ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

The AI Software Blueprint for the Autonomous Enterprise

Posted by Mark Smith on 29 April 2026

To achieve an autonomous enterprise, a strategy alone is not sufficient. Organizations need software architectures that can support artificial intelligence (AI) at full scale within defined governance and security boundaries. This must be foundational, not an afterthought. The architecture must be interconnected, orchestrated and policy-driven, operating across the entire enterprise. AI cannot... Read More

Topics: AI & Technologies

The Financial Health of the Software Economy: Q1 2026

Posted by Mark Smith on 22 April 2026

As an authoritative source, the ISG Index has delivered independent, fact-based insights for 94 consecutive quarters, supporting Wall Street, service and software providers and enterprises in tracking key technology and market shifts. From my perspective as Chief AI and Software Analyst, Q1 reinforces a clear trend: the software economy (XaaS) remains the primary engine of growth across the... Read More

Topics: Technology Industry Intelligence

Pricing AI and Software Value for Enterprises

Posted by Mark Smith on 20 April 2026

The software industry has entered one of its most consequential pricing and value inflection points since the shift to cloud computing. AI is not an incremental capability layered onto existing software; it is fundamentally redefining how software should create value and, in turn, how that value must be priced. The traditional model of seat-based subscription pricing was designed for systems that... Read More

Topics: Governance, ROI, AI & Technologies, Cost

Agentic Commerce: Engagement to AI Buyers

Posted by Mark Smith on 17 April 2026

Agentic commerce represents the next phase of digital commerce evolution, where AI agents powered by large language models (LLMs) mediate, decide and execute transactions on behalf of consumers and enterprises. The rapid adoption of generative AI platforms now reaching hundreds of millions to billions of monthly users has accelerated a fundamental shift from search-driven engagement to... Read More

Topics: AI & Technologies, AI Agents, Agent Commerce

Energy Software Investments for AI Era

Posted by Mark Smith on 13 April 2026

This shift in operating model directly reshapes how energy enterprises prioritize software investments and platform architectures. This transformation is now visible in how energy enterprises invest in software. Fixation on prioritizing the modernization of ERP investments or rationalizing collaboration software is insufficient to gain the outcomes and efficiency required for the journey to the... Read More

Topics: Energy, AI & Technologies

The Autonomous Energy Enterprise

Posted by Mark Smith on 10 April 2026

The world’s population is projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, driving increased energy demand while accelerating the shift toward a more digital, diversified and technologically advanced energy system. Electrification is expanding, renewables are scaling and geopolitical pressures are reshaping supply chains. Oil and gas operators and power and utilities providers must simultaneously... Read More

Topics: Energy, AI & Technologies

Healthcare CRM Software Innovation with AI

Posted by Mark Smith on 30 March 2026

Healthcare organizations are increasingly investing in customer relationship management (CRM) technologies to support patient engagement, service operations and care coordination across complex healthcare ecosystems. As care delivery expands across hospitals, outpatient services, digital health platforms and virtual care channels, organizations must manage interactions across scheduling systems,... Read More

Topics: Healthcare, AI & Technologies

Healthcare CRM Software Transformation with AI

Posted by Mark Smith on 27 March 2026

The healthcare industry is increasingly modernizing its customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and software investments to support patient engagement, care coordination and service operations. As care delivery expands across hospitals, outpatient services, digital health and payer-provider ecosystems, managing patient relationships across fragmented systems has become more complex.... Read More

Topics: Healthcare, AI & Technologies

Agentic Orchestration: A Governance-First Reference Enterprise Architecture

Posted by Mark Smith on 23 March 2026

As established in my foundational perspective on AI Orchestration, the defining enterprise challenge is no longer model performance but the design of a control plane that governs multi-agent systems, tool access, policy enforcement, and cross-platform interoperability. The realization of Agentic AI depends on the emergence of AI agents as interoperable components that combine deterministic logic... Read More

