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
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Amazon Web Services launched AWS Transform custom, which is a new agent to modernize the custom code that got you into your technical debt pickle in the first place.
The launch, which AWS kicked off at re:Invent 2025 with a stunt that included blowing up a server rack, is the latest in a portfolio of Transform services.
The goal is to use the agent to free up developers.AWS Transform custom includes:
Command line and web interfaces to define transformations through natural language and execute them on local codebases.
AWS Transform custom can operate autonomously.
The web interfaces provides tracking for teams and transformation progress.
The system supports runtime upgrades without the need for additional information.
AWS Transform custom learns enterprise code patterns that have evolved over time.
DevOps can configure AWS Transform custom with integration and continuous delivery tools.
AWS also announced the following AWS Transform updates.
AWS followed up the general availability of AWS Transform for .NET with full stack Windows modernization. AWS Transform will cover application, UI, database, and deployment layers and map Windows stacks to AWS services.
AWS Transform for mainframe adds capabilities called Reimagine, which uses AI to revamp an enterprise architecture using business logic, patterns, data lineage and legacy source code. With the service, customers can transform mainframe applications to microservices and modern architecture. AWS Transform for mainframe also includes automate test plan generation, collection scripts and AI tools to accelerate testing timelines.
Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, said:
"AI has tremendous power when transforming and translating language, and code is nothing but a (very structured) language. As such it has a lot of promise for code renovation and modernization. Good to see AWS tackling this, but it is kind of skimming the low hanging fruit by modernizing 5-10 year old code assets. Staying away from 10-29+ year old code assets, these require code translation from the legacy to a modern programming language. And that is where the prize for CxOs really is."
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud are making their clouds interoperable in a move that will be welcomed by multicloud enterprises.
In a blog post, the two cloud giants said they are simplifying how enterprises string together interconnects between AWS and Google Cloud. The news lands as AWS kicks off its AWS re:Invent 2025 conference in Las Vegas.
According to AWS and Google Cloud, the companies will also introduce a new open specification for network interoperability. Customers should be able to establish private high-speed connectivity between AWS and Google Cloud.
With enterprises rolling out architectures for AI adoption and AI agents, the idea of do-it-yourself cloud networking wasn't going to fly. For example, Salesforce, which uses both AWS and Google Cloud, said the interconnect between the two cloud will be critical for Salesforce Data 360.
Here’s a look at how the interconnect between AWS and Google Cloud would work.
AWS said that the unified specification can be adopted by any cloud provider.
Key points:
The multicloud connectivity from AWS and Google Cloud mean there will be a managed cloud-native experience.
The joint effort will abstract physical connectivity, network addressing and routing policies.
Bandwidth can be provisioned on demand via their preferred cloud console or API.
Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, said the collaboration is a good first step.
"Enterprises have their data fragmented across the cloud, but AI forces them to connect them. So it is good to see the partnership between AWS and Google to help customers. But voiding the spec of the interconnect, specifically latency - we can only go for the precursor of this - between Azure and OCI. And that was too slow for analytics use cases - hence Oracle moved the Exadata machines inside of Azure. We will see what use cases CxOs can power from the new partnership - but based on the past - hope should not be too high."
Rob Kennedy, VP of Network Services at AWS, said at re:Invent 2025, that AWS will also be connecting to Microsoft's Azure interconnect in the near future. Key points from Kennedy:
Customers asked for interconnects that went across clouds not just on-premises data centers. "We decided to really solve this problem for our customers and just create a full managed solution that kind of abstracts away all the physical components," said Kennedy. "They can simply turn up bandwidth between multiple locations cloud providers."
Defining the standard should make it easier to combine clouds and "we've already got buy-in from both GCP and Azure," said Kennedy. "We hope to continue to get buy in from others as we continue to move forward. And it's a full global service."
Customers can define the bandwidth needed with a click and get budget predictability.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
AWS Marketplace is moving beyond apps to offer multiple products bundled into one package, faster private offers and agent mode. AWS Marketplace is also accelerating processes post purchase.
