Research

Analyst Firms

Synthesis and critique of AI research from Gartner, Forrester, IDC, McKinsey, and others — with credibility ratings and mid-market applicability assessments.

24 documents

AI and Revenue Growth: Pricing, Sales Qualification, and Personalization

The dominant AI ROI narrative runs through headcount avoidance and productivity. That narrative is accurate — and increasingly incomplete.

Analyst Firm Positions on AI in Software Engineering (2025-2026)

All three major analyst firms agree: AI-augmented software engineering is transitioning from experimentation to enterprise-scale adoption.

The CFO's Own Workflows: Where AI Delivers and Where It Is Still Hype

The CFO's office controls the very workflows most suited to AI: high-volume, rule-governed transactions (AP/AR), pattern-recognition tasks (variance analysis, anomaly detection), document-intensive co

The CHRO's Own AI Workflows: Where the HR Function Captures Real Value — and Where It Is Still Getting It Wrong

The CFO has financial close automation. The COO has demand planning and AP automation. The CRO has pipeline intelligence.

The CMO's AI Playbook: Content at Scale, Personalization That Converts, and the Judgment Calls AI Cannot Make

Marketing is not a late AI adopter.

The COO's AI Playbook: Five Workflows Worth Automating Now

The COO owns execution.

The CRO's AI Playbook: Sales Forecasting, Pipeline Intelligence, and RevOps Automation

The CRO sits at an unusual intersection: the function with the most to gain from AI (every point of forecast accuracy, every hour reclaimed from CRM hygiene, every deal risk caught earlier) and the fu

Forrester on Developer Experience and AI Tools: The Honeymoon Is Over

Forrester's approach to AI in software development differs from Gartner's in one important way: where Gartner evaluates vendors (Magic Quadrant for AI Code Assistants), Forrester builds conceptual fra

Forrester: Three Years Into GenAI — Enterprises Still Chasing Transformative Value (2026)

Three years in, the gap between AI investment and measurable financial return is the defining feature of the enterprise landscape.

Forrester TEI: Microsoft 365 Copilot Returns 116% ROI Over Three Years — With Critical Caveats

For context, Forrester has published multiple Microsoft-commissioned TEI studies. All carry the same vendor-commissioned caveat:

AI Has Left the Chat: Forrester's Three-Layer Framework for 2026 Strategic Planning

The Forrester framework is useful because most mid-market 2026 AI planning is still single-dimensional — a list of point tools without a sequencing logic.

Gartner's Framework for AI Code Quality Governance

Gartner's "Predicts 2026: AI Potential and Risks Emerge in Software Engineering Technologies" report contains three predictions that frame the quality governance challenge:

AI in Infrastructure Stalls: Only 28% of I&O Use Cases Deliver ROI

Gartner's April 2026 survey of 782 I&O leaders reinforces a pattern visible across every major study of enterprise AI deployment: the technology is not the bottleneck. Execution is.

Gartner's 2025–2026 AI Maturity Surveys: The Data Foundation Gap and the Governance Ceiling

1. **AI Maturity Longevity Study** (June 2025 press release) — n=432, Q4 2024 fieldwork, US/UK/France/Germany/India/Japan

Gartner on AI-Augmented Software Engineering (2025–2026)

Gartner published two relevant Hype Cycles in 2025: the **Hype Cycle for AI** (August 2025) and the dedicated **Hype Cycle for AI in Software Engineering** (2025).

The Copilot Dead End: Gartner Says Most Enterprises Will Abandon Assistive AI by 2028

Gartner's April 2026 prediction marks the sharpest institutional signal yet that the copilot era has an expiration date.

Gartner Global Labor Market Survey 2026: The Enablement Illusion and the People-Centric AI Gap

Gartner's label for the pattern that emerges consistently across this dataset: organizations that provide AI access without changing training, incentive structures, or manager behavior believe they ha

The $53 Billion Signal: Gartner's Forecast on Agentic AI in Supply Chain

The MHI/Deloitte 2026 Annual Industry Report (n=500 supply chain professionals) found AI adoption in supply chain at 41% — up from 30% in 2025, a 37% year-over-year increase.

Google CCAI: What the Contact Center AI ROI Evidence Actually Shows

Before evaluating Google CCAI, it is worth being specific about what is not credible evidence.

IDC 2025–2029 AI Spending Forecast: Agentic AI to Exceed 26% of Worldwide IT Spend by 2029

⚠️ **TEMPORAL NOTE:** This forecast was published August 2025 and covers 2025–2029. The near-term figures (2025 baseline) are already subject to verification against current data.

IDC and the AI Coding Tools Market: What the Spending Data Actually Shows

IDC structures its AI forecasts in layers, none of which isolate "AI coding tools" as a discrete market.

Agentic AI Sprawl: 94% of Enterprises Report Rising Risk, Only 12% Have Centralized Control

96% of organizations surveyed report using AI agents in some capacity. 97% say they are exploring system-wide agentic AI strategies.

hai-fb8399-ai_index_report_2026.pdf

Stanford HAI — 2026 AI Index Report