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AI Is Driving Infrastructure Spending as a Priority in Financial Services in 2026

Jerry Silva — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective describes the thinking of financial institutions that have made their intentions clear about the need for infrastructure improvements, and the inference IDC Financial Insights is making about AI as the main driver behind these decisions. Over three years have passed since GenAI made the news, and while the financial services industry struggled to create real benefits from generative AI, agentic AI and AI agents have further complicated the picture, and the industry, generally, seems to be unprepared to leverage these new technologies fully. But recent surveys of the industry by IDC point to a willingness (even a need) to invest in overcoming the challenges of inadequate infrastructure preparedness in 2026 and beyond.

"The financial services industry is in 'rebuild' mode in preparation for the AI-fueled business," said Jerry Silva, vice president, IDC Financial Insights. "IT investments in infrastructure modernization are outpacing investments in areas like customer experience, even though there isn't always a short-term lift in revenue."

AWS and OpenAI To Expand Partnership With a Co-Developed Stateful Agentic Runtime

Matthew Flug — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

AWS and OpenAI announced a jointly developed stateful runtime environment for AI agents, delivered through Amazon Bedrock and designed to run natively within customers’ AWS environments. The runtime will enable AI agents to maintain persistent context, memory, workflow state, and tool connections across multi-step tasks. The goal is to simplify the development and management of AI agents by reducing the need for developers to manually write “glue code” or manage session history and orchestration logic. The new runtime integrates with AWS identity, security, and governance services, allowing organizations to implement existing enterprise controls and compliance boundaries into the runtime’s agentic workflows. The announcement underscores a shift in the application platform market from model-centric differentiation toward runtime architecture, governance integration, and vertically integrated AI infrastructure.

IDC Survey Spotlight: Are Companies in EMEA Avoiding Massive Exit to the Public Cloud for Their GenAI Workloads and Why?

Andrew Buss, Luis Fernandes — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight focuses on how EMEA companies regard using public cloud versus private IT for their AI and GenAI workloads and what is keeping them from moving entirely to a public cloud environment.

This IDC Survey Spotlight is based on IDC's EMEA 2025 GenAI Infrastructure Survey, which surveyed 1,000 organizations in EMEA. The survey spanned 16 countries across Western Europe; Central and Eastern Europe; and the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.

IDC Survey Spotlight: In Supporting AI Workloads Across the Network, Why Is the Platform Preference Fading Given the Many Potential Benefits of a Unified and Expansive Approach?

Mark Leary — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight offers insights into the shifting preferences relating to the platform approach versus best-in-class solutions when supporting AI workloads across the network. These survey results are drawn from IDC's 2026 AI in Networking Special Report, a report driven by a worldwide survey of 500+ enterprise network executives and experts. This report covers both the impact and plans for supporting AI workloads across the network and using AI-powered networking solutions. The focus of this research is comprehensive, covering datacenters, cloud services, multicloud environments, network core and edge, and network management. While this IDC Survey Spotlight offers only a view into total responses, results are available by geographic region, select country, company size, major vertical industries, respondent role, and the AI maturity level of the respondent's organization.

"Many solution suppliers are prioritizing a platform approach to the challenges associated with moving AI workloads into production. This survey of networking leaders highlights the shift in preference from platforms to best-in-class solutions when supporting AI workloads across their networks. As certain functional requirements intensify, as IT staff experience and expertise build, and as platforms fall short in delivering expected advantages, IT organizations are more willing to take on the added responsibilities associated with assembling their own mix of best-in-class solutions. For the supplier, the challenge is to avoid developing and delivering a platform that is classified as a jack-of-all-trades and master of none." — Mark Leary, research director, Network Observability and Automation, IDC

Cloud Ecosystem and Marketplace in Asia/Pacific

Daphne Chung — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Cloud adoption and marketplace usage are accelerating across the Asia/Pacific region, with cloud providers and marketplaces becoming central to IT strategy, procurement, and innovation. Organizations are prioritizing providers offering robust infrastructure, AI capabilities, and compliance, whereas hybrid and multicloud strategies are on the rise. "Cloud marketplaces are evolving into intelligent, integrated ecosystems, enabling rapid access to AI, modular solutions, and partner offerings, but governance, integration, and support remain key challenges for tech buyers in the region. Enabling the organization to leverage the capabilities and opportunities to help speed its transformation journey could mean the difference between staying competitive or facing the risk of falling behind in innovation and strategic differentiation in the market," says Daphne Chung, research director, Cloud and Infrastructure Services.