With the move, AWS Marketplace is evolving to enable partners, software providers and integrators to combine components to address complex enterprise use cases, offer flexible pricing and utilize one procurement flow. Customers have better transparency for each component, simplified negotiation and purchasing and one seller of record.
The news outlined ahead of AWS re:Invent 2025 is the latest iteration in how AWS is as much of an enterprise technology marketplace as it is a cloud provider. AWS Marketplaces has more than 3 million subscriptions enabled and more than 99% of the top 1,000 AWS customers have at least one AWS Marketplace subscription.
Speaking on a briefing, Matt Yanchyshyn, Vice President of AWS Marketplace and Partner Services, said the club of vendors that have sold more than $1 billion on AWS Marketplace is growing. Salesforce, Databricks and CrowdStrike are in the club but partners such as Presidio are also conducting transactions at scale.
Yanchyshyn added that the July launch of AI agents in AWS Marketplace is scaling. AWS is also using its own AI agents and generative AI tools on the marketplace. "We have a new suite of AI powered capabilities that are facilitating both discovery, product comparisons, but also purchase through the marketplace," he said.
For AWS Marketplace, which has more than 30,000 public listings, 3,500 channel partners, 10,000 professional services providers and 6,000 sellers in 70 categories, the vision is to remove friction from buying services and software from partners. AWS Marketplace is looking to offer automated deployment experiences as well as built-in integration. For instance, CrowdStrike, one of AWS Marketplace's biggest partners, now has CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM for AWS with pay-as-you-go pricing, self-service procurement, an automated deployment experience and built-in integration with AWS CloudTrail, Security Hub and Guard Duty.
The flow consists of subscription, service selection, 1 click launch resources for integration and deployment.
Here's what AWS Marketplace added.
Solution-based buying where customers can purchase multiple products and services in one flow. The seller of record sends a consolidated offer that includes private offers from all components in a stack. The customer reviews terms and pricing, costs for each component and total contract sets and accepts or denies.
AWS Marketplace's move to support a stack in one purchasing flow reflects that reality that most enterprise purchases aren't done in isolation. Customers in theory would remove the hassle of compiling software and services themselves.
Yanchyshyn said the solution approach on AWS Marketplace should enable more industry- and use-case focused sales. "We're starting to see more industry vertical type solutions come to the marketplace as well," he said. "We need to cater to the needs of the sellers, and, more importantly, our joint customers as well. They're looking for solutions that solve their specific use cases, not always point products."
Independent software vendors can use AWS Marketplace to combine software with implementation services, package complementary products or team up with channel partners and integrators. Systems integrators and channel partners can package services with software their authorized to resell, align with outcomes and simplify procurement for enterprise wide deployments.
Here's a look at some representative solutions.
Since anyone can put solutions together, Yanchyshyn said he expects some interesting packages to emerge. He noted that GitLab and MongoDB often sell services along with their software. "The lines between resellers and professional services and ISVs have definitely started to blur over the last few years," he said. "I think we're going to start to see some interesting models evolve with people reselling other people's stuff."
AWS Marketplace also added the following.
Agent Mode, a conversational interface that guides buyers through research and analysis, uploads requirements documentation and provides in-depth comparisons.
From there, Agent Mode generates downloadable proposals. Agent Mode also features a Model Context Protocol server for accessing AI tools and building discovery experiences.
AI-enhanced search for better precision on searches by use cases. Buyers can narrow down results with smart category filters, product grouping and specializations at a glance.
Express private offers where AI on AWS Marketplace evaluates customer needs and aligns them with seller-defined parameters. In other words, offers can be instantly generated. "It allows the seller to essentially expose their private rate card, their discount sheet, and allow us to issue private offers on behalf of the seller to customers, said Yanchyshyn.
Buyers qualify for offers, skip pricing negotiations and procure software at discounted rates. Sellers get flexible pricing at scale, streamline private offers for standard deals and can refocus sales teams.
