This list celebrates changemakers creating meaningful impact through leadership, innovation, fresh perspectives, transformative mindsets, and lessons that resonate far beyond the workplace.
Workday's AI strategy appears to feature a heavy dose of acquisitions. The company said that it is acquiring Paradox, a startup that features a candidate experience agent to work through the job application process. The Paradox acquisition came just days after it acquired Flowise, a platform to build AI agents and automate workflows.
Executive Summary
Certinia, which provides management software for professional services organizations, delivered its first installment of artificial intelligence (AI) agents built on Salesforceâs Agentforce platform as part of its recent summer release
Google launched Gemini for Government, an AI platform priced at less than 50 cents per US government agency for a year. For those keeping score, Google Cloud just undercut the $1 General Services Administration (GSA) plans from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Microsoft laid out its plans to roll out post-quantum cryptography across its products and platform in a multi-year effort.
In a blog post, Microsoft introduced its Quantum Safe Program (QSP), which is a broad transformation to secure its infrastructure, customers and ecosystem against future quantum threats.
Holger Mueller, analyst at Constellation Research, said:
Human capital management software provider Dayforce is going private in a deal with Thoma Bravo valued at $12.3 billion.
The news, which had leaked out earlier this week, comes as Dayforce plays in a crowded HCM space. Thoma Bravo has a broad portfolio of enterprise software vendors including Coupa, Flexera, Conga, Darktrace and others.
Wipro said it will acquire Harman's Digital Transformation Solutions (DTS) unit for $375 million in a move that will give the services firm more engineering and research and development reach.
Harman is a unit of Samsung.
Target's incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke is betting that AI, technology and process optimization will return the company to growth while navigating economic uncertainty.
Fiddelke's earnings call debut coincided with a disappointing second quarter. Fiddelke is currently chief operating officer and has been in various roles at Target for 20 years. Wall Street wasn't pleased an insider got the job and current CEO Brian Cornell will stay through the end of the year. Fiddelke takes over at the start of Target's fiscal 2026 in January.
Quantinuum launched new open source software as it builds out its quantum computing stack.
The company launched two software components that it has open sourced. The launches include:
This Constellation ShortList™ presents Customer Loyalty and Retention relevant to early adopters pursuing digital transformation. Offerings included in this document meet the threshold criteria for this category as determined by Constellation Research.
This Constellation ShortList™ presents Partner and Alliance Relationship Management (PARM) offerings relevant to early adopters pursuing digital transformation. Offerings included in this document meet the threshold criteria for this category as determined by Constellation Research.
This Constellation ShortList™ presents Sales Force Automation offerings relevant to early adopters pursuing digital transformation. Offerings included in this document meet the threshold criteria for this category as determined by Constellation Research.
About This Constellation ShortList™
Sales engagement platforms are designed to drive both seller productivity and a more seamless interaction experience between buyers and sellers. These platforms focus on the mechanics of a seller crafting profitable 1:1 customer engagements: what to say, when to say it, where to send it and how to focus on the impact of lasting relationships.
This Constellation ShortList™ presents Revenue Platforms relevant to early adopters pursuing digital transformation. Offerings included in this document meet the threshold criteria for this category as determined by Constellation Research.
About this Constellation ShortList
Blockchain technology platforms bring key components required to enable new business models. Constellation estimates that the overall blockchain technology platform market will reach $61.8 billion by end of 2030.