ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives (4)

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

ZohoDay Addresses the Tensions Facing CROs

Posted by Barika Pace on 12 March 2026

This year at ZohoDay 2026, the conversation did not center on product features, competitive positioning or even individual applications. Instead, it focused on a tension many CROs are already experiencing. Revenue leaders are being asked to deliver higher forecast confidence, manage margin pressure and incorporate AI into selling motions while simultaneously reducing operational complexity. The... Read More

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

Five9 Bets on Integrations and Partners as the Path From CCaaS to CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 11 March 2026

It’s clear that the buyer requirements for Contact-Center-as-a-Service (CCaaS) products have moved well beyond traditional notions of “cloud” or “omnichannel” and now focus on how well software providers can make artificial intelligence (AI) workflows real. The differentiation among CCaaS platforms is not so much about how well interactions are handled, but how the platforms embed within complex... Read More

Topics: Operations, Five9, automation, Contact Center, agent management, Customer Experience Management, CCaaS, Generative AI, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Workflow, ServiceNow, Salesforce

Sovereign Cloud as a Strategic Control Plane for CIOs

Posted by Jeff Orr on 10 March 2026

Data sovereignty is no longer a niche compliance concern. It is becoming a defining architectural constraint for enterprise cloud strategy. As regulatory scrutiny intensifies and geopolitical risk becomes harder to ignore, Sovereign Cloud has emerged as a practical mechanism for CIOs to retain control over sensitive data, maintain jurisdictional compliance and reduce exposure tied to cross-border... Read More

Topics: Sovereign Cloud, IT & Technologies, Cloud Infrastructure, Digital Sovereignty, Data Residency, Data Isolation

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

Alation Provides AI Agents With Governed Knowledge

Posted by Matt Aslett on 06 March 2026

I have previously described the critical importance of context for enterprise adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and agentic AI. Establishing trust in the content generated by GenAI is facilitated by grounding the models with real-world context from enterprise content and data, while AI agents designed to make context-aware decisions and take automated actions based on... Read More

Topics: Governance, Analytics, Generative AI, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies, AI & Machine Learning

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

Cash Flow Forecasting for Agility in Uncertain Times

Posted by Robert Kugel on 05 March 2026

A great deal has changed in how finance and accounting departments operate since the start of the decade. Elevated levels of uncertainty and change, beginning with the pandemic, have forced departments to question and refine their processes and operating methods, which has led to using technology to improve agility and resilience. While these events instill a greater sense of urgency for... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, digital finance, Business & Technologies

Beyond Commerce: Tech That Closes Revenue Gaps

Posted by Barika Pace on 04 March 2026

There is a growing disconnect between what digital commerce platforms were originally built to do and what modern revenue teams now need them to deliver. Most traditional platforms were designed to manage storefronts, catalogs and transactions. They perform well when the goal is to display products, enforce static pricing and process payments. But in today’s revenue environment, the challenge is... Read More

Topics: Digital Commerce, Office of Revenue - Business Technologies

Alteryx Has a Unified Approach to Analytics and Data

Posted by Matt Aslett on 03 March 2026

Since Alteryx was acquired by Clearlake Capital and Insight Partners in March 2024, the company has taken the opportunity to revamp its product portfolio and refresh its executive team. Alteryx has always offered a combination of functionality that spans the data and analytics lifecycle, including data integration, data preparation and data quality, as well as the development of analytics... Read More

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

Talkdesk Sees the Future of Service in CX Automation

Posted by Keith Dawson on 03 March 2026

Contact center software is evolving faster than the companies that make it. The tools that operated centers remained very stable for decades and then in a very rapid period shifted away from voice and telephony towards digital interactions and broader forms of customer engagement. It’s been a natural, even expected, transition, given how the rest of the software universe has injected artificial... Read More

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

Autonomy Is Key for Effective Sovereign AI and Data Strategies

Posted by Matt Aslett on 26 February 2026

The term “sovereign AI and data” became increasingly prevalent in recent years, initially driven by cloud infrastructure providers responding to the need to support regional regulations with sovereign cloud offerings. However, the use of sovereign cloud infrastructure is not required to deliver compliance with data sovereignty regulations. In fact, our research indicates that having the autonomy... Read More

Topics: Governance, Operations, Analytics, Data Platforms, Generative AI, IT & Technologies, AI & Technologies, Cloud Infrastructure, Platforms, AI & Machine Learning

The Agentic AI Economy: Beyond Integration

Posted by Alex Bakker on 25 February 2026

The concept of software components orchestrating across boundaries is not new—it has appeared in mainframe program libraries, Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Enterprise Service Buses (ESBs). APIs became the next wave of this idea, powering cloud, mobile and software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecosystems. But the next generation is arriving: agentic AI. Where APIs exposed capabilities in rigid... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Data Platforms, Intelligent Automation, AI & Technologies, Buyer Behavior

How Genesys Navigates a Post-CCaaS Era

Posted by Keith Dawson on 25 February 2026

It’s increasingly clear that, for software providers, focusing exclusively on contact center operations is a pathway to oblivion. Voice is no longer the organizing principle around which businesses structure their customer support—instead, we are fully in a world where automated self-service is the default and digital interactions are the norm. Enterprise buyers looking to modernize their contact... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, agent management, Intelligent Self-Service, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies

Why Software Risk Is Now Decided Before Code Is Written

Posted by Jeff Orr on 24 February 2026

Threat modeling software has emerged as a distinct security category focused on identifying and mitigating design-level risks early in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Unlike vulnerability scanners or runtime security controls that surface issues after deployment, threat modeling tools operate upstream, enabling organizations to analyze system architectures before code is written or... Read More

Topics: Cybersecurity, DevSecOps, CI/CD, IT & Technologies, Threat Modeling, SDLC, Proactive, Vulnerability

Talent Marketplaces: When the Label Doesn’t Fit

Posted by Matthew Brown on 24 February 2026

Picture a world where a role opens and your first instinct is to look inward with confidence. You open your talent marketplace and see people who are ready now, plus people who could be ready soon with targeted support and development. Instead of defaulting to external recruiting, you redeploy talent faster and keep high potential employees from quietly disengaging. That is the promise behind... Read More

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

Building a Revenue Strategy That Scales

Posted by Barika Pace on 19 February 2026

Chief revenue officers are being asked to scale growth at a time when revenue systems are under more strain than at any point in the past decade. Buyer journeys are longer and less linear, sellers are operating across an expanding set of digital and partner channels and revenue technology stacks have grown faster than the operating models meant to govern them. In this environment, revenue... Read More

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

When HR and Finance Can’t Agree on the Same Numbers

Posted by Matthew Brown on 17 February 2026

HR and Finance rarely agree on the same numbers, and the reasons run deeper than a simple spreadsheet mismatch. It’s a symptom of siloed business processes and disconnected data models that create misalignment at every turn. Underneath that are unclear data definitions, governance strategies without real accountability and cultural priorities that pull the two functions in different directions.... Read More

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

Trends in Field Service Management

Posted by Keith Dawson on 12 February 2026

Enterprise customer experience (CX) usually focuses on the moment of communication between a customer and a business, assessing the customer’s state of mind and the outcomes of specific, limited interactions. But there’s another important context that drives customer behavior, and that’s the on-site experience of technical support. Field service is often out of the line of sight of CX planners,... Read More

Topics: Internet of Things, IOT, Augmented Reality, AR, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Field Service Management, Technician