Variable payments for professional services. AWS Marketplace is supporting flexible services engagement with contract pricing with variable payment, upfront payment and installment plans. Embedded into private offers, services firms can bill customers as work is delivered, based on outcomes or milestone or how time and materials are consumed.
In the variable payment for professional services model, customers get transparency and control and can review and approve requests manually or automate them.
AWS Marketplace added automation features in AWS Partner Central in the AWS Console. Features include API automation, streamlined access to Partner Central and Marketplace Management Portal features, connections to other AWS partners, a personalized Partner assistant powered by Amazon Q, and enhanced user management tools.
New Partner Central APIs, which connect business tools to Partner Central to automate co-selling processes. AWS Marketplace added Opportunity API, Leads API, Account API, Solution API, Benefits API and Connections API.
The AWS Marketplace additions complement new features announced Nov. 19. Leading into re:Invent, AWS Marketplace added billing transfer, which gives customers that ability to retain access to their management account while AWS invoicing and cost data is transferred to channel partner accounts.
AWS Marketplace had also streamlined processes behind post-purchase setup. AWS added identity access management tools that allow partners to request time limited access to customer AWS accounts and streamlined product setup and ongoing maintenance.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Warby Parker is entering its third act that will be powered by AI on two fronts: Productivity and revenue growth.
Neil Blumenthal, President and Co-CEO, said on the company's third quarter earnings call that the eyeglass retailer's next act will be "defined by innovation through AI."
Blumenthal added:
"We plan to leverage AI to develop new products like AI glasses, to enhance our customer and patient experience like our homegrown first true to scale virtual try-on that now encompasses features like glasses eraser and adviser and to drive productivity and accelerate EBITDA expansion. We previously announced that we'll be working with Google to bring intelligent eyewear to market and are excited to share that we're partnering with Samsung as well."
For Warby Parker's next act to pay off a lot will be riding on the Google partnership, which was announced in May. More news could be outlined in the coming months with CES 2026 or Google I/O as obvious events to showcase a new product.
Google is looking to be a fast-follower to Meta, which has had success with adding technology to Ray Bans. Meta has a long term partnership with Ray Ban parent EssilorLuxottica.
Warby Parker emerged as one of the first Internet lifestyle brands and sold glasses online with frames starting at $95. Warby Parker, through multiple business cycles, has kept that trademark pricing.
As for the second act, Warby Parker scaled its brick-and-mortar footprint and began providing eye exams and contacts. Today, the company's glasses are often covered by insurance and the customer base has diversified enough to show different buying patterns. For instance, Warby Parker's single vision and contacts business lost some momentum since those buyers are younger and struggling amid economic uncertainty. Sales of progressives had more resilience because the customers are older and better off.
The retailer AI strategy is broad and designed to drive productivity, new customer experiences and new products. Here's a look at the plan.
AI productivity efforts
Blumenthal, along with Co-CEO and Principal Financial and Accounting Officer David Gilboa, recently held the company's annual One Vision Summit, which brings retail leaders and optometrists together.
Because it's AI-driven tools on the website and in Warby Parker's app have been so successful, the company has been able to sunset its Home Try-on program.
Under that program, Warby Parker would send prospective customers a set of frames to try on at home and then send back. The program, which was critical to getting consumers used to buying glasses online, also came with shipping costs and a longer sales cycle.
Sunsetting Home Try-on is part of an effort to align with evolving customer preferences and technology while simplifying operations and carrying less inventory.
"We're encouraged by the engagement and conversion we're seeing from AI-powered tools like Advisor, which gives us confidence in our ability to drive the channel long term. Lastly, we continue to expand our holistic vision care offerings as part of our broader strategy to serve all of our customers' needs," said Gilboa.
Blumenthal highlighted a few ways AI was driving Warby Parker metrics.
"We're using AI in our eyewear design process and even evaluating technical designs as we leverage AI as part of our customer journey flow," said Blumenthal.
