IT Insider July: A roundup for IT decision-makers

Introduction

In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, organizations are recalibrating their priorities to address economic uncertainties while maintaining focus on critical technologies such as security, cloud computing and AI. Despite a general decline in tech spending intent, these areas demonstrate resilience, underscoring their significance in meeting operational requirements and achieving short-term objectives. As AI and enterprise technology play increasingly pivotal roles in shaping future business opportunities and challenges, staying informed on key trends becomes essential for successfully navigating digital transformation.

The Take

The integration of AI into business processes is not just a trend but a necessity, as it offers transformative potential across various sectors. Companies are leveraging AI to enhance decision-making, optimize operations and drive innovation. Meanwhile, cloud computing remains a cornerstone for scalability and flexibility, enabling businesses to adapt swiftly to changing demands. Security, as always, is paramount, with organizations prioritizing investments to safeguard their digital assets in an increasingly complex threat landscape. As these technologies converge, they create a dynamic environment ripe with opportunities for growth and advancement, provided businesses can adeptly manage the transition and harness the full potential of digital transformation.

Tech Demand Indicator score positive, but significantly below expectations

US businesses and consumers expressed a significant decline in their intention to spend on technology during the second quarter of 2025, a considerable momentum shift after three consecutive quarterly improvements and an overall positive trajectory that dates to early 2023, according to 451 Research's US Tech Demand Indicator, a survey-backed composite of intent to spend on technology.

Technology-specific signals of intent captured in Q2 frame the decline in overall tech spending intent as a potential concentration of spending on certain critical technologies (security, cloud computing and AI) as organizations tighten budgets and set out to weather a period of economic uncertainty. Intent to spend on information security, cloud infrastructure and AI technology reflected minimal or modest declines, and these areas remained the strongest targets for spending, with scores higher than 60.

AI infrastructure remains a critical component driving organizational outcomes. According to our Voice of the Enterprise: AI & Machine Learning, Infrastructure 2025 survey, 94% of AI infrastructure buyers believe their choices create competitive advantages for their organizations. These buyers continue to familiarize themselves with AI technologies but report notable challenges throughout their infrastructure stacks. Insatiable demand for computing resources and workload acceleration remain overarching challenges. This chronic condition has dominated the market since its inception, while rapidly expanding and increasingly unwieldy data volumes represent a more acute pain point.

Figure 1: US Tech Demand Indicator, Q2 2025

Although intention toward individual technologies is frequently more positive than the broader top-line Tech Demand Indicator result, the number of individual technologies in the positive intention range declined from 13 to 8 between the first and second quarter results. The signal points to reductions in discretionary spending or delays in investing in specific technologies. In contrast, other areas of current spending represent more consistent operational requirements or critical short-term objectives and are therefore more resilient.

Emerging tech: Data science platform market set to surpass $48B in 2029

Analytics remain central in data-driven decision-making, facilitated by data science platforms, which provide more advanced analysis capabilities than business intelligence platforms. This is one major reason why enterprises continue to adopt these platforms.

Figure 2: Data science platforms global revenue ($M)

More than two in five respondents (42%) to 451 Research's Voice of the Enterprise: Data & Analytics, Generative AI 2024 survey say their organization uses a vendor-backed data science platform to inform strategic decisions, which indicates the pace of adoption in the nine years since these offerings became available.

Generative AI is a major driver of market growth. Data science platforms address creation, testing, training, deployment, management, monitoring and maintenance of machine-learning models to help data science teams scale ML-driven predictive analytics projects. While this use case will remain a focus, data science platforms are now straddling predictive ML and GenAI use cases by offering distinct capabilities for apps driven by large language models. This expansion strategy is all about serving the requirements of a maturing market, with GenAI moving from experimentation to production. Further, it necessitates new capabilities, including foundation model guardrails and the ability to monitor infrastructure costs, which data science platforms seek to address.

Additional growth drivers include capabilities to assist data scientists with routine tasks and to lower the skills barrier to allow business stakeholders to use data science platforms. Business stakeholders' domain expertise, which helps root use cases in real-world business requirements, makes their involvement integral to project success. Natural language queries, explanations and automated anomaly detection are emerging as key GenAI-assisted features for these individuals. Automated code generation and documentation are emerging functionalities that will likely spur growth.

M&A in focus

Newly public CoreWeave buys partner Core Scientific for $6.7B in stock

CoreWeave had been looking to acquire Core Scientific for over a year to help meet relentless growth in demand for accelerated AI infrastructure. It is betting that dedicated graphics processing unit clouds will retain a significant advantage over hyperscale GPU clouds and that the pattern of GPU infrastructure will remain unchanged as demand shifts from large-scale foundation model training to more generalized, distributed inference. The acquisition is aimed at expanding CoreWeave's datacenter capacity to support AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. This is crucial for CTOs focused on scaling their company's technological infrastructure to meet growing demands in AI and HPC. The deal gives CoreWeave access to massive energy resources built during the crypto boom, which are now in high demand for AI workloads. CTOs need to understand how this acquisition allows for optimization of energy resources, which is crucial for running power-intensive AI applications.

