ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives (9)

Databricks Data+AI Summit

Posted by David Menninger on 24 July 2025

Databricks recently hosted its Data+AI Summit in San Francisco, an event that attracted 22,000 attendees. That’s a far cry from the Spark Summit I attended in 2016. As pointed out in my coverage of Databricks massive funding round earlier this year, the company was originally founded as a provider of cloud-based Apache Spark services. Since its inception, Spark has been associated with processing... Read More

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

Sage Defines its Future in AI for ERP

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 July 2025

Sage recently held its Future user conference in Atlanta. Our ISG Buyers Guide for Midsize ERP Financial Management (2024) rated Sage Intacct as one of the top three providers, reflecting its strong performance in both product capabilities and customer experience. The event showcased its advances and roadmap aimed at embedding artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI in... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, ERP and Continuous Accounting, digital finance, Procure-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash, Business & Technologies

Why Cybersecurity Maturity is Critical After RSAC 2025 Conference

Posted by Jeff Orr on 23 July 2025

The annual RSAC Conference took place in late April in San Francisco, where over 40,000 professionals from the cybersecurity industry converged at the Moscone Center to discuss the latest trends, products and services aimed at threat identification and organizational security. I last attended the RSAC Conference in 2020, just weeks before the world was instructed to stay home in response to the... Read More

Topics: Cybersecurity, GenAI, IT & Technologies, Agentic AI, EDR, XDR, PAM, SIEM, IAM, Quantum, Threat Intelligence, SOAR, Data Recovery, Data Resilience, ZTNA

Confluent Address Unified Stream and Batch Processing with AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 22 July 2025

I have been saying for several years that success with streaming data requires enterprises to manage data in motion alongside data at rest, rather than treating streaming as a niche activity. Software providers have also been moving in this direction. Many established data management providers have added the ability to manage, store and process streaming data alongside their existing batch data... Read More

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

Money Talks – Is Compensation Software Speaking the Right Language?

Posted by Matthew Brown on 16 July 2025

Compensation data is everywhere. Internal equity metrics, market benchmarks, performance history, pay transparency requirements—there’s no shortage of data coming in from every direction. But volume does not always guarantee clarity. It is not about the data your system can collect, it is about whether that system—and the people behind it—can turn the data into decisions that actually make sense.... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, Total Compensation Management, Employees & HCM - Business & Technologies

Shift Happens: How Smart Scheduling and AI Are Reshaping Frontline Work

Posted by Matthew Brown on 08 July 2025

Frontline work is being reshaped from every direction: tighter labor pools, unpredictable demand and a workforce that expects more than just a paycheck. Yet too many organizations are still treating workforce scheduling like a game of Tetris—moving blocks around and hoping they fit. It’s time to admit that smart scheduling isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a frontline imperative. And if the... Read More

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

Boomi Enables Data Management and Agentic AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 03 July 2025

One of the key questions that will need to be solved if agentic artificial intelligence is to fulfill its potential is which technologies and providers will serve the role of orchestrating communication and integration between the various models, applications and data repositories involved. ISG Research defines agentic AI as software designed to execute business processes through autonomous... Read More

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

Learning That Learns: How AI is Changing the LMS Game

Posted by Matthew Brown on 02 July 2025

The learning management system (LMS) market is evolving, with the lines that once rigidly defined categories becoming increasingly blurred. Today, an LMS that lacks Learning Experience Platform (LXP) capabilities risks becoming obsolete in an environment where user expectations are shifting rapidly. In a similar vein, an LMS and LXP that fail to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI)... Read More

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

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data Management

Posted by Matt Aslett on 01 July 2025

If a single phrase could sum up the big data craze of a dozen or so years ago, it would be “more data beats better algorithms.” Attributed to Google research director Peter Norvig, the quote effectively summarized a research paper Norvig jointly authored called The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data and was embraced by big data enthusiasts as articulating the prevalent thinking that enterprises... Read More

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

Oracle’s AI Agents Amplify Value for Finance

Posted by Robert Kugel on 26 June 2025

Oracle’s recent industry analyst summit demonstrated significant progress in embedding artificial intelligence in its business applications—including those for finance, HR and supply chain management. This amplifies the already broad and deep functionality developed over decades. Oracle also continues to expand and extend its collaborative efforts with financial institutions, a form of... Read More

