This list celebrates changemakers creating meaningful impact through leadership, innovation, fresh perspectives, transformative mindsets, and lessons that resonate far beyond the workplace.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
IBM used Adobe Firefly over the last year to lower its #content spend by 80% 📉 and reduced its ideation time from 15 days to 2 days in a marketing campaign executed in and around the Sphere in Las Vegas.
💡 Perhaps the bigger takeaway is that IBM's returns were largely driven by using Firefly at the front end of the creative process. Joe Prota, Director of Brand Marketing at IBM, is a Constellation Research SuperNova Award finalist. 🏆 In an interview with Constellation's editor-in-chief Larry Dignan, Prota shared the project's goal of scaling Adobe's Firefly in its marketing efforts and leveraging IBM's watsonX for governance.
📽️ Watch the full interview covering the topics of leveraging generative AI in the creative process, pilot, process and production, returns, and ideation.
➡️ Read Larry's full recap article here: https://www.constellationr.com/blog-news/insights/supernova-award-interview-how-ibm-used-adobe-firefly-speed-ideation-and-iteration
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said the company is committed to serving the public sector and government "in all of its domains" and said Google Public Sector is the only completely independent division to give it the leeway to serve customers.
Kurian's comments, which were delivered at the Google Public Sector Summit in Washington DC, come as the company's government playbook revolves around showing what it can do for various services with Gemini and its AI portfolio and being seen as an AI partner.
"We want everyone to leave today with 100% certainty that we are committed to supporting the govt in all of its domains. Period. It's not just building our products and accrediting them, but bringing our expertise. Google Public Sector is the only independent division giving it the ability to serve," said Kurian.
In a talk with Google Public Sector CEO Karen Dahut, Kurian drew parallels with how Google Cloud's enterprise strategy has evolved. In multiple cases, Google Cloud has come in as a cloud provider for compute and storage, but the company differentiates with data and AI services including BigQuery, Vertex AI and Gemini throughout its platform. The approach reminds me of how Google Cloud has moved up the cloud food chain in enterprises. Constellation Research previously covered Equifax's cloud transformation in a customer story and that case study highlights how Google Cloud leverages AI and machine learning to be more strategic in multi-cloud environments.
Dahut and Kurian noted that Google Public Sector is offering innovation faster since it's not just another government cloud. "Governments will want access to the latest innovation and the choice of where you want to deploy," said Kurian, who also argued that Google Public Sector will provide a platform for multiple models.
Google Public Sector's core argument is that its tech stack can be more adaptive, responsible, secure and intelligent.
Kurian said Google Public Sector is also set up on Google Cloud's security foundation and various controls as well as its Mandiant unit and security operations. "Your data is your data and no one else's," said Kurian.
A few key points from the Google Public Sector Summit keynote and the overall strategy.
Google Public Sector's core AI pitch revolves around being multimodal so its government clients can "now analyze 90% of the data gathered rather than just the 10%," said Dahut.
The company is deploying a show-don't-tell strategy with its customer references at Google Public Sector Summit. The lineup of CxOs from government agencies is impressive. Demos also highlighted how generative AI can be built into government infrastructure for everything from video analysis, mapping and processes for citizen services and security analysts.
Google Public Sector's partner strategy has evolved quickly since the way into agencies is often through integrators such as Accenture and Carahsoft. The company is also systematically checking off various clearances for its AI models.
Kurian said AI agents have the opportunity to scale government services, automate processes for loans, permits, tax forms and claims and process unstructured data to "fundamentally change how information is processed and decisions are made."
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
Google Public Sector said Gemini in Google Distributed Cloud for secret and top-secret workloads will be available in early 2025 as the two-year-old unit announced key customer wins NIH Strides and CalHEERS as well as a Federal AI Solution Factory with Accenture. Google Cloud also won new authorizations for Air Force Cloud One to provide cloud services to the Department of the Airforce.
At its Google Public Sector Summit in Washington DC, Google Cloud laid more groundwork for government AI workloads. The summit featured a bevy of AI leaders across federal agencies as well as Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. The event kicks off as each federal agency is required to fill Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer roles by the end of the year due to the White House Executive Order on AI.
With government agencies going multicloud, Google Public Sector is positioning itself to be an AI provider that can adapt across hybrid cloud deployments and multiple models with Google Cloud services such as BigQuery and Vertex AI. A demo showcase will highlight how Google generative AI tools can be used for everything from disability claims processing to research grants to geospatial applications and edge computing.
