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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.

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."

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.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Vertical AI and Industry Cloud Professional Services 2026–2027 Vendor Assessment

Nadia Ballard — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study provides an assessment of select professional services vendors that offer vertical AI and industry cloud solutions and services. Using the IDC MarketScape model, we have based our evaluations on both quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback from the vendors' partners and clients to build profiles that summarize each vendor's industry-specific strategy, current offerings, strengths, and opportunities.

"The record 17 vendors included in this year's document speak to the growing interest in AI-enabled vertical solutions and platforms among buyers, and the ongoing shift in service providers' delivery models toward more asset-based and automation-driven engagements," said Nadia Ballard, research director for AI Verticalization and Industry Cloud Strategies. "This updated and expanded study offers an objective assessment tool for organizations looking to engage their professional services partners in AI-first modernization of their most mission-critical, industry-specific systems and processes."

The Transformation Mandate Is Back Across EMEA Organizations, But Not as a Single Office

Lapo Fioretti — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines two questions: whether AI is bringing back the transformation mandate and whether that mandate is returning through a central role or office. Drawing on IDC survey data and insights from IDC’s EMEA Digital Leaders Hub, it finds that the mandate is back, but there is no broad return of a dedicated office: the transformation mandate is instead spread across business units, shared teams, and new roles, with a central coordinator, most often the CIO. That form is better at driving execution, but leaves process redesign without a business owner, and short payback expectations pull it toward efficiency and technology delivery.

“The transformation office is not coming back at scale, but the transformation mandate is. Its real test is whether the business owns the redesign of its processes,” said Lapo Fioretti, EMEA lead analyst, AI-Fueled Business Strategies at IDC.