"Our brand and creative tools are leveraging new tools to bring down the cost of content creation as we think about photo shoots and the production costs," he said.
"Every corporate team member is using often multiple AI tools per day and we're finding increased productivity across our headquarters team," said Blumenthal.
AI will also play a role in Warby Parker's proprietary point-of-sale system and software for optometrists so they don't get bogged down with administrative tasks, said Blumenthal.
AI powered glasses
The plan for Warby Parker is to expand its total addressable market beyond eyeglasses. The company ended the third quarter with 2.7 million active customers, up 9.3% from a year ago, with average revenue per customer of $320.
Warby Parker is projecting 2025 revenue of $871 million to $874 million, up about 13%.
Although Warby Parker primarily sells online, its stores are acquiring customers, said Gilboa. Retail revenue in the third quarter was up 20% from a year ago due the addition of 15 new stores. The retailer also has a partnership with Target to add shops.
Those stores will be critical when Warby Parker shows off its Google-powered AI glasses. Blumenthal said the company upgraded its optical labs to support future growth, faster delivery times and ultimately fulfillment for AI glasses.
Details of the Google-Warby Parker partnership have been coming out in recent months. In many respects, Google is a big brother to Warby Parker. Google will be covering a chunk of the expenses to stand up a product including product development, experiences and the demo environment, which will be delivered in Warby Parker stores.
Google also said it will invest $75 million in Warby Parker subject to hitting collaboration milestones.
Gilboa said in September that Google AI will be embedded into Warby Parker glasses designed for all-day wear for prescription or non-prescription lenses.
"Our understanding is that the primary use cases are really to replace AirPods or take hands-free photos and our products will do that exceptionally well. But the reason that we were really excited to partner with Google is because of their AI capabilities throughout their organization with Gemini and DeepMind," said Gilboa. "Google also has massive capabilities across Android, Gmail, Google Maps and search."
Gilboa added:
"We think that they're going to be really transformative in terms of how people engage with technology and will enable them to stop being tethered to kind of pulling a screen out of their pocket and engage more with the real world."
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
AI PCs are supposed to be seeing an upgrade boom, but the revolution is still on the runway.
HP and Dell Technologies are still optimistic about the PC upgrade cycle that revolves around AI PCs and the end of Windows 10 support. There are a lot of older PCs out there.
Apparently, not many people want to talk to their PCs because we're still on the runway for this AI PC boom. The commercial upgrade cycle looks better than consumer, but the situation can be summed up as hurry up and wait.
HP reported a shaky fourth quarter and said it will cut 4,000 to 6,000 employees to drive $ 1 billion of gross run rate savings over the next three years. HP is planning to use AI to become more productive.
Enrique Lores, HP CEO, said the company is looking to show the way by delivering productivity gains with AI PCs.
Speaking on HP's fourth quarter earnings call, Lores said the company doubled revenue for AI PCs, but the penetration of the devices sit at about 30%. The driver of AI PC upgrades revolve around being prepared for applications that have yet to show up.
"Customers want to be ready as soon as applications start taking advantage of the capabilities of these products," said Lores, who said HP is working with customers to create apps that leverage AI capabilities. Lores said that Microsoft's tools to manage PCs with voice could be a driver.
HP is hoping that being customer zero will help sell AI PCs. "We have deployed these solutions internally in HP with not only the PCs but with a curated set of applications, we have seen up to 17% of productivity improvement," said Lores.
Now HP is moving PCs. Revenue in the fourth quarter for the PC unit was up 8% from a year ago largely due to commercial and premium consumer devices.
"With 40% of the installed base still on Windows 10 at the end of Q4, the Windows 11 refresh will remain a tailwind for the PC market into 2026. And demand for AI PCs continues to accelerate, now representing more than 30% of our shipments this quarter," said Lores.
It's worth noting that Lores said the following during HP's fourth quarter call in 2024.