In a keynote, Google Public Sector CEO Karen Dahut (right) said the Public Sector Summit had more than 1,000 public sector leaders at the conference. "The public sector is ready to adopt the latest generative AI technology with the proper guardrails built in," she said. "We are demonstrating what's possible now."
Dahut cited multiple Google Public Sector customers including the US Air Force for preventive maintenance, local governments such as Dearborn, Michigan for citizen services, and the Department of Defense, which has built an AI-driven microscope to be deployed at military treatment centers.
Here's the rundown of what was announced.
Gemini in Google Cloud Distributed Hosted and its clearance for secret and top-secret workloads mean public sector agencies can build out AI agents across departments for workflows, code development and cybersecurity.
Google Public Sector has achieved Impact Level (IL) 4 and IL5 Authorization to Operate (ATO) for Air Force Cloud One. Air Force Cloud One is a contract vehicle for providing cloud services to the Air Force. The authorization, which builds on top of Google Public Sector's FedRAMP authorizations, means the US Air Force will be able to access Google Cloud for infrastructure and applications.
National Institute of Health STRIDES Marketplace. Google Cloud and 11 independent software vendors launched the Google Cloud NIH STRIDES Marketplace, which will give NIH scientists the ability to find, purchase and deploy services such as compute, storage, analytics, AI and machine learning for biomedical research. The marketplace's inaugural partners include Redis, Box for Life Sciences , Augmedix (a Commure company), Sorcero, Egnyte, MongoDB, Weka.io, Form Bio, Red Hat, Rhino Health and Aiforia.
Deloitte and Google Public Sector will deploy Google Security Operations to secure CalHEERS, the State of California’s health benefits exchange system. CalHEERS runs Covered California, the state's health insurance marketplace. Google Cloud will provide its suite of cybersecurity tools for threat detection, incident response and security analytics with built in Gemini AI. Covered California said in April it would use Google Cloud's Document AI.
Google Public Sector expanded a partnership with Accenture to launch an AI Federal Solution Factory to prototype and pilot AI use cases for agencies. In addition, Slalom Solution Factory and Google Public Sector expanded a partnership aimed at US state and local government and education use cases.
The Accenture and Slalom Solution Factory partnerships landed as Google Public Sector enhanced its Partner Program, which includes improved incentives, more training and co-marketing support, accelerated go-to-market and clear delivery frameworks.
Google said it will dedicate $15 million in new Google.org funding to Partnership for Public Service and InnovateUS to upskill government workers.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
The German Speaking SAP User Group (DSAG) said that SAP on-premises customers are being discriminated against because the software vendor is requiring that new innovations, notably generative AI, will be delivered on its cloud platform.
DSAG is holding its annual conference and users are trying to navigate digital transformation and AI as well as their own IT budgets.
Jens Hungershausen, DSAG Chairman of the Board, said in a letter that SAP is mistaken with its strategy to deliver innovation solely through the public cloud. SAP has been pushing customers through various programs like RISE with SAP to move to S/4HANA Cloud and a clean data core.
"DSAG also believes that on-premises systems will remain highly relevant for some time to come, e.g. in industries with high process complexity or due to legal or data protection framework conditions or individual requirements. For example, the cloud offering in public administration must meet the sovereignty requirements set by the public administration for certain specialist processes and take into account the applicable legal framework conditions."
This debate over on-premises vs. public cloud with DSAG and SAP is notable given that many vendors and enterprises are betting that on-premises AI infrastructure will gain in popularity due to costs, data proximity and various regulations. "The discrimination of on-premises customers when it comes to innovation, the perceived pressure to switch to the cloud and the increasing dependence on SAP are just a few examples," said Hungershausen.
Holger Mueller, Constellation Research analyst, said the DSAG-SAP debate over the innovation delivery strategy will continue. "It’s clear that DSAG and SAP are at odds on innovation strategy, as to where innovation needs to be delivered," he said. "SAP is focused on public cloud, DSAG wants innovation on premieres and for private cloud. The core challenge remains that SAP needs to show value to get customers to upgrade to public cloud. And needs to do more."
Constellation Research analyst Ray Wang noted:
"Customers signed up for the promise of enterprise software where advancements and innovation would be delivered in exchange for the license of software and maintenance. When software companies break that promise, customers suffer. In the case of SAP’s on-premises customers, this promise continues to be broken and DSAG is correct that this type of discrimination should be addressed."
