rssservices

China AI Learning Assistant Product Evaluation, 2026

Hongyu Cheng — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Driven by the continuous deepening of the National Education Digitalization Strategic Action and the accelerated industrialization and implementation of education-specific large language model technologies, the AI-assisted learning sector has entered a steady upward growth cycle.