Topics: AI & Technologies, AgenticAI, Agent Orchestration

AI Orchestration: Agentic Complexity for Enterprises

Posted by Mark Smith on 20 March 2026

The software economy has reached its greatest inflection point since the dawn of the Internet. Enterprise software now operates across dynamic cloud environments, with release cycles accelerating to weekly or even daily in a continuous delivery model. Software providers have evolved into platform ecosystems, seamlessly integrating applications and data while unlocking new opportunities through... Read More

Topics: Orchestration, AI & Technologies

Autonomous Healthcare Enterprise Requires AI-Powered Software Strategies

Posted by Mark Smith on 16 March 2026

Healthcare is not simply digitizing. It is reaching a structural inflection point. Rising demand, workforce shortages, regulatory complexity, reimbursement pressure and expanding distributed care models are forcing providers, payers and life sciences organizations to rethink how care is delivered and financed. Enterprise software sits at the center of this transformation for modernization in a... Read More

Topics: Artificial intelligence, Technology Industry Intelligence

Autonomous Enterprise and AI-Powered Software Architecture

Posted by Mark Smith on 13 March 2026

The mission to enable an autonomous enterprise, as I have articulated, remains aspirational for most organizations. Few have aligned business and technology leadership, strategy and execution to support autonomous operations at any scale. A shared definition is essential. An autonomous enterprise follows an operating model in which intelligent systems can sense conditions, decide actions, execute... Read More

Topics: AI & Technologies

The Advent of the Autonomous Enterprise

Posted by Mark Smith on 09 March 2026

For most enterprises, the problem with artificial intelligence (AI) today is not a lack of ambition. It is confusion. Organizations are overwhelmed by pilots, tools, providers and hype, and they lack a clear path to autonomy and measurable outcomes. The way forward is to cut through the noise and reframe AI not as technology experimentation with generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI, but as a... Read More

Topics: AI & Technologies

AI Is Software: The Honest Reality

Posted by Mark Smith on 06 March 2026

Let’s ground this conversation and cut through the misunderstood dialect about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the software industry. AI is software and has been part of this category for more than several decades, and yes it has evolved into a new era of capability. Despite the noise from financial markets and headline pundits, the software industry is not being replaced by AI; it... Read More

Topics: AI & Technologies

The Financial Health of the Software Economy: Q4 and 2025

Posted by Mark Smith on 18 February 2026

As an authoritative and trusted source, the ISG Index has delivered independent, fact-based insights for 93 consecutive quarters. These insights support Wall Street, service and software providers, and enterprises tracking fundamental trends, and quarterly and annual shifts across the technology, services and software markets. As Chief AI and Software Analyst, my view of the fourth quarter and... Read More

Topics: Technology Industry Intelligence

Market Research Insights on Software Industry for Enterprises

Posted by Mark Smith on 11 November 2025

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... Read More

Topics: Technology Industry Intelligence

The Financial Health of the Software Economy: Q3 and 2025

Posted by Mark Smith on 05 November 2025

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. As Chief Software Analyst, my view of third quarter is that the software economy (XaaS) remains the center... Read More

Topics: Technology Industry Intelligence

The Buyers Guides for Digital Comms Classifies and Rates Software Providers

Posted by Mark Smith on 03 May 2024

I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Digital Communications Ventana Research Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. The necessity of enterprise communications internally and to external constituents like customers, partners... Read More

Topics: Digital Communications

Digital Business Market Agenda for 2024: Intelligence-Driven Engagement

Posted by Mark Smith on 06 February 2024

With Ventana Research’s 2024 Digital Business Market Agenda, we continue the guidance we have offered for two decades to help enterprises derive maximum value from digital business technology investments. Through our market research and expertise, we identify trends and best practices and share insights on how to achieve technological effectiveness, particularly in key processes and systems to... Read More

Topics: Performance Management, Experience Management, Digital Communications, Digital Applications, Sustainability and ESG, Digital Intelligence

2024 Market Agenda: Innovation in AI and Digital Modernization

Posted by Mark Smith on 23 January 2024

Ventana Research has announced its market agenda for 2024, continuing a 20-year tradition of credibility and trust in our objective efforts to educate and guide the technology industry. Our research and insights are backed by our expertise and independence, and we do not share our Market Agenda or our market research, including analyst and market perspectives, with any external party before it is... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, AI, Analytics and Data