"We have not changed our view on the impact that AI PCs are going to have and current results support the assumptions that we have seen. The AI PCs are going to drive an improvement of average selling price. What we have been saying until now when we confirm is three years from now, we expect them to be between 40% and 60% of the mix and half around between a 5% and a 10% impact on the overall category."
"If you ask me how confident I am about the impact the AI PCs are going to have is even more than before because I have seen them in action. I see the opportunity that they bring."
But why buy a PC if we're still waiting for applications that take advantage of AI the device?
For Dell Technologies, the AI PC story is similar. The difference with Dell Technologies is that PCs are mostly commercial and the reality is Wall Street is more tuned into AI servers.
Nevertheless, there's an optimistic hurry up and wait theme with Dell's AI PCs too. Dell Technologies Chief Operating Officer said on the company's third quarter earnings call:
"We have not completed the Windows 11 transition. In fact, if you were to look at it relative to the previous OS end of service, we are 10, 12 points behind at that point with Windows 11 than we were the previous generation.
The installed base is roughly 1.5 billion units. We have about 500 million of them capable of running Windows 11 that haven't been upgraded. And we have another 500 million that are 4 years old that can't run Windows 11. Those are all rich opportunities to upgrade towards Windows 11 and modern technology.
Equally important, AI PCs, small language models, more capable applications, improvements in operating systems and their capabilities and the embedded AI there, the use of an MPU, the capability of an MPU and future PCs gives me the view that the PC market will continue to flourish going forward."
Clarke then went on to define "flourish." He said Dell is expecting the PC market to be roughly flat with a year ago.
In November 2024, Clarke said that he saw indications that customers are lining up new AI PCs in the first half of 2025. Enterprises have been upgrading as part of a normal cycle. But it's not a boom by any means. In other words, PC users should have been primed to upgrade to AI PCs a year ago. PC owners aren't rushing to upgrade.
For Lenovo, the company said AI PCS are 33% of PC shipments just ahead of HP's percentage. Luca Rossi, Executive VP & President of Lenovo's Intelligent Devices Group, said the company has more than 30% market share in Windows AI PCs.
"We are also not standing by, and we look forward to what will be the new AI native device era," said Rossi.
Rossi isn't alone. Every vendor in the AI PC market is still looking forward to the AI revolution, which apparently delayed.
My take
As someone who has been looking to upgrade by laptop for at least a year just based on the reality it's more than 4 years old, I get the delay in the upgrade cycle.
For starters, I don't see the point of an AI PC. I don't want to talk to the equivalent of what is a productivity toaster. And if I did, I could riff with ChatGPT or Google Gemini on my not-AI-PC without any issues.
Now I get the privacy argument and see how on-device models could be handy, but there's not enough value for me to upgrade.
It's a tougher sell to waste expendable income on an AI PC when there's no killer app. Toss in economic concerns, and it's no surprise the PC upgrade cycle is slow.
And Windows 11 isn't much of a sell either. My fleet of PCs were capable of upgrading so that's not rushing things either. In addition, Microsoft seems to be carpet bombing me with Copilot pitches at every turn. I generally click the "x" when Copilot tries to be helpful. AI can't stand for annoying interruptions.
Simply put, if I want Copilot I'll reach out. Otherwise leave me alone.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
SavATree, a landscape services company that operates across 40 US states, generated $1.5 million in returns by better engaging and training its frontline workers. The company was a Supernova 2025 award winner, highlighting the growing importance of engaging frontline workers. SavATree, which deployed UKG Pro Learning, detailed its project at Constellation Research's Connected Enterprise conference.
SavATree, a landscape services company that operates across 40 US states, generated $1.5 million in returns by better engaging and training its frontline workers.
On
Insights
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nyerCfWHenU?si=B4DUubs5uhjx8uoB" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
The short version according to Constellation Research CEO R "Ray" Wang is that CxOs are looking to innovation, automation and AI for competitive advantage.
Here's a look at some of the takeaways from our twin surveys.
52% of CxOs see an improved business climate with 49% remaining cautious.
