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IDC Market Glance: EMEA AI-Fueled Workspace, 3Q26

Leonardo Freitas, Gala Spasova — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Glance is a taxonomy document intended to visually depict a concise current-state view of the AI-fueled workplace ecosystem in EMEA. It maps the vendors across three layers: building management, workforce enablement, and services. IDC's take is that European specialists are redrawing the regional map, and that digital sovereignty and ownership changes now shape how buyers should evaluate vendors.

IDC Survey: Embedded Intelligence Survey, 2026 — North America Insights into Edge AI Adoption, Physical AI Readiness, and Vendor Selection

Nina Turner — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey examines enterprise adoption of AI at the edge, including inference placement across cloud, near-edge, and device-edge tiers, workload and processor preferences, vendor selection criteria for edge infrastructure and semiconductor vendors, and organizations' readiness for physical AI, with year-over-year (YoY) comparisons to IDC's 2025 AI Edge Infrastructure Evolution Survey.

It includes data drawn from respondents' answers to questions addressing a range of issues, including the following:

How far have organizations progressed in deploying AI at the edge, and how has that maturity changed since 2025?
How do organizations split AI inference across cloud, near-edge, and device-edge locations, and what is driving that placement?
Which AI workloads — generative, agentic, predictive maintenance, and autonomous systems — are organizations prioritizing at the edge?
What accelerator and processor types (e.g., GPUs, NPUs, ASICs, custom AI accelerators) do organizations prefer for edge AI workloads, and how is that preference shifting?
What vendor-related criteria matter most when selecting edge infrastructure and semiconductor vendors, including security and compliance support, development tools, and toolchain support?
How ready are organizations to deploy physical AI, and what barriers—integration, compute, or otherwise—stand in the way?

The sample includes 602 qualified respondents across the United States and Canada, representing organizations with 100 or more employees across multiple industries, covering IT and line-of-business decision makers currently using or planning to use AI at the edge.

India Case Study: Building Nugget — How Zomato Scaled Its Conversational AI Platform to Production on Amazon Web Services

Rajiv Ranjan — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective documents the stages of Zomato's modernization to develop Nugget, a robust, modern conversational AI–enabled CX platform. The case study discusses Nugget's development, its usage internally by Zomato employees, and its launch to the external market and adoption. It also highlights what value Amazon Web Services (AWS) provided in building and launching Nugget and why enterprises should consider Nugget.

"Conversational AI platforms can help organizations modernize fragmented, legacy CX processes into a unified, multichannel, and multilingual experience that delivers personalized interactions and scales on demand to support a growing customer base," says Rajiv Ranjan, associate research director, IDC.

Managing Risk when Financing IT Assets Given AI Demand's Reshaping of Hardware Markets

Lara Greden — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective helps technology leaders and procurement professionals negotiate IT asset financing in a market where AI demand is making residual values and refresh timing less predictable, with guidance on pricing each asset class separately and maximizing flexibility in lease terms.

"With AI reshaping hardware supply and pricing, fair market value of used assets now varies distinctly by asset class," said Lara Greden, senior research director, Infrastructure Services, IDC. "Technology leaders who price each asset class on its own and use leasing contracts to build in flexibility will be better positioned to manage cost and risk as market conditions change."

Takeaways in Digital Production and Large Format Printing from PRINTING United 2026

Tim Greene — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study highlights some of the major observations from the recent PRINTING United 2026 event. Held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the event brings together many of the world's leading suppliers and printing companies and serves as a stage for many of the newest products and technologies affecting the printing industry.

"There were many new product and technology announcements at PRINTING United that will influence the printing market toward more automated and productive solutions," says Tim Greene, research director, Industrial and Large Format Printing, IDC. "We see vendors aggressively moving to integrate technologies such as AI along with advancements in hardware and ink to facilitate production advantages."

