ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

You Want HR AI—but Your Data Says “Not Yet”

Posted by Matthew Brown on 14 May 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not a feature you just turn on. It requires readiness work that many HR organizations still have not done. That may sound blunt, but it reflects a reality that is getting lost in the current excitement around AI in HR. The market is moving quickly. Providers are rolling out copilots, assistants, recommendation engines and more advanced agentic capabilities across... Read More

Topics: Employee Engagement, Learning Management, Talent Management, Workforce Management, Payroll Management, Total Compensation Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Oracle Addresses Combined AI and Data Platform Requirements

Posted by Matt Aslett on 13 May 2026

To mitigate cost and complexity, artificial intelligence (AI) and data initiatives must be aligned. Enterprises cannot afford fragmented approaches that duplicate effort or slow deployment, particularly as competitive pressure increases. Many providers have offered both AI platform and data platform capabilities for some time, but they have often addressed requirements with dedicated products... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Data Platforms, AI & Technologies, AI & Machine Learning

Securing AI Moves to the Center of Enterprise Risk

Posted by Jeff Orr on 12 May 2026

A distinct security category is emerging around protecting artificial intelligence (AI) itself, driven by the shift from pilot projects to embedded operational use. As AI becomes part of everyday workflows, the risk surface expands beyond traditional controls. Enterprises now need visibility into how employees prompt and rely on AI systems, how autonomous agents execute tasks and where sensitive... Read More

Topics: Data Governance, Cybersecurity, Generative AI, IT & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning, Data Controls, Visibility, Behavior Monitoring, Policy Enforcement, Control Plane

It’s Not a Hiring Problem. It’s a Role Design Problem

Posted by Barika Pace on 07 May 2026

Revenue leaders entered 2026 under pressure to deliver predictable growth while navigating tighter budgets, higher expectations from finance and rapid adoption of enterprise artificial intelligence (AI). Many organizations are responding by slowing hiring or reassessing the size of their sales teams, even as pipeline targets and growth expectations remain unchanged. The result is a growing... Read More

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

Why “Can It Do X?” Is the Wrong HR Tech Question

Posted by Matthew Brown on 06 May 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t a feature gate. It creates value when you’ve defined the decisions you want to improve and you have the data and workflows to support it, with permissions and consent boundaries that hold up in the real world and an audit trail that can explain what happened, why, and what the AI touched. Too many HR tech buying cycles begin with a shortcut: grab an RFI... Read More

Topics: Employee Engagement, Talent Management, Workforce Management, Payroll Management, Total Compensation Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Salesforce Tackles the Entire Agent Development Lifecycle

Posted by David Menninger on 05 May 2026

Agentic AI is rapidly emerging as the next phase of enterprise automation, moving beyond static workflows and copilots toward systems capable of autonomous reasoning, decision-making and action. Enterprises are increasingly experimenting with AI agents to augment customer service, IT operations and business processes, yet many struggle to operationalize these systems at scale. The challenge is no... Read More

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

The Benefits and Risks of OLTP-On-Lakehouse Data Platforms

Posted by Matt Aslett on 05 May 2026

The emergence of cloud computing has had an enormous impact on all segments of the IT industry, including data platforms. All providers of data platform products have enabled their products to be deployed in the cloud and/or consumed as cloud-hosted managed services. To date, the cloud has arguably had the largest impact on analytic data platforms, where cloud infrastructure led to the emergence... Read More

Topics: Data Platforms, Data Lakehouse, AI & Technologies

Stop Buying Sales Tools

Posted by Barika Pace on 30 April 2026

Revenue leaders entered 2026 under intense pressure to adopt enterprise artificial intelligence (AI), modernize their go-to-market operations and improve forecast accuracy at the same time. Many organizations are responding by adding new sales tools, AI assistants and workflow applications to an already crowded technology stack. The unintended consequence is that revenue teams often end up with... Read More

Topics: Subscription Management, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies

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

Domo Adds Context to Platform for Analytics and AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 29 April 2026

I have recently written about the importance of context in relation to agentic artificial intelligence, including the growing use of Model Context Protocol to enable LLMs, agents and applications to communicate with data platforms, file systems and development and productivity tools, and the importance of semantic data modeling to provide agreed definitions that reflect the meaning of entities,... Read More

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

WFM Meets AI: When Algorithms Run the Roster

Posted by Matthew Brown on 28 April 2026

The shift roster has always been a place where strategy becomes personal. It decides who works, when they work and how predictable their lives can be from one week to the next. When scheduling becomes more automated, the consequences show up immediately in worker sentiment, manager workload, overtime spend and service levels. That is why the rise of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven scheduling... Read More

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

Microsoft Stretches Fabric to Operational Databases

Posted by Matt Aslett on 23 April 2026

I recently explained how providers addressing the full combination of artificial intelligence and data requirements through integrated AI and data platforms are increasingly attractive as enterprises look to accelerate initiatives and reduce costs and complexity. One example of a software provider that has combined AI and data capabilities is Microsoft with its Fabric data platform. First... Read More

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

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

HR Data Governance: Build Trust Before Dashboards

Posted by Matthew Brown on 22 April 2026

The quickest way to derail an HR analytics effort is to publish a dashboard that people do not believe. You can feel it in the meeting when the questions stop being about decisions and start being about whether the numbers are real. Leaders ask for “the actual headcount,” HRBPs keep their own trackers, and the room quietly agrees the system is helpful but not authoritative. At that point, the... Read More

Topics: Employee Engagement, Learning Management, Talent Management, Workforce Management, Payroll Management, Total Compensation Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Contact Centers Are an Industry in Denial

Posted by Keith Dawson on 21 April 2026

I recently attended Enterprise Connect, a significant industry conference covering contact centers, customer experience (CX) and telephony. I wrote my initial coverage here. Now, a few weeks later, I’d like to offer some thoughts about what my observations mean and where the industry goes from here. I’ve been covering this industry for 36 years, as a journalist and an analyst. Decades of... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies

Becoming a Predictive Finance Department

Posted by Robert Kugel on 21 April 2026

By now it should be obvious that artificial Intelligence (AI) and agents in all of their forms are on the brink of changing how finance and accounting departments operate. The basic outlines are already in place, but it’s not clear how or how rapidly day-to-day operations will evolve, as well as (by definition) what surprises are in store. One of the most profound impacts of AI will be on the... Read More

Topics: Governance, Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Planning, digital finance, Generative AI, Data Intelligence, AI & Machine Learning

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

AI Reshapes Security Architecture at RSAC 2026 Conference

Posted by Jeff Orr on 16 April 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) just became the operating system for enterprise security. That was the clearest signal coming out of the RSAC 2026 Conference, and it materially changes how CIOs and CISOs should evaluate security platforms, operating models and investment priorities over the next 12–24 months. RSAC 2026 Conference reflects a structural shift in how cybersecurity is designed and... Read More

Topics: Cybersecurity, IT & Technologies, XDR, PAM, SIEM, IAM, SOAR, Data Resilience, NHI, AI Security Control Plane, Identity Security, Cybersecurity for AI, DSPM, Agentic AI Security, AI-driven Security, SOC Transformation, Autonomous SOC, Security Data Platforms

From Reqs to Relationships: Rethinking Recruiting Tech

Posted by Matthew Brown on 16 April 2026

Recruiting technology still carries the fingerprints of an earlier operating model, one where hiring was managed as a series of isolated requisitions and success was measured by how efficiently a team could move a candidate from application to offer. That model created durable strengths around workflow, compliance and visibility, and most organizations still need those strengths. The problem is... Read More

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