This split remains for IT budgets. Nearly half of CxOs see IT budgets increasing.
52% of budgets are dedicated to strategic differentiation with 33% focused on revenue and growth and 27% on operational efficiency.
61% of CxOs are planning proofs of concepts in AI with automation second at 46% and analytics at 33%.
Hyperscalers are seen as the go-to co-innovation providers with AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud ranking as the top three vendors among CxOs.
On the AI front, 60% of CxOs responding to the Constellation Research 2025 AI Survey said they're primarily focused on working with vendors or systems integrators to build semi-custom applications.
Half of the AI survey respondents said they are building homegrown applications based on cloud-based machine learning and AI services.
Half of CxOs are seeing modest returns on AI efforts. One in five achieved returns that meet or exceed initial investments.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
SavATree, a landscape services company that operates across 40 US states, generated $1.5 million in returns by better engaging and training its frontline workers.
The company was a Supernova 2025 award winner and highlights how engaging frontline workers is increasingly critical to success. SavATree, which deployed UKG Pro Learning, detailed its project at Constellation Research's Connected Enterprise conference.
Sarah Cusack explains the SavATree project at CCE 2025.
I caught up with Sarah Cusack, director of learning and development at SavATree to talk about the project and lessons learned. Here's a look at the takeaways.
Career advancement for field staff needs to be easily accessible. “This project was all about taking what was previously a very basic pen and paper system for training modules, and putting that into a UKG learning management system,” said Cusack, who noted that the previous system hurt engagement due to the manual and slow process.
To make training accessible, the primary delivery method for frontline workers is a mobile device. “We made training more accessible to our field employees through their mobile devices, making it available in the languages that they all speak, and reducing our turnover that was related to career development and promotions,” said Cusack.
The system was a win-win for the company, which benefited from lower turnover, and the employees, who advanced careers and pay quickly.
Delivering returns. Cusak said training for employees needs to drive returns. The primary KPI was a decrease in turnover. Better engagement also translates into better service.
“We saw a 6% decrease in turnover before this program and after that was directly tied to the lead reason of promotion or career advancement,” said Cusak. “Overall, we had about $1.5 million in cost savings, taking into account the reduced turnover, increased engagement, decreased time to fill positions.”
The breakdown went like this:
Decreased turnover ($255,840 savings): In the two months before the initial rollout of the SDAP program in UKG Pro Learning, 25% of hourly employees cited “career development/promotion” as their primary reason for leaving during exit interviews. In the two months after rollout, less than 10% of hourly employees in that same service line cited “career development/promotion” as their primary reason for leaving.
Increased employee engagement ($636,480 savings): Leveraging its annual employee engagement survey, SavATree determined that disengaged employees are 18% less productive than engaged employees. Two years after implementing the SDAP program in UKG, disengagement in the main service line fell to 50%, resulting in significant productivity gains.
Decreased recruiting costs ($392,000 savings): Programmatic recruiting spend, which has the most reliable cost data.
Decreased training costs ($254,000 savings): Training time and materials.
Decreased print material costs ($15,000 savings): Reduction in paper usage and printing costs.
Gamification can drive employee engagement. Cusak said a leaderboard where everyone in the company could compare training and learning relative to peers drove engagement.
“The leader boards and competition always sparks a little bit more interest in training,” said Cusak.
Balancing AI adoption with authenticity. Cusak said there’s a line enterprises have to walk between using AI and remaining authentic to the frontline worker. “When it comes to things that are really important to our people, we're keeping those as authentic as possible,” said Cusak, who said AI can be used for some content creation, but the things that directly reach frontline workers need a human touch.
Cusak said:
“What we're doing with our approach is making sure we're keeping what is at the heart authentic. Messages from our leadership and frontline leaders will still be authentic. When it's something concerning our mission, vision or values, those things are always authentic and 100% human.”
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Workday is rounding out its AI strategy, building out its platform with multiple tuck-in acquisitions and looking to become an AI agent player because it can leverage its unified HR and finance data.
