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Driving Operational Excellence with Digital Twins in Manufacturing

Sarah Lee, Carlos Gonzalez, Gunjan Bassi — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines how digital twins are evolving from visualization tools into the simulation and orchestration backbone of physical AI on the shop floor. It distinguishes between the simulation role, which models processes and assets to support engineering and AI training, and the orchestration role, which coordinates physical systems, AI agents, and workers in real time. It examines divergent adoption patterns across process and discrete manufacturing and profiles the vendor landscape. It provides guidance for operations and plant leaders on sequencing investments, building data foundations, and pairing twin programs with workforce enablement.

"Digital twins are evolving beyond visualization to become the operational backbone of AI-enabled manufacturing. As manufacturers move toward autonomous operations, digital twins provide the simulation environment to train AI and the orchestration layer to coordinate assets, systems, and people in real time," says Sarah Lee, senior research director, Manufacturing IT Strategies at IDC.

"A digital twin may be technically secure yet still become operationally unreliable if its data, models, and assumptions drift from reality. Trust requires both protection and continuous validation," says Gunjan Bassi, research manager, Worldwide Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Intelligence Strategies at IDC.

"A digital twin is only as good as the data beneath it. Without a unified industrial data layer that mirrors real-world plant conditions, even the most sophisticated twin serves only as a virtual mirror. For real digital twins to evolve in the world of physical AI, real-time data analysis and automation must be in sync with digital twin simulation," says Carlos Gonzalez, research manager, Event-Driven Automation and Analytics at IDC.

Emerging Agentic Automation Patterns

Neil Ward-Dutton — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines how AI agents are being applied to business operations, beyond early adoption in marketing and software development. Using IDC's Business Automation Blueprint, the document identifies four emerging patterns — agents as task actors, knowledge assistants, orchestrators, and designers/improvers — and explains where each fits alongside established deterministic automation technologies such as workflow tools, RPA, and integration platforms. It closes with practical guidance for technology buyers evaluating where and how to deploy agents within existing operations.

"As AI agents begin to be used within broader business automation initiatives, it's vital to understand the different roles that AI agents can play, and how those roles differ," said Neil Ward-Dutton, research VP, Agentic Automation and AI Technologies at IDC.

How Ukraine's Drone War Is Rewriting the Rules of Technology Development, and What That Means for Government Procurement

Alison Brooks, Ph.D., Alan Webber, Ruthbea Yesner — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses how Ukraine's drone war has compressed technology development from years to weeks: 3D-printed hardware, AI running directly on the aircraft, open source tools, and a feedback loop in which the engineer who built a drone learns of a battlefield failure within hours. This document examines how this happened — production up roughly 80,000% since 2022, strike success rates rising from 20% to 80% — and what does and doesn't transfer to Western defense and public safety procurement. Most of the conditions behind Ukraine's model — its data scale, its motivational proximity, and its open development culture — are specific to a country fighting for survival and cannot be replicated in peacetime. But the procurement lesson — that acquisition systems built for stability are mismatched to threats iterating weekly — transfers directly.

"Ukraine's drone war didn't just speed up development; it inverted who gets to set the pace. A police department or a defense program can borrow the discipline of fast iteration, but the wartime conditions that make Ukraine's model work — the data scale, the tolerance for field failure, and the total absence of classification friction — aren't something procurement reform can manufacture," says Alan Webber, program vice president, National Security, Defense, and Intelligence at IDC.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Virtual Client Computing 2026 Vendor Assessment

Shannon Kalvar, Filippo Vanara — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study presents a vendor assessment for the worldwide virtual client computing market. The VCC providers identified were evaluated using the IDC MarketScape model, and the process included information collected from the market and the providers themselves. Providers were measured in terms of their current capabilities and future strategies for delivering services to customers globally.