Digital Sovereignty in Back-Office SaaS: A Practical Framework for EMEA Buyers

Bo Lykkegaard — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective presents a practical, risk-based framework to help EMEA organizations evaluate and mitigate digital sovereignty risks in back-office SaaS applications such as ERP, finance, and HR systems. It introduces a four-layer model (covering Jurisdiction, Operations, Architecture, and Dependencies) that translates IDC's broader sovereignty stack into actionable buyer guidance, enabling proportionate risk assessment without excluding global SaaS providers.

"Digital sovereignty is not about isolation. It is about business resilience — that is, ensuring control, predictability, and trust in your most critical SaaS systems," said Bo Lykkegaard, associate VP, European Software Research at IDC.

IDC MarketScape: Asia/Pacific (Including Japan) Public Cloud IaaS 2026 Vendor Channel Ecosystem Assessment

Cindy Xin, Vinay Gupta, Daniel-Zoe Jimenez — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study analyzes how cloud vendors are evolving their partner ecosystems amid rapid digital transformation, AI adoption, and shifting customer needs. The study benchmarks nine major vendors on ecosystem strategy, partner enablement, and market execution, highlighting the growing importance of specialization, co-innovation, and outcome-based models for sustainable growth and competitive differentiation in the region's dynamic cloud market.

"In Asia/Pacific's cloud IaaS race, only ecosystems built on joint value creation and measurable outcomes will define the next era of digital transformation," said Cindy Xin, research director, Channels and Partner Ecosystems Research Practice, IDC China.

"AI is not just accelerating IaaS adoption — it's raising the bar for partner specialization, automation, and security across a fragmented, high-growth region," said Vinay Gupta, senior research director, Channels and Partner Ecosystem Research.

"Cloud vendors that fail to anchor their ecosystems around shared accountability and outcome-based models risk losing long-term relevance and growth," said Daniel-Zoe Jimenez, vice president, CX and Software, DNB/Start-Ups, SMBs, Consumer and Channels Research.

LevelBlue Vendor Profile: Redefining Managed Security Services Through Cloud-Native Platform Consolidation, AI-Driven Integration, and Technology-Agnostic Ecosystem

Philip Bues — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Vendor Profile provides an in-depth analysis of LevelBlue, with a particular focus on its evolution toward offering a holistic cloud security platform. LevelBlue's strategy for converging detection, response, threat intelligence, and GRC across hybrid and multicloud environments is assessed, and the company's efforts to embed advanced analytics and automation throughout its platform is analyzed. The Vendor Profile also evaluates LevelBlue's differentiators in the context of evolving enterprise security requirements and offers guidance for both LevelBlue and organizations considering managed security and cloud security initiatives.

Enterprise Connect 2026: Collaboration Take; AI and New Work Canvases Arrive

Wayne Kurtzman — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Enterprise Connect (EC) 2026 was held from March 10 to 12, 2026, at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, Nevada. This replaced the years-long home of the event in Orlando, Florida. Attendees found a smaller conference that reflected the major shift from last year's "AI's possibilities" to this year's urgent need to launch AI and agents and determine ROI. While AI and agents were the top theme, significant announcements were made in bringing new work surfaces or canvases to the forefront of the new era of work. This IDC Link analyzes the event, many of the announcements, and the overall trends.

IDC ProductScape: Worldwide Cloud-Based Core P&C Insurance Platforms 2025

Surya Narayan Saha — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

The IDC ProductScape offers a comprehensive guide on the key functionalities of policy administration, underwriting, claims processing, and billing, into a unified, modular framework, featuring products from BriteCore, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Peak3 HOLDING PTE. LTD., Guidewire Software Inc., Majesco, Inc., Salesforce, Inc., Sapiens International Corporation N.V., Insurity, Inc., Intuitive Web Solutions, LLC, SAP Fioneer, and DXC Technology Co. The status of each functionality is categorized as fully supported, partially supported, partner provided, road map, or not supported, aiding technology purchasers in quickly identifying which vendors align with their changing requirements.