The company's third quarter earnings were better than expected, but also highlight how the grand AI strategy, which was outlined at Workday Rising, is just starting.
Workday reported third quarter net income of $252 million, or 94 cents a share, on revenue of $2.43 billion, up 12.6% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings were $2.32 a share, 15 cents ahead of Wall Street estimates. As for the outlook, Workday projected fourth quarter subscription revenue growth of 15.5%. For fiscal 2026, Workday projected subscription revenue growth of 14.4%. Fourth quarter operating margin guidance of 28.5% was slightly lower than expected. Workday has had a busy few months.
"I've been on the road a lot lately, meeting with our customers and prospects, and they're all saying the same thing. They see the potential of AI but they're stuck with disconnected systems, bad data and closed platforms. That's where Workday gives them the ultimate advantage by unifying HR and finance on one intelligent platform," said Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach.
The catch is that Workday has just closed key acquisitions to build out its intelligent platform and announced a few more designed to connect AI agents broadly across the enterprise.
"While other vendors confuse the market with thousands of overlapping general purpose agents, we're focused on what we do best, and that is building powerful agents for HR and finance that deliver real ROI and measurable business value," said Eschenbach, who said data quality is hindering enterprise AI.
If this theme sounds familiar it's because you've heard something similar from multiple enterprise software vendors. You've also heard the same argument from all the AI-driven startups looking to become the new SaaS leaders.
Workday has been on a run of tuck-in acquisitions since its February 2024 purchase of HiredScore. The company just announced the acquisition of Pipedream and closed Sana, which is billed as the future front door to Workday. Paradox, Flowise and Evisort are all deals that are designed to expand Workday's AI agent ambitions.
These tuck-in deals have largely created Workday's AI agent flywheel. These acquisitions also give Workday attachments to sell to core platforms. For instance, Eschenbach said on Workday's third quarter earnings call that the company is selling Paradox, which focuses on frontline workers, attached to its recruiting software. HiredScore also rides along with recruiting.
Eschenbach said:
"We have the industry-leading AI recruiting platform out there today. At the same time, this is now a new product that is a land-only product for our sales force who can now go and sell Paradox not only on top of Workday or back into our installed base, but also into our competitors' environment. In fact, a significant portion of their existing customers aren't Workday today. And we're going to continue to leverage that go-to-market model, so it gives us another land product without someone having to decide completely on Workday, HR or finance, they can go just with Paradox. And I've seen that come up multiple times just in the first 60 days of us having this great asset."
As for the returns, Eschenbach noted that "for every dollar of recruiting we sell, we sell about $2.50 of HiredScore on top of it." Evisort, a document intelligence for contract management company acquired in Sept. 2024, is a business growing at a triple digit clip for Workday. And Paradox opens the frontline worker recruiting market to Workday.
Zane Rowe, Workday CFO, said both Sana and Paradox are contributing 1.5 points to the company's fourth quarter subscription revenue outlook.
Sana will follow a similar playbook and be sold on top of Workday Learning.
"And then obviously, we're going to refresh our UI/UX, leveraging the Sana platform going forward," said Eschenbach.
Gerrit Kazmaier, President of Product and Technology, said on the third quarter earnings call that Sana will be the "leading UI experience for Workday" and a "complete conversational experience."
He said:
"Imagine every employee having access to HR and finance AI at scale. What that means in cost reduction. On the other side, you can see what drives that interest. And thirdly, Sana goes much more beyond that. And I would recommend you look at the big picture with also Pipedream, adding 3,000 connectors to the Sana platform, which now allows our customers to take Sana knowledge management actions in Workday and the actions that Pipedream adds to really drive enterprise-wide AI transformation with that model."
What Workday is doing is acquiring add-on features and front-ends to the company's HR and financial data.
Using a multi-cloud approach built on AWS and Google Cloud, Workday is mandating that customers move from its own data centers to public cloud. The thinking is that Workday will be able to leverage best-of-breed tooling and spin out innovation faster.
