ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Assessing AI Requirements for Operational Data Platforms

Posted by Matt Aslett on 12 August 2025

I have written several times recently about the importance of data in supporting artificial intelligence (AI), including generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI. From a data platforms perspective, this is most evident in the role that analytic data platforms play in supporting the training and fine-tuning of AI models. Operational data platforms also have a role to play in supporting enterprise AI... Read More

Topics: AI, Data Platforms, AI & Technologies, Agentic AI

Successful AI Adoption: Change Management is Essential

Posted by Robert Kugel on 07 August 2025

Organizational change management is the discipline and process of guiding individuals, teams and organizations to a desired future structure. This is frequently an issue when implementing new technology designed to enable new strategies or business models. It is often a challenge because of human resistance to change, which is driven by a desire for stability, fear of personal consequences and... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI, Procure-to-Pay, Consolidate and Close Management, AI & Technologies, Order-to-Cash, Business & Technologies

Adopt Real-Time Data Software to Operate at the Speed of Business

Posted by Matt Aslett on 06 August 2025

ISG Software Research recently published the 2025 Buyers Guide for Real-Time Data, providing an assessment of 43 software providers offering products used by analytics and data professionals to facilitate the use of real-time data. The Real-Time Data Buyers Guide research includes five reports which are focused on overall Real-Time Data, Application Integration, Messaging and Event Processing,... Read More

Topics: AI, Generative AI, AI & Technologies, Streaming & Events

Oracle Addresses Agentic AI for Fusion and Beyond

Posted by Matt Aslett on 29 July 2025

ISG Software Research’s expertise examines the software provider landscape through two lenses: business applications (including office of finance, human capital management (HCM) and customer experience) and IT and technology (including digital business, digital technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics and data). Most software providers fall into one of these two high-level expertise... Read More

Topics: Analytics, AI, Data Platforms, IT & Technologies, AI & Technologies, AI and Machine Learning, Cloud Infrastructure

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

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

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

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

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

Domo Addresses Data Products and Agentic AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 20 May 2025

Domo is best known as a business intelligence (BI) and analytics software provider, thanks to its functionality for visualization, reporting, data science and embedded analytics. Additionally, as I recently explained, the company’s platform addresses a broad range of capabilities that includes data governance and security, data integration and application development, as well as the automation... Read More

Topics: Analytics, AI, Generative AI, Technologies

The Symbiotic Relationship Between Data Governance and AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 14 May 2025

Data governance has always been a critical part of the data and analytics landscape. However, for many years, it was seen as a preventive function to limit access to data and ensure compliance with security and data privacy requirements. To fulfill today’s data-driven agendas, many enterprises need an evolved perspective on data governance. The development of new applications driven by artificial... Read More

Topics: Governance, Machine Learning, Operations, AI, Data Intelligence

Informatica Embraces AI for Data Intelligence and Operations

Posted by Matt Aslett on 08 May 2025

It has been a little over a decade since the term data operations entered the analytics and data lexicon. It describes the application of agile development, DevOps and lean manufacturing by data engineering professionals in support of data production. DataOps was initially seen as antithetical to traditional data management approaches, which typically included batch-based and manual tools and... Read More

Topics: Governance, Machine Learning, Operations, AI, Generative AI, Data Intelligence

ThoughtSpot Delivers Democratized AI-Based Analytics

Posted by Matt Aslett on 06 May 2025

Natural language interfaces for business intelligence products existed long before the emergence of generative artificial intelligence. Large language models have allowed BI providers to accelerate the delivery of functionality to convert natural language questions into analytic queries and generate summarizations and recommendations from data and charts. Features that enable natural language... Read More

Topics: Analytics, AI, Generative AI

Infor Shows off AI, Process Mining and MES Advances

Posted by Robert Kugel on 01 May 2025

Infor provides industry-specific enterprise software that enhances business performance and operational efficiency. These verticals and related micro-verticals include manufacturing, food and beverage, hospitality, healthcare, distribution and retail. Infor offers applications for enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, customer relationship management and human capital management,... Read More

Topics: ERP, Machine Learning, Office of Finance, Operations, Continuous Accounting, Supply Chain, AI

Headless BI and Data Democratization Enables AI and Data-Driven Enterprises

Posted by Matt Aslett on 30 April 2025

In an earlier Analyst Perspective, I discussed data democratization’s role in creating a data-driven enterprise agenda. Building a foundation of self-service data discovery, data-driven organizations provide more workers with the ability to analyze and use data. I’ve also examined how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) could revolutionize business intelligence software by using natural... Read More

Topics: Analytics, AI, Data Intelligence

Progress Enables Knowledge Graphs for Semantic AI

Posted by Matt Aslett on 24 April 2025

As enterprises embrace the potential opportunities presented by artificial intelligence (AI), they are quickly finding that good data management is a prerequisite. As was explained in ISG’s State of Generative AI Market Report, AI requires data that is clean, well-organized and compliant with regulatory standards. There are multiple challenges to delivering AI-ready data, including combining... Read More

Topics: Machine Learning, Analytics, IT, AI, Data Platforms, ADM, DevOps

SAP Unleashes Business Data Cloud for Unified AI Strategy

Posted by David Menninger on 20 March 2025

SAP was formed in 1972 to create standardized business software that would integrate all business processes and enable data processing in real time. Following the success of the initial release and subsequent R/2, the company went public in 1988 and has grown into one of the world’s largest software companies, reporting more than $37 billion in revenues in its most recent annual report. Through... Read More

Topics: Machine Learning, Analytics, AI, Data Intelligence

Alteryx Refines AI Platform for Analytics

Posted by Matt Aslett on 13 March 2025

Increased enterprise focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) has served to sharpen the focus on the need for trusted data and reliable analytics and data operations. The ISG State of Generative AI Market Report highlighted that elevated expectations and demands associated with AI are a forcing function for enterprises to take long-overdue steps to improve data and... Read More

Topics: Analytics, AI, data operations, Analytics and Data

What Analysts Should Do When Anyone Can Analyze with AI

Posted by Robert Kugel on 12 March 2025

One of the promised benefits of artificial intelligence (AI), Generative AI (GenAI) and agents is that they can make everyone their own financial and business analyst. It’s true that these technologies can make it possible for everyone to access once hard-to-reach data (with suitable permissions), unleash agents to assemble the data into useful tables and charts along with commentary describing... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, AI, AI and Machine Learning

Agentic AI Reliability Requirements for Data

Posted by Matt Aslett on 25 February 2025

It is now more than two years since the launch of ChatGPT introduced the world to generative AI (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs). GenAI-based assistants and co-pilots are now widely adopted, with individuals and enterprises adopting GenAI models to automate the generation of text, digital images, audio, video and code, amongst other things. More than four-fifths (81%) of participants in... Read More

Topics: Analytics, AI, Analytics and Data