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IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled Customer Data Platforms for B2B Users 2026 Vendor Assessment

Tapan Patel — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study evaluates vendors of customer data platforms (CDPs) focused on B2B users and use cases. The B2B CDP is a multiyear revenue infrastructure decision that crosses marketing, sales, customer success, revenue operations, and partner functions. Buyers are more cross-functional, sales cycles have stretched, and finance leaders are asking sharper questions about what CDP investments actually return. Generative AI and AI agents have added a new dimension to the conversation, used by marketing and sales teams to engage prospects and used by buyers themselves to research and short-list vendors. This study examines the foundational dynamics B2B CDP buyers face, the use cases organizations are most often building, and the practical advice buyers should follow during evaluation and selection.

"For the first time, B2B revenue teams can operate from a single, trusted view of account and buying group and put that same view in the hands of the AI agents now joining their work," said Tapan Patel, research director, AI-Enabled Customer Data and Analytics. "As marketing leaders are increasingly held accountable for pipeline contribution and customer expansion, the CDPs that earn their place are the ones that help marketing measure and defend that contribution alongside sales, customer success, and operations."

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Revenue Management Systems in Hospitality 2026 Vendor Assessment

Dorothy Creamer — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study provides a vendor assessment of the worldwide revenue management systems (RMSs) in hospitality using the IDC MarketScape model. The hospitality revenue management system market is at a genuine inflection point. The convergence of AI maturity, platform consolidation, and expanding commercial scope is redefining what an RMS is expected to do and for whom. For decades, the category was defined by a relatively stable core function: forecast demand, optimize rates, and sell the right room to the right guest at the right time. That mandate has not changed, but the complexity of executing it has grown exponentially, as hoteliers now contend with fragmented data estates, compressed margins, volatile demand patterns, and growing organizational pressure to extract revenue from every corner of the property, not just the room.

The vendors evaluated in this IDC MarketScape reflect a market in active architectural transition, with meaningful divergence emerging across three dimensions: the depth and durability of AI and forecasting science, the degree to which the RMS is embedded within or connected to the broader hospitality technology stack, and the ability to serve an increasingly stratified operator landscape that spans global enterprise chains and single-property independents simultaneously. For technology buyers, navigating this landscape requires moving beyond feature comparisons toward a more foundational set of questions about data readiness, organizational change capacity, and long-term platform alignment.

"As hotel operations grow more complex and data environments more demanding, the RMS is no longer just a system that produces the best rate recommendation; it has to have forecasting science, explainability, and platform architecture to deliver revenue per guest and total property at scale," says Dorothy Creamer, senior research manager, Hospitality and Travel Digital Strategies, IDC. "AI capability without organizational readiness, however, will be a liability waiting to materialize in the form of overrides, mistrust, and unrealized ROI."

Embedded Lending as a Strategic Imperative: How Financial Applications Can Navigate the SMB Credit Gap

Jordan Steele — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective examines the embedded lending opportunity, the competitive dynamics shaping the market, the innovation models suppliers are deploying, and the regulatory and risk considerations that technology vendors must address. Embedded lending is a strategic imperative for financial application vendors aiming to close the persistent SMB credit gap left by traditional banks. By leveraging real-time transactional data within financial workflows, vendors can unlock new credit access, differentiate through targeted underserved segments, and create recurring revenue streams. Success requires a proactive approach to data governance, regulatory compliance, and platform integration. As competition intensifies from fintechs and payroll platforms, vendors that invest early in data assets, compliance infrastructure, and seamless product integration will secure a durable competitive advantage and capture unmet SMB credit demand.

“The SMB credit gap has always been a data and distribution problem more than a risk problem. Financial applications sit on both, which is why embedded lending will shift meaningful share away from traditional bank channels faster than most incumbents are prepared for,” says Jordan Steele, research manager for Worldwide Financial Applications Support at IDC.

Microsoft Build 2026: A New Development Platform for the Agent Era

Adam Reeves, Matthew Flug — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

At Microsoft Build 2026, Microsoft announced a coordinated set of platform updates spanning developer tooling, agent runtimes, data infrastructure, and its own model family, framing GitHub, Windows, and Azure Foundry as a unified surface for building and deploying agentic applications. The announcements reflect a broader market shift in which PaaS selection is increasingly shaped by a platform's ability to address security, governance, and production readiness for agentic workloads, not development speed alone.