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
Dell Technologies launched its Dell PowerEdge XE9712, a system built on Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 platform with 36 Nvidia Grace CPUs and 72 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs in a rack.
The system, available with liquid cooling, builds on Dell Technologies' AI Factory strategy for scale-out AI workloads. The Dell PowerEdge XE9712's 72 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs use NVLink to act as one GPU.
Dell said that the PowerEdge XE9712 is designed to fit into its latest rack design. The Dell Integrated Rack 7000 fits with Open Compute Project (OCP) standards and is designed to accommodate multiple generations of systems and heterogenous GPU providers. Last week, Dell launched an integrated AI system powered by AMD and its portfolio of CPUs, GPUs and software.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
Databricks broadened its partnership with Amazon Web Services in a move that will put Databricks Mosaic AI on AWS for custom models. In addition, Databricks will use AWS' Trainium chips as its preferred infrastructure for model training.
Under the partnership, Databricks and AWS will give joint customers the ability to use Mosaic AI to pretrain, tune and serve large language models (LLMs) on AWS.
The two companies will also provide new integrations for Databricks on AWS Marketplace, which is becoming a vehicle for enterprise software sales. For instance, Databricks' AWS business has passed $1 billion annual revenue run rate due to AWS Marketplace.
Key items in the collaboration pact include:
Databricks, which recently expanded Mosaic AI to include Mosaic AI Model Serving, will support multiple model providers via Amazon Bedrock.
Mosaic AI models can scale up on AWS Trainium chips.
Joint customers can launch AI applications while keeping their data secure.
The two companies will expand go-to-market efforts and joint offerings. Databricks and AWS will develop custom models built with Mosaic AI on AWS Trainium. The companies also said they will collaborate with systems integrators to migrate data stores from on-premises to AWS.
Databricks and AWS will launch industry genAI accelerators for media and entertainment and financial services with more on deck.
AWS Marketplace integrations with Databricks will simplify onboarding and configuration and serverless compute.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
IBM used Adobe Firefly over the last year to lower its content spend by 80% and reduced its ideation time from 15 days to 2 days in a marketing campaign executed in and around the Sphere in Las Vegas. Perhaps the bigger takeaway is that IBM's returns were largely driven by using Firefly at the front end of the creative process.
Joe Prota, Director of Brand Marketing at IBM, is a Constellation Research SuperNova Award finalist. Prota said the goal of the project was to scale Adobe's Firefly in its marketing efforts and leverage IBM's watsonX for governance. "We decided to take over the Sphere in Las Vegas and turn it into a giant fishbowl," said Prota. "We developed all of the assets used in the Sphere and surrounding the event as well as outside on other billboards throughout Las Vegas."
Here are some of the takeaways from Prota on leveraging generative AI in the creative process.
GenAI and creative development. Prota noted that the creative development process isn't linear since there are twists and turns before you land on an idea and the final assets that go with it.
Prota described the project and the process before and after. "If you think of each fish as a character, you have to define and develop those characters. And in a historical setting, an art director or copywriter or someone within the creative team is going to either hand draw what they think those characters look like or pull reference imagery from a number of different sources," said Prota. "Then it's going to be presented up through management. It's going to get refined, then it will come across my desk, and I'll have input on it. The whole process can take three to four weeks."
Using Adobe Firefly inside of Adobe Express, the creative team was able to take ideas, put them into a prompt and then have hundreds of different reference images, said Prota. "What took three weeks we were able to achieve in three days," added Prota.
Returns. Prota said the biggest return on genAI was time savings. "From a creativity standpoint, there was no gap between the person whose idea it was and the person who was reviewing the idea," he said. "Firefly allowed us to move much faster and build on another's ideas in a more productive and collaborative way than we normally have because the AI was absolutely representing what this person was trying to create."
Pilot, process and production. Prota said IBM chose to embed Firefly in the beginning of the creative development process. That move led to trust because the team knew it would have to catch mishaps--off brand logo colors and images--before they went to market.
"If you're using AI on the back end of the process in higher volume, and pushing content out quickly, there's more of a risk. We knew we had safeguards built into place, just by virtue of the way we were using the AI," said Prota, who noted that the models were fed brand guidelines and color palettes as well as humans in the middle of the process for fine tuning.
Prota said enterprises should think of generative AI as something that can be more helpful early in the creative process instead of the end when content is being churned out. "When you think of marketing materials there are certain assets that are high volume," he said. "Using generative AI early on has shown that it's really an invaluable tool because it sped up development time. The handoff between parties was much more seamless."