What Workday is really working toward is an army of controlled AI agents focused on driving enterprise productivity and processes. But to do that you need the data and process intelligence.
Eschenbach said during Workday's Analyst/Investor Day at Workday Rising: "It's not about the quantity of agents you're bringing to market. It's the quality of agents and they have to drive real business value. They have to drive real outcomes."
Kazmaier said AI will be the new UI and enterprise vendors will have to provide leading experiences or lose share.
Here's what Kazmaier outlined as the ingredients to deliver on Workday's ambition. Speaking on Workday's earnings call, Kazmaier outlined the key ingredients to deploying agentic AI:
"The first thing that you need is a vast set of data, which basically describes the domain, the domain of finance, the domain of HR. And you need a vast set of data that basically codifies how their data is being used."
"You need to have strong semantics and clarity about what data we present. You need to have a data model that defines what data element represents what entity in the business? What do they relate on? And what are the rules for these business entities? They have integrity, they have meaning, they have purpose."
"You need to have a business process system, which now basically tells you how to activate this data in a way that can drive towards a business outcome. Even more so, you need to have clarity on what that business outcome is."
Workday's argument is that its consolidated data set and process data is the differentiator. The bet is that data and process drive AI not the other way around.
Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...
Dell Technologies saw record AI server orders in the third quarter and raised its fiscal 2026 AI shipment guidance to $25 billion, up 150% from a year ago.
The company reported third quarter earnings of $2.28 a share on revenue of $27 billion, up 11% from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings in the third quarter were $2.59 a share. Wall Street was expecting Dell to report non-GAAP earnings of $2.48 a share on revenue of $27.3 billion.
Dell also named David Kennedy as CFO on a permanent basis. He was interim CFO. Kennedy said fiscal 2026 revenue will be $111.7 billion for the year.
Jeff Clarke, chief operating officer of Dell, said the company has landed $30 billion in AI server orders year to date. "Our five-quarter pipeline is multiples of our $18.4 billion backlog with a mix of neocloud, sovereign and enterprise customers," said Clarke, who noted that Dell is building high-performance systems as well as complex clusters.
Like recent quarters, Dell's growth was powered by its infrastructure solutions group. The client solutions group has struggled to deliver revenue growth.
For the infrastructure unit, Dell reported third quarter revenue of $14.1 billion, up 24% from a year ago. Operating income was $1.7 billion, up 16% from a year ago. Servers and networking revenue was $10.2 billion, up 37% from a year ago, and storage revenue fell 1% to $4 billion.
For the PC unit, Dell reported operating income of $748 million in the third quarter on revenue of $12.5 billion, up 3% from a year ago. Commercial client revenue was up 5% and consumer revenue fell 7%.
As for the outlook, Dell projected the following:
Fourth quarter revenue will be between $31 billion and $3 billion, up 32% from a year ago. Fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings will be $3.50 a share.
Fiscal 2026 AI server shipments will be about $25 billion, up 150%.
Fiscal 2026 non-GAAP earnings will be $9.92 a share on revenue of $111.2 billion and $111.2 billion, up 17%.
On the earnings call, Clarke said:
Dell has AI racks operational within 24 to 36 hours of delivery with uptime topping 99%.
The company shipped $5.6 billion in AI servers in the quarter.
Traditional server demand grew double-digits in EMEA and North America growth accelerating.
All-flash array storage systems had double digit demand growth.
On the supply chain Clarke said: "We are well positioned across our commodity basket - Q3 was deflationary, and our outlook for Q4 is largely unchanged from last quarter. Looking ahead to next year, there will be dynamics that we will have to navigate, but we are confident in our ability to secure supply and adjust pricing as needed."
Kennedy also touched on the fiscal 2027 outlook. He said: "We have strong conviction in our AI business, supported by what we see in our backlog, the pipeline, and ongoing customer discussions. We’ve proven we can execute and deliver for our customers in this space."