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

Oracle AI Direction for Business Applications

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 25 June 2025

Oracle, long known for its dominance in databases and enterprise software, has a new message for the business world: Artificial intelligence (AI) isn't just a technology trend, it's a business imperative. At the recent Oracle Industry and Application Analyst Event, company executives made their most compelling case yet for why non-technical executives should care about a deeply integrated tech... Read More

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

Solace Enables Agentic AI with Solace Platform

Posted by Matt Aslett on 25 June 2025

My colleagues have recently described how agentic artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize enterprise computing by automating the handling of static and dynamic complexity to enable software to take action without the need for human intervention. Put simply, agentic AI is the orchestration of the execution of discreet business tasks by a combination of software components... Read More

Topics: Governance, AI, Generative AI, AI & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning, Streaming & Events

Oracle Summit 2025: Agentic HCM Moves from Hype to Hands On

Posted by Matthew Brown on 24 June 2025

I recently attended the Oracle Apps & Industry Analyst Summit in Redwood City, California. Over the course of two days, Oracle offered a concentrated look at a market that is both racing ahead and tripping over its own shoelaces. Generative, predictive and now agentic artificial intelligence (AI) have become the new currency of competitive advantage across HCM; Oracle alone has delivered more... Read More

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

Data Lakehouses Enable Data as a Product

Posted by Matt Aslett on 17 June 2025

I have previously described how data as a product was initially closely aligned with data mesh, a cultural and organizational approach to distributed data processing. As a result of data mesh’s association with distributed data, many assumed that the concept was diametrically opposed to the data lake, which offered a platform for combining large volumes of data from multiple data sources. That... Read More

Topics: Operations, Data Platforms, Data Intelligence, AI & Technologies

OneStream Roadmap for AI and Agents

Posted by Robert Kugel on 12 June 2025

OneStream offers a platform designed to serve the needs of accounting and financial planning and analysis (FP&A) organizations. The software handles financial close and consolidation, planning and budgeting, analysis and reporting. OneStream recently held its annual user conference, Splash, in Nashville. In attending this meeting, my focus was once again on the progress the company has made over... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, digital finance, Consolidate and Close Management, AI & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning

Conga’s Existential Approach to Revenue Lifecycles and Operations

Posted by Stephen Hurrell on 12 June 2025

At this year’s Conga Connect 2025 conference held in Orlando, FL, the enterprise software provider unveiled both a new chief executive and a sharpened vision for the future of revenue management technology. David Osborne, recently appointed CEO of Conga, took the stage for his keynote address with a foundational question: “Why?”—as in, why does Conga exist? It’s a question designed to provoke... Read More

Topics: Office of Revenue, Revenue Lifecycle Management

Salesforce Intention for Informatica Will Bolster AI and Data Efforts

Posted by Matt Aslett on 11 June 2025

I have previously explained how increased enterprise focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and agentic AI is a forcing function for enterprises to take long-overdue steps to improve data management and data governance. Data is integral to AI: large volumes of data are required to train models, while data freshness is important for inferencing in interactive applications and data quality is... Read More

Topics: Governance, Data Management, Generative AI, AI & Technologies, Agentic AI

Adobe Applies Agentic AI to Customer Journeys

Posted by Keith Dawson on 04 June 2025

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed the idea of customer experience (CX) from a piecemeal, manually directed practice into a more streamlined and disciplined activity. The available technology has become so diverse and expansive that it is allowing enterprises to cope with a two-headed problem: providing more personalized and effective experiences is complex, and once... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience Management, Customer Journey, Adobe

Google Plots BigQuery Path from Data to AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 03 June 2025

A little under a year ago, I explained how Google was positioning its BigQuery product as a unified data platform for processing data in multiple formats, across multiple locations, for multiple use cases—including business intelligence (BI) and artificial intelligence (AI)—using a combination of multiple data engines, including SQL, Spark and Python. The evolution of BigQuery as the focus of... Read More

Topics: Data Platforms, Generative AI, AI & Technologies

Google Next Highlights AI Investments

Posted by David Menninger on 03 June 2025

The artificial intelligence (AI) landscape is undergoing dramatic transformation, with enterprises rapidly adapting to a world where AI is no longer just a possibility but a necessity. ISG Market Lens research of 300 enterprises shows that AI initiatives were the second largest category of IT spending for 2024, behind customer experience initiatives. Furthermore, enterprises plan to increase 2025... Read More

Topics: Generative AI, AI & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning, Cloud Infrastructure