Ideation. Prota said Firefly was an accelerator to the creative process and generative AI's biggest return could be accelerating ideation and iteration. "I don't know if a lot of people are using genAI that way today, but I would highly recommend it," said Prota. "It allowed us to align ideas under a shared vision and accelerate the process."
Prota's game plan going forward is to scale Firefly on other projects along with IBM's homegrown tools.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
Google is the latest cloud giant to tap into nuclear power to power its AI workloads. The company said that it inked purchase agreement to use Kairos Power small modular reactors (SMRs) to power data centers.
Nuclear power has seen a resurgence as hyperscalers look for energy to train large language models (LLMs) and power AI workloads. Microsoft recently said it will have a data center adjacent to Three Mile Island. Amazon Web Services (AWS) cut a similar deal earlier in the year.
SMRs are relatively new technologies, but the idea is that these reactors can be added to data centers as needed. Google said the initial work will bring Kairos Power's first SMR online by 2030. Additional reactors will be installed through 2035.
Kairos Power uses a molten salt cooling system and a ceramic fuel to transport heat to a steam turbine. The reactor operates under low pressure. In a statement, Kairos Power said that it will show progress and iterate and optimized leading up to deployment.
"Our partnership with Google will enable Kairos Power to quickly advance down the learning curve as we drive toward cost and schedule certainty for our commercial product," said Kairos Power CEO Mike Laufer. "Google is more than just a customer. They are partners who deeply understands our innovative approach and the potential it can deliver."
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
Adobe launched its Firefly Video Model in beta, added Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing and layered generative AI features throughout its suite of products.
The news, announced at Adobe's flagship Max conference in Miami, includes the following:
Firefly Video Model, which will debut in beta. The Firefly Video Model will power Generative Extend in Premiere Pro in beta, Text to Video in Firefly and Image to Video in Firefly. The features will now enable creators to speed up production and ideation with the ability to generate video by text descriptions and images. Like the Firefly Image Model, Adobe is focused on commercial usability, integration into workflows and quality of output.
Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing, which aims to bring creatives and marketers together in one workflow. The workflows include genAI, brand approved assets, the ability to create and remix content and insights to measure effectiveness across social, email, paid media and marketing.
More than 100 innovations across Creative Cloud. A few headline features include Firefly-powered Generative Extend in Premier Pro, a new version of Frame.io, Firefly Image 3 Model in Photoshop including a bevy of generative AI features and enhancements for Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Lightroom. Adobe Express also enables creators to work seamlessly with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Lightroom files.
Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller put the Adobe moves at Max in context:
"Adobe is putting AI into the tools that creatives live in every day. This isn't about doing the creators job. This is contextual and practical AI where creators want it most. Creators aren't learning a new tool or technology. They can click a button, ask a question, identify a space and take hours of work off their plate. Take Generative Expand. That's a complex series of actions that once required highly creative and skilled designers to spend hours copying, brushing, smoothing or stamping at pixel levels. These Firefly models and AI workflows collect all those tiny actions and execute them, giving creators time back to create instead of mask.
Firefly Video Models: when you take a step back and look at how Adobe is changing the work of creation, it starts at that moment of capture on camera. The Firefly video model delivers amazing results all with simple text prompts but the security it delivers is in line with Adobe's overarching vision of trusted enterprise ready AI content, which is not trained their customers' creations and uses assets creators have permission to use. It is one thing to create a video of flying down street and creating a video you can reliably use in business applications."
Here's a look at the main takeaways from Max and a deeper dive on the news.
Firefly Video Model. By integrating Firefly Video Model with Premiere Pro, Adobe is addressing common pain points for video creation. For instance, Generative Extend will extend video and audio clips to cove gaps in footage, smooth out transitions and hold shots longer. Content is credentialed in all outputs.
Adobe said that the Firefly Video Model can take still shots, images and illustrations and turn them into live action clips.
Firefly Video Model use cases will be able to create animation in 2D and 3D, text graphics and B-roll from reference images. The model will also be able to add atmospheric elements to videos and understand complex scenes when prompts are long.
Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing is now generally available. Adobe's approach to enterprise content creation is to layer genAI in multiple products, enable brands and creative development to free up time for ideation, scale asset production, remix marketing and business communications and stay on brand and edit, experiment and activate content in one workflow.