Salesforce Inc. spends $8.1 billion for Informatica to unify data architecture for AI

Salesforce's purchase of Informatica helps bolster its trusted data foundation for AI-powered functionality and agentic AI capabilities, particularly as it continues lowering the barriers to AI agent adoption across its customer base. With its expertise in data management functions such as data integration, data quality, data governance, metadata management and privacy management, Informatica could help support Salesforce's Data Cloud platform ecosystem with AI-ready data. Further, Informatica's recently announced AI Agent Engineering tools are expected to provide management for agents and associated workflows.

10 companies to track

HighByte is aiming to bring DataOps practices and supporting technology to industrial fields. With a focus on the needs of manufacturing and advancement of Industry 4.0, the vendor offers its flagship platform — the HighByte Intelligence Hub — to organizations seeking to scale beyond pilot efforts in DataOps.

Billtrust aims to accelerate cash flow for midmarket and enterprise companies by combining invoicing, payment processing, cash applications and collections in a single platform. The accounts receivable market is undergoing digital transformation and is increasingly leveraging AI to automate tasks such as invoice processing and collections reminders. 

Modern Treasury unveiled its Agentic AI platform and support for stablecoin payment accounts, adding a new payments rail and extending the automation and streamlining benefits of modern financial infrastructure. The platform acts as a software layer on top of a bank account, allowing businesses to initiate, approve and reconcile payments programmatically without relying on a third-party sender.

Mavvrik's platform provides full cost visibility across hybrid cloud, AI, on-premises and SaaS ecosystems; automates cost allocation and chargebacks; sets budget guardrails and anomaly detection to prevent cost overruns; optimizes AI and GPU spending with per-model tracking and forecasting; and supports "cost to serve" tracking at the customer, product and feature level.

Knostic's primary focus is to prevent exposure of sensitive or confidential information based on the user's true need to know for GenAI workflows. It helps enterprises adopt large language models safely while minimizing or eliminating confidential data exposure to models, agents and personnel.

Impact AI offers an eponymous platform for automating the validation, testing and observability of AI products. It supports the entire life cycle from idea to post-deployment monitoring. At its core is a "contextual spine" designed to keep every project decision anchored to real business impact, from ideation to post-launch monitoring and improvement.

Sprout Social, which initially focused on helping brands engage with social media, has evolved to meet increasing demand for social media management and customer engagement, expanding its offerings to cater to the needs of traditional customer care teams. The shift to social media has made proactive, AI-powered social care a brand's most visible and valued differentiator.

Aisera offers a system of AI agents to transform IT and human resources operations, and automate and streamline processes across critical enterprise functions. At the core of its offerings is its AI agent platform, which integrates middle- and back-office intelligence to streamline service processes. It orchestrates specialized agents to automate complex workflows, delivering swift, contextual user guidance.

Augmentir is an AI-powered connected worker platform that enhances front-line operations across various manufacturing industries. The suite offers AI-powered tools for digital work execution and workforce management in front-line operations, including AR-guided workflows, real-time data analytics and performance tracking. The platform's foundation comprises standard connected worker features such as digital work execution capabilities, training and skills management tools, collaboration and knowledge management.

Bria offers an open visual generative AI platform with capabilities including image generation, product shot editing and campaign construction, as well as an AI video editing tool that is currently in testing. The company has tailored its generative AI technology to meet the creative and operational needs of marketing, e-commerce and creative teams. The platform empowers users to instantly generate or refine visual content that is brand-compliant, royalty-free and what it refers to as "ethically sourced."

What to watch

As organizations continue to navigate the complexities of digital transformation, several key developments warrant close attention. The focus on AI, cloud computing and security remains strong, with these technologies poised to drive significant operational efficiency and innovation advancements. Businesses should watch for emerging trends in AI infrastructure, which is increasingly seen as critical for creating competitive advantages. Additionally, the evolving landscape of data science platforms, which are expanding to accommodate predictive machine learning and generative AI use cases, presents new opportunities for scaling analytics projects. Companies should also be mindful of the shifting patterns in technology spending, as economic uncertainties may lead to more concentrated investments in essential areas. Keeping an eye on these developments will be crucial for organizations aiming to successfully navigate the digital transformation journey and capitalize on the opportunities it presents.

These developments will play a crucial role in shaping the future of AI and enterprise technology, offering new opportunities and challenges for businesses worldwide. S&P Global Market Intelligence 451 Research provides essential insight into the pace and extent of digital transformation across the global technology landscape. 451 Research offers differentiated insight and data on adoption, innovation and disruption across the technology markets, backed by a global team of industry experts. As the enterprise technology landscape evolves, keeping an eye on key developments will be essential for organizations aiming to navigate the complexities of digital transformation.