Dreamforce 2026 Sees AIforce Unveiled as a Bold Opportunity for Both Salesforce and Its Partners

Douglas Hayward — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study shares the takeaways from Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce customer conference, held September 15–17 in San Francisco, California, United States. During the event, the company introduced AIforce, a live interface layer that enables users to access Customer 360 and Data 360 via Slack, Claude, Agentforce Coworker, and custom apps, signaling a shift toward intuitive, conversational enterprise software. Revised Agentforce pricing, deferred partner license charges, and the FDE Partner Network aim to deepen partner collaboration and reduce implementation risks, creating new opportunities for CX services providers to deliver value through data readiness, workflow design, and multisurface integration. “What if the future of enterprise software is not about logging in, but about intelligent conversational interfaces delivering business value from outside of the traditional app environment? That is the direction of travel for at least some users, and Salesforce’s services partners must plan accordingly,” says Douglas Hayward, senior research director for CX Strategies and Services at IDC.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Digital Identity Services 2026 Vendor Assessment

Joel Stradling — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study provides a comprehensive evaluation of global service providers supporting enterprise digital identity transformation. This assessment analyzes vendors across critical capabilities including identity governance and administration (IGA), privileged access management (PAM), access management (AM), customer identity and access management (CIAM), and emerging areas such as non-human identity (NHI) and AI-driven identity operations.

The study leverages IDC's rigorous MarketScape methodology, combining quantitative and qualitative criteria to assess vendor strategies, innovation, delivery models, ecosystem partnerships, and customer outcomes. This document highlights the increasing complexity of identity environments, the shift toward zero trust architectures, and the growing adoption of AI and automation to address operational efficiency, risk management, and regulatory compliance.

Key findings include:

The market is highly competitive, with both global systems integrators and specialized managed service providers offering differentiated value propositions.
Enterprises are prioritizing modernization, automation, and unified identity fabrics to address hybrid, multicloud, and regulatory requirements.
Leaders demonstrate good execution, innovation in AI/ML, and the ability to deliver at scale across diverse industries and geographies.

This IDC MarketScape provides actionable guidance for organizations evaluating digital identity partners, emphasizing the importance of aligning provider capabilities with business objectives, regulatory needs, and future readiness for AI and non-human identity management.

"Given the complexity of modern identity systems and the breadth of requirements across IGA, PAM, AM, and CIAM, enterprises are increasingly turning to specialized managed service providers to streamline operations and reduce the burden on IT and security teams," said Joel Stradling, senior research director, Global Security and Trust at IDC.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Supply Chain Planning for Discrete Industries 2026 Vendor Assessment

Eric Thompson — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study uses the IDC MarketScape model to provide an assessment of providers participating in the worldwide supply chain planning market for discrete industries. The IDC MarketScape is an evaluation based on a comprehensive framework and a set of parameters that assesses providers relative to one another and to those factors expected to be most conducive to success in a given market during both the short term and the long term.

"Supply chain planning is a critical capability in a resilient discrete industry supply chain. The ability to plan demand and supply, while optimizing inventory positions, and then agreeing to a consensus plan through S&OP, are all critical components in managing an efficient and effective supply chain," says Eric Thompson, research director, Worldwide Supply Chain Planning at IDC.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Supply Chain Planning for Distribution Industries 2026 Vendor Assessment

Eric Thompson — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study uses the IDC MarketScape model to provide an assessment of providers participating in the worldwide supply chain planning market for distribution industries. This IDC MarketScape is an evaluation based on a comprehensive framework and a set of parameters that assesses providers relative to one another and to those factors expected to be most conducive to success in a given market during both the short term and the long term.

"Supply chain planning is a critical capability in a resilient distribution industry supply chain. Planning demand and supply, optimizing inventory positions, and then agreeing on a consensus plan through S&OP are all critical components of managing an efficient and effective supply chain," says Eric Thompson, research director, Global Supply Chain Planning at IDC.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Supply Chain Planning for Life Sciences Industries 2026 Vendor Assessment

Eric Thompson — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study uses the IDC MarketScape model to provide an assessment of providers participating in the worldwide supply chain planning market for life sciences industries. The IDC MarketScape is an evaluation based on a comprehensive framework and a set of parameters that assesses providers relative to one another and to those factors expected to be most conducive to success in a given market during both the short term and the long term.

"Supply chain planning is a critical capability in a resilient life sciences supply chain. The ability to pair an accurate demand forecast to a credible supply-side plan, while optimizing necessary inventory positions, and then agreeing to a consensus plan through S&OP, are all critical components in managing an efficient and effective supply chain," says Eric Thompson, research director, Worldwide Supply Chain Planning at IDC.