Feedzai Fusion 2026: Global Intelligence, Converged Risk, and the Agentic Threat Horizon

Sam Abadir — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Feedzai used Fusion 2026 to make two arguments that matter for risk and compliance technology buyers. First, that fraud, financial crime, and cybersecurity must be treated as a single threat discipline. Second, that institution-level intelligence is no longer sufficient to defend against fraud networks that operate globally and across institutions. The headline product launch, the Feedzai IQ Score, operationalizes the second argument directly. IDC views Fusion 2026 as a substantive event for risk and compliance buyers, with a meaningful signal beneath the vendor marketing.

IDC Market Glance: Agentic AI Tools and Technologies for National Civilian Government, 2Q26

Massimiliano Claps — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Glance illustrates how to achieve agentic AI deployments and outcomes at scale. Governments need to combine solutions and expertise provided by multiple vendors, such as global platform vendors (e.g., AWS, Microsoft, Google, Palantir, Salesforce, and ServiceNow), AI model providers (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta), government specialty solution vendors (e.g., LexisNexis and Fast Enterprise), systems integrators (e.g., Booz Allen, Leidos, Accenture, SAIC, GDIT, and IBM), and agentic AI orchestration and governance specialists (e.g., Langchain and Credo AI).

IDC Survey Spotlight: What Do Buyers Want from Agentic AI and Who Owns the Agentic AI Investment Decision within Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service Functions?

Tapan Patel — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight summarizes findings from IDC's April 2026 Agentic AI Functional Use Case Survey of marketing, sales, and customer service decision-makers. The study examines what these buyers expect from technology vendors as they move agentic AI into production, and how investment authority is distributed across business leaders, IT, and emerging AI centers of excellence (COEs).

This study highlights three tensions: shared business–IT ownership versus traditional line-of-business control, enthusiasm for agentic AI ideas versus uncertainty about which use cases to fund first, and strong interest in AI agents versus concerns about data, context, and content readiness. The slides explore how these dynamics should shape vendor priorities in go-to-market, services, and product road maps.

IDC Survey: How Energy Retailers and Suppliers and Water Utilities Are Approaching Innovation — Insights from IDC’s 2026 Energy and Utilities Industry-Specific Tech and Innovation Survey

Gaia Gallotti — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey examines a portion of IDC’s 2026 Energy & Utilities Industry-Specific Tech and Innovation Survey, a landmark study covering utilities worldwide. It was conducted in February and March 2026.

The survey included 800 respondents, of whom 531 are utilities respondents from the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, the UAE, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

This presentation extrapolates and analyzes select data from 67 energy retailers and suppliers and 88 water suppliers worldwide. It focuses on the following areas:

Business transformation and innovation areas where adoption is most advanced
Processes and operations innovation priorities
Asset management innovation priorities (water suppliers)
Forward investment momentum vs current adoption (planning rates)
Differences and similarities between energy retailers and suppliers and water suppliers

IDC’s Worldwide Services Contracts Database Taxonomy, 2026

Supriya Kamath, Stacey Soohoo — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study provides a detailed description of IDC’s worldwide services contracts database taxonomy and methodology. It is intended as a companion document for clients and analysts using IDC’s services contracts database. The taxonomy establishes consistent classification standards for contract-level analysis, enabling users to filter, compare, and analyze deal activity across service types, geographies, and buyer industries.

“IDC’s services contracts database taxonomy establishes the definitional boundaries that determine what counts as a services contract, how it is classified, and how its value is measured. For any organization using services contracts database data to inform vendor strategy, competitive positioning, or market sizing, the taxonomy is the analytical foundation on which every insight in the database depends on,” said Stacey Soohoo, research director, IDC’s Data and Analytics.

“IDC’s services contracts database taxonomy provides a standardized framework that ensures every contract we track is consistent and comparable across all geographies and service categories. It gives clients methodological transparency to confidently analyze deal trends, benchmark vendor performance, and identify services opportunities in an increasingly complex market,” said Supriya Kamath, senior research manager, IDC’s Global Services and Market Trends.

Market Analysis Perspective: Japan DevOps and Cloud Application Platforms, 2026

Shinichi Kimura — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 04:00:00 GMT

本IDC Market Analysis Perspective（MAP）は、国内DevOpsソフトウェア市場に関して、IDCが2026年5月までに行った分析のサマリーを提供している。本市場に影響を与えるトレンド、競合分析、ユーザー動向、本市場の将来展望、ITサプライヤーへの提言などで構成される。