The company cited a bevy of enterprise customers driving returns on genAI across the Adobe platform. For instance, Pfizer upped content volume 5x, Densu saw 70% faster delivery time, Pepsi scaled 540,000 on-brand images in 5 days and IBM saw 26x higher engagement from Firefly content.
Adobe said that Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing is a single app to create, measure and personalize on-brand campaigns with AI embedded throughout workflows. The headliner of GenStudio for Performance Marketing is a series of native integration with ad platforms including Met, Amazon Ads, Google, Microsoft Advertising, Snap and TikTok and Adobe Experience Cloud.
Scaling models throughout the Adobe stack. In addition to the features outlined at Max, Adobe highlighted how it sprinkling Firefly services and custom models throughout its platform. These additions include everything from Dubbing and Lip Sync APIs to personalize local video content, InDesign APIs to automate workflows, new image APIs for object composites and the ability to create user interfaces in bulk.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
About Larry Dignan:
Dignan was most recently Celonis Media’s Editor-in-Chief, where he sat at the intersection of media and marketing. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of ZDNet and has covered the technology industry and transformation trends for more than two decades, publishing articles in CNET, Knowledge@Wharton, Wall Street Week, Interactive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Temple University and a member of the Advisory Board for The Fox Business School's Institute of Business and Information Technology.
<br>Constellation Insights does the following:
Cover the buy side and sell side of enterprise tech with news, analysis, profiles, interviews, and event coverage of vendors, as well as Constellation Research's community and…
Read more
Ashwin Rangan, who has been in the CxO game for three decades at ICANN, Rockwell International, Walmart and Bank of America, has seen his share of technology cycles and generative AI is just the latest.
In an interview, Rangan, currently Managing Director of the Insight Group and BT150 member, outlined the progression of the CIO role and connected the dots between today's AI-driven technology inflection points and past innovation curves.
Here's a look at some of the takeaways from our chat.
How the role of CIO has changed. Rangan said 30 years ago, the CIO was thought of as a back-office automation role. "The need at the time was the implementation of global ERP. In the mid-1990s, the Internet was just starting to become available. Networking was inordinately expensive, but for the first time you had the ability to leverage one global ERP working in multiple currencies, regions and customer types with different formats and invoices," said Rangan. "Harmonizing these basic business transactions had everything to do with back-office automation."
He said today, the CIO is more front facing. "Today, most of the action for CIOs is in the front of the house where it's about customer engagement and value delivery and understanding product development," said Rangan. "You still have to be cognizant of being an efficient, lean operation, but the CIO is with the business leaders now understanding what drives the business."
Business alignment. Rangan said CIOs became more aligned with the business over time, but the dotcom boom and the emergence of the Internet pushed tech and business alignment forward.
"Right around the 2003-2008 timeframe technology and business started to have conversations that were more value driven and purpose driven. The most progressive of companies now are starting to have conversations about strategy, where the business strategy and the IT strategy conversations are the same. You can't have a business strategy conversation without also having an IT strategy conversation at the same time."
AI budgets and choosing when to ride new technology waves. Rangan said it's early days for generative AI, but not AI and machine learning. He noted that a lot of generative AI will be consumed in existing enterprise technology applications. That won't be new budget per se. On the other end of the spectrum there will be enterprises that see how generative AI can differentiate their businesses. They'll spend it if the conditions--data, culture, talent--are in place. When budgeting for AI, enterprises need to focus and think through their FOMO and sometimes choose to hang back.
"If the ROI was clear up front, I would be quick out the gate," said Rangan, who noted he chose to be an early mover at Rockwell with SAP. "In other cases, I've chosen to wait with new technologies because while the technology looked promising, the return on investment was not necessarily as promising."
Rangan said genAI is developing so fast that first mover advantages may not last long because the roadblocks today may be resolved quickly. "The price you pay for waiting will not be high because we are all learning at the same time," he said.
Vendor management. During his time as a CIO, Rangan said he took a portfolio management approach to his enterprise technology vendors. "You may have a large vendor that has the promise of delivering something compelling for your business," explained Rangan. "In that case, it makes sense to have some of your bets with that vendor. But you need your hedges. You can also have startups that are narrow and deeply focused on your specific domain. There could be potential for strategic alignment and partnership, perhaps even an investment. You need a careful analysis of the chessboard and not put all of your chips in one square."
oud deployments and multiple models with Google Cloud services such as BigQuery and Vertex AI. A demo showcase will highlight how Google generative AI tools can be used for everything from disability claims processing to research grants to geospatial applications and edge computing.
