the use of data across an enterprise. I also recently wrote about the importance of treating data as a business discipline to ensure that data projects are aligned with business strategy objectives. As I noted, although many data catalog products provide enterprises with information...

For nearly 20 years, I have attended the Human Resources Technology Conference and Expo to take the temperature of the market. This year, the energy felt different—less showy, more grounded. I was able to engage with more than 40 software providers for deeper-dive discussions, and I left with three big takeaways and one nagging concern that I can’t shake.