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Welcome to a new edition of The Board: Distillation Aftershots (*).
Analyst Blog
Microsoft launched real-time voice agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio and a set of new agents in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.
The Microsoft news lands as hyperscale cloud players as well as SaaS companies are ramping up customer experience (CX) efforts with their agentic AI platforms. Microsoft's plan for its CX efforts is to integrate interfaces and provide context for its AI agents in the contact center, sales and insights portfolio.
Insight Blog
OpenAI said it has reworked its partnership with Microsoft so it can "now serve all of its products to customers across any cloud provider."
In other words, OpenAI's models and services will be coming to an AWS Trainium chip or Google Cloud TPU near you. OpenAI said in a blog post that Microsoft remains its primary cloud provider and its products will ship on Azure first unless Microsoft doesn't support them.
Insight Blog
Verizon has been scaling its use of AI agents across its enterprise with a focus on operational efficiencies and customer experience. As a result, Verizon has had to put in processes to navigate AI agent sprawl as well as approaches to returns and costs.
Speaking at Google Cloud Next 2026, Anil Kumar, VP of Consumer AI and Analytics at Verizon, outlined the company's approach to agentic AI in a briefing with industry analysts. The talk was notable given it highlighted how far agentic AI deployments have come as well as how far it has to go.
Insight Blog
SAP is planning to revamp its portfolio to "infuse deep domain know-how into SAP's AI agents" at its SAP Sapphire conference in Orlando.
SAP Sapphire, which will be held May 11-13, is going to have a heavy dose of agentic AI mixed with domain knowledge and process optimization, said SAP CEO Christian Klein.
Insight Blog
Built to Last in the Age of Agentic AI: Why Technology Is Ready—but Leadership Isn’t
On this episode of DisrupTV, hosts R “Ray” Wang and Vala Afshar sit down with Joe Kim, CEO of DRUID AI, and Paul McCarthy, author of The F.I.R.E.D. Leader, to unpack a hard truth:
AI is ready. Most organizations are not.
The conversation explores two forces colliding in real time—agentic AI and disruptive leadership—and why the gap between them is now the biggest risk (and opportunity) for enterprises.
Video
Meta is now one of the largest customers of AWS Graviton chips. Amazon said Meta will deploy "tens of millions of Graviton cores" in a move that highlights how the CPU is back due to AI inference.
According to Amazon, Meta and AWS have expanded a partnership that now includes Graviton custom CPUs. The Meta deployment starts and scale and can move higher. Meta leverages Amazon Bedrock to support its AI efforts.
Insight Blog
Cohere is acquiring Aleph Alpha to focus on sovereign AI and provide a counterweight to US AI giants. Schwartz Group, the retail company that owns Lidl, has committed $600 million in financing.
The deal combines Cohere, Canada's leading large language model (LLM) player, with Germany's Aleph Alpha.
Insight Blog
Agentic AI is shifting from experimental to production in enterprises and Google Cloud is touting its integrated AI stack including next-gen TPUs, data platform and agent layer. To go along with those moves, Google Cloud is building its ecosystem and ground game to target industries and use cases.
With Google Cloud Next 2026 in the books, here’s a look at the big themes.
Insight Blog
Enterprise AI isn’t being won in the model layer—it’s being won at the point of execution.
That was the clearest signal from the April Infor Analyst Summit. What stood out wasn’t more copilots or incremental AI features layered onto existing systems. It was a more fundamental shift: AI is moving into the processes where decisions are made—and where outcomes are measured.
Analyst Blog
SAP reported better-than-expected first quarter results but the company is taking a hit on currency rates and noted geopolitical risks.
The company reported first quarter non-IFRS earnings of €1.72 a share on revenue of €9.56 billion, up 6% from a year ago. IFRS earnings in the quarter were €1.66 a share. The company's current cloud backlog was €21.9 billion, up 20% from a year ago. In constant currency, cloud backlog was up 25%.
Insight Blog
Intel reported better-than-expected first quarter earnings and said it is set up for a CPU renaissance due to AI inference.
The company reported a first quarter net loss of $3.7 billion, or 73 cents a share, but non-GAAP earnings were 29 cents a share. Revenue for the first quarter was $13.6 billion, up 7% from a year ago.
Wall Street was expecting Intel to report non-GAAP earnings of a penny a share on revenue of $12.43 billion.
Insight Blog
OpenAI launched GPT-5.5 and aside from gains in the usual benchmarks, the company is claiming it can figure out your messy prompts and directions.
According to OpenAI, GPT-5.5 "understands what you’re trying to do faster and can carry more of the work itself…Instead of carefully managing every step, you can give GPT‑5.5 a messy, multi-part task and trust it to plan, use tools, check its work, navigate through ambiguity, and keep going."
Insight Blog
Cisco has developed a research prototype of a universal quantum switch that can route quantum information between systems while preserving it.
The company is looking to extend its enterprise and telecom networking prowess into quantum computing. Cisco has been pushing toward a complete quantum networking program.
Insight Blog
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian riffed on being open, enterprise AI adoption, measuring success and why CPUs matter. He also teased the next evolution of Google Gemini models at Google I/O.
Speaking at an industry analyst Q&A at Google Cloud Next 2026, Kurian outlined the following on Google Cloud’s strategy and the broader industry.
Insight Blog
ServiceNow's first quarter was in line with expectations and the company projected second quarter subscription growth of 22.5%. Separately, ServiceNow said it has expanded its partnership with Google Cloud and launched industry specific agentic AI offerings. Now if only Wall Street could understand the rule of 55 company and its strategy.
Insight Blog
IBM reported a better-than-expected first quarter and said it saw strong sales of infrastructure due to hybrid cloud and IBM Z systems. Software revenue was up 11% in the first quarter.
The company reported first quarter earnings of $1.2 billion, or $1.28 a share, on revenue of $15.9 billion, up 9%. Non-GAAP earnings were $1.91 a share.
Wall Street was expecting IBM to report first quarter earnings of $1.81 a share on revenue of $15.65 billion.
Insight Blog
Google Cloud's partnership with Citigroup is starting to pay off as Citi Wealth, a unit of Citibank, launched an AI agent that utilized the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform and forward deployed engineers.
On Citibank's most recent earnings call, the company noted that its transformation to modernize its technology and leverage AI is largely complete. Now Citi will deliver the next phase of its AI-enhanced overhaul.
Insight Blog
Macy's has rolled out a Google Cloud powered AI agent called "Ask Macy's," a concierge that leverage multimodal capabilities to move sales along and sort through the retailer's 2.5 million SKUs.
The Ask Macy's Concierge is powered by Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience and one of a bevy of customer references highlighted by Google Cloud.
Insight Blog
Merck will build an agentic AI platform on Google Cloud across its research and development, manufacturing, commercial operations and corporate functions in a deal valued up to $1 billion.
Under the multi-year deal, Gemini Enterprise and Google Cloud's other AI services will be deployed at Merck to enhance its digital backbone. In addition, Google Cloud will provide engineers to work alongside Merck teams to deploy AI.
Insight Blog
Google Cloud is making its stack more specialized across the board as it launched two 8th-generation TPUs aimed at model training and inference, outlined a data platform that will compete with Snowflake and Databricks and broadened its platform for AI agents across industries and use cases.
At Google Cloud Next 2026, the company's broad theme is to move enterprises from merely chatting with models to building full-blown agentic enterprises. Another key theme: Google plans to be the vertically integrated AI stack of choice.
Insight Blog