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Alphabet 2Q26 Results: AI Investments Drive Commercial Returns

Matthew Eastwood, Dave McCarthy — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Esri Positions Location as Core Context for the AI-Era Data Estate at the 2026 User Conference

Marlanna Harrington, Megha Kumar — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

At its 2026 User Conference in San Diego (July 13–17), Esri drew more than 18,000 attendees around the theme “GIS: creating a more intelligent world.” The company wove AI across ArcGIS in three layers: AI assistants for everyday workflows, AI tools and models, and agentic AI that exposes authoritative GIS content to external agents through Model Context Protocol (MCP). Esri also introduced ArcGIS for ServiceNow, extended real-time capabilities with Velocity on ArcGIS Enterprise, and reinforced digital twins and cloud data warehouse integration. IDC views location as a critical but still under-exploited input to the enterprise data and decisioning estate, one the AI shift could finally push from the periphery toward the core. Esri’s challenge is converting breadth into governed, integrated production systems rather than another data silo.

Galaxy Unpacked July 2026: Samsung Widens the Foldable Portfolio and Braces for Apple

Francisco Jeronimo, Nabila Popal, Ramon T. Llamas — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

At Galaxy Unpacked in London on July 22, 2026, Samsung launched three foldables at the same event for the first time, in its most consequential book-style redesign in seven years: the wide, passport-format Galaxy Z Fold8 at $1,899, the taller Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra at $2,099, and the Galaxy Z Flip8 at $1,199, joined by the Galaxy Watch9 and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and a brief on-stage tease of Samsung's Android XR "Galaxy Glasses." Samsung is moving early to define a new book-style format on its own terms and to make higher prices stick through a memory-driven cost cycle, with the decisive test still two months away, when Apple is expected to bring foldables into the mainstream and reset the category's economics. This IDC Link will cover the foldables lineup.

IBM Quantum to Acquire HRL Laboratories, Expanding Its Quantum Technology Portfolio and Developmental Roadmap

Heather West, PhD — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The acquisition of HRL Laboratories by IBM Quantum (further referred to as IBM) reflects a shift toward acquiring, rather than solely developing in-house, the complementary technologies needed to scale quantum computing beyond a single hardware modality. The deal adds silicon-spin qubits, quantum sensing, and advanced materials expertise to a growing set of IBM investments that increasingly resemble the foundation of a full-stack, distributed quantum computing infrastructure.

Agents at Work: Salesforce CNX26 and What the Agentic Platform Looks Like in Production

Dorothy Creamer — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses Salesforce Connections 2026 (CNX26) and what the agentic platform looks like in production. At CNX26, Salesforce demonstrated an agentic enterprise platform spanning marketing, commerce, and service on its Customer 360 foundation. The June release for Agentforce Commerce and the acquisitions of Cimulate and Contentful extend that scope for retail, hospitality, and travel operators, adding composable commerce, intent-aware search, and enterprise content on a unified architecture. The primary challenge for buyers is not platform selection but the data readiness and organizational work that must precede deployment.

“Salesforce built its CNX26 presence around a unified story for agentic commerce backed by live production evidence. This refresh provides a pathway for intent-aware search, dynamic content, and composable storefronts, giving retail, hospitality, and travel operators a credible entry to the conversational, contextual commerce experience guests increasingly expect,” says Dorothy Creamer, senior research manager, Hospitality and Travel Digital Strategies, IDC. “What the platform does not provide is a shortcut around data quality. The strategic message for hospitality and travel operators is clear: Get your guest and transaction data unified, because the platform is ready to use it.”

Certinia Acquires Moonnox, Creating Digital AI Value: Professional Services Automation Platform with AI Architected at the Core

Mickey North Rizza — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Today, Certinia, an AI-powered Professional Services Automation (PSA) vendor, announced it has acquired Moonnox, an AI-native services delivery platform purpose built for the professional services sector. This combination of both an AI-powered PSA vendor and an AI-native services platform enables Certinia to bring even more value with its systems of records of PSA, Financial Management, and Customer Success Cloud Services, through the extension of Certinia's AI System of Action, called Veda, enabling Certinia to become a platform that powers AI-native services with AI architected as the core customer delivery mechanism.

Flexible Workforce Readiness, Planning, and Compliance in Focus for Quinyx at Navigate 2026

Zachary Chertok — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study showcases how Quinyx, at Quinyx Navigate 2026, took a strong focus on responsible, responsive, and accurately rooted AI while guaranteeing regulatory and compliance updates to back up newly released capabilities. The vendor’s focus is a strong play in an otherwise mature WFM market, as Quinyx proved its capabilities on stage with clients while further reinforcing regulatory readiness owing to its European roots. Advancing into compliance centricity as a foundation to drive its agentic capabilities into scheduling and forecasting positions Quinyx well to support its clients’ growing appetites for growth through new market exposure while managing and reducing their risks of error and cost exposure.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled Order Orchestration and Fulfillment Applications for Retail and B2C 2026 Vendor Assessment

Ornella Urso — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC MarketScape provides a vendor assessment of worldwide AI-enabled order orchestration and fulfillment applications for retail and B2C and B2C for 2026. Order orchestration and fulfillment has become a competitive capability rather than a routine process, and modern software aims to help retailers manage its complexity across capture, promising, orchestration, fulfillment, and returns. Retailers continue to rebuild operations and technology to handle the scale and complexity of omni-channel demand. The most persistent gap remains real-time, network-wide inventory visibility, while composable architecture has become a baseline expectation, and AI, including agentic AI, is moving from road map toward early production with uneven maturity.

"The costs of shipping, last-mile delivery, and returns have made channel-by-channel decisions too slow and too expensive to sustain. In response, retailers are aligning operations around order management as a real-time coordination layer, where each order is sourced and fulfilled against a single picture of demand and inventory", says Ornella Urso, research director, IDC Retail Insights. "Order orchestration and fulfillment have become a key lever that increasingly moves margin and service outcomes, between customer engagement and operations to serve customers consistently and profitably. One more, AI (and agents) is central to this shit."

IDC Survey Spotlight: What Are the Hidden Costs of Disconnected Guest Experience and Data in Restaurants?

Dorothy Creamer — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight examines the hidden costs of disconnected guest experience and data in eating and drinking establishments. Drawing on IDC’s 2026 Retail Technologies and Business Processes Trends Survey, it finds fulfillment friction, data privacy, and weak loyalty topping operators’ urgent commerce challenges. IDC argues that unified commerce platforms, governed guest data, and closed-loop loyalty are essential to converting personalization ambition into sustainable retention.

IDC Survey: Customer Journey and Channel Preferences Across Regulated and Competitive Markets — Insights from IDC’s 2026 Energy Consumer Affordability & Trust Survey

Gaia Gallotti — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey examines a portion of IDC’s 2026 Energy Consumer Affordability & Trust Survey. This landmark study, conducted in May 2026, is a B2C survey that covers energy customers worldwide.

The survey included 1,507 energy customers from the following 18 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Italy, France, Germany, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

This presentation analyzes the energy customer journey experiences and channel preferences for two segments:

Competitive markets (n = 691): Australia, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom
Regulated markets (n = 816): Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States

The analysis covers:

Frequency of digital tool usage for energy monitoring
Frequency and reasons for contacting the energy provider
Issue resolution outcomes
Channel preferences across seven task types
Customer behavior when digital channels fail