I keep seeing a version of the same scene. A CEO has a question about AI. It is a real question, the kind that will shape where the company spends the next two years. The CEO does not bring it to the CIO. They bring it to a data leader two levels down, or to…
DetailsOnce upon a time, there were actual arguments as to whether CIOs should be business people, not technology people. With any luck, these arguments were stomped out back here: “The case against the ‘business-savvy CIO’” — which drove the arguments for this false dichotomy into the ground back in 2018. Some complications have arisen in…
DetailsFor three decades, enterprise software has been a buy-it decision. Packaged software from SAP, Oracle and Salesforce covered roughly 80% of requirements at a fraction of the cost of building. The economics were obvious, and for traditional applications, they still are. AI is introducing a wrinkle that is forcing even the most committed enterprise software…
DetailsOrganizations usually face the same questions concerning XLAs: What should we measure, who owns the data, how should incentives work, and how will this change provider behavior after signature. There are no easy answers either, but after advising clients in MSP relationships with major providers, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. Successful XLA programs…
DetailsThe Linux Foundation has launched the x402 Foundation, a new industry body that will oversee the x402 payment protocol, an open standard designed to let AI agents, applications, and APIs pay for digital services over HTTP. The x402 protocol, originally developed by Coinbase, embeds payment capabilities directly into web interactions, allowing AI agents, APIs, and applications to…
DetailsThe industry conversation around AI infrastructure has narrowed to a single dimension: scale. The focus is on GPUs, power, cooling and the massive physical footprint required to train and run AI agents and models. At the same time, organizations are adjusting to the speed and scale with which AI is identifying vulnerabilities — which is…
DetailsSalesforce’s AI agent platform, Agentforce, is seeing weaker-than-expected customer traction, according to a recent KeyBanc Capital Markets investment research note, which attributed the slowdown in part to the product itself, stating that “Agentforce, as a product, just isn’t there” yet, following customer checks and a CIO survey. “Our checks and customer conversations have not been…
DetailsAs AI use ratchets up, demand for data center capacity is higher than it’s ever been. But New York State is telling the industry: Not so fast. New York Governor Kathy Hochul this week signed an Executive Order described as the “nation’s first moratorium” on new hyperscale data centers, massive factories that typically comprise thousands…
DetailsWith AI increasingly tucked into every cranny of the enterprise, someone has had to step up and provide the tools necessary to discover, track, and monitor all the agents and LLMs and keep them humming along in their various workflows. Thankfully, the DevOps world answered the call, building the tools to support our new overlords…
DetailsI have sat in a lot of ERP training sessions over the years. Some were excellent. Most were not. And the ones that failed share a pattern I have come to recognize almost immediately: a vendor trainer at the front of the room, working through the same slide deck they use for every client, at…
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