"VCC has matured from a localized hardware containment strategy into the definitive control plane for the modern digital workspace. By decoupling the operating system and enterprise data entirely from physical silicon, VCC provides global organizations with the ultimate architectural flexibility to handle volatile security landscapes and rapid AI deployment. In the current enterprise environment, treating endpoints as persistent corporate data stores is a severe operational risk; VCC neutralizes this liability, turning the distributed edge into a secure, predictable, and entirely stateless extension of the enterprise cloud," said Filippo Vanara, research manager, Worldwide enterprise client computing platforms at IDC.

Market Forecast: Worldwide Enterprise Performance Management Forecast, 2026–2030

Megha Kumar — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation provides the five-year forecast for the enterprise performance management (EPM) applications.

The worldwide enterprise performance management applications market is being reshaped by increasing demand for continuous planning and scenario analysis, process automation and modernization, and the growing adoption of AI-enabled and agentic planning capabilities that allow for efficiencies and decision velocity.

"The adoption of agentic AI in financial planning and analysis will intensify demand for cloud-based EPM platforms that support integrated data architectures, continuous planning cycles, and AI governance. Vendors will need to reinforce their commitment to responsible, transparent, and auditable AI to drive uptake." — Megha Kumar, research vice president, Analytics and AI

Market Share: EMEA Supply Chain Management Software Shares, 2025

Bo Lykkegaard — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation highlights vendor shares and dynamics in the supply chain management (SCM) software market in EMEA for 2025.

“The SCM applications market in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa continued to grow and thrive, with revenue rising in 2025. Unprecedented supply chain uncertainty because of wars, tariffs, and sanctions has fueled demand for applications that bring fast decision-making and change execution. EMEA enterprises seek modern, cloud-based, and AI-powered applications and platforms to dramatically speed up supply chain processes,” said Bo Lykkegaard, associate VP, European Software Research at IDC.

Market Share: European Contact Center Applications Shares, 2025 — Vendors That Shaped 2025

Oru Mohiuddin — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation examines the European contact center vendor landscape, looking at market competition and how players are differentiating their services through innovation.

"While Europe was behind in the technology adoption journey curve, agentic AI is demonstrating a reverse trend with European businesses closely following the United States in terms of exploring and adopting agentic AI." — Oru Mohiuddin, research director, European Unified Communications and Collaboration, IDC

Market Share: Worldwide AI Build and Deploy Software Shares, 2025 — Unified AI Platforms, Governance, and Regulation

Kathy Lange — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation presents a view of worldwide AI build and deploy software revenue broken down by vendor for the historical year 2025.

“As AI moves from experimentation to operationalization, enterprises are consolidating onto unified platforms that bring data, model development and tuning, governance, and orchestration together. The AI build and deploy market is the foundation for scaling predictive, generative, and agentic AI.” — Kathy Lange, research director, AI, Data, and Automation Software, IDC

Market Share: Worldwide Intelligent Cloud and Edge Operations with FinOps Software Shares, 2025 — AI and Acquisitions Ignite Growth

Jevin Jensen — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation examines the 2025 market shares of the leading vendors in the intelligent cloud and edge operations with FinOps software market.

In 2025, vendors reached the top of this market through two different paths: completing an acquisition already made or building a product for cloud-native operating environments.

"Acquisitions and AI investments are driving growth in this market, especially for the top 20 vendors. Smaller vendors in the intelligent cloud market addressed unique enterprise pain points. IDC research shows most companies have three to five IT automation solutions in production. This unique combination pushed the total addressable market beyond $28 billion, outpacing growth in the overall software market." — Jevin Jensen, research vice president, Infrastructure and Operations

The Data Gravity Shift: Databricks CustomerLake Begins to Redraw the Customer Data and Agentic Marketing Landscape

Tapan Patel — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Databricks’ launch of CustomerLake at the Data + AI Summit 2026 is more than a product announcement; it is a major entry into the marketing technology market that reshapes the competitive dynamics for CDP vendors, agentic marketing and customer engagement platforms, and enterprise buyers alike. This IDC Market Perspective analyzes the architecture, market implications, and strategic advice for Databricks, CDP vendors, and technology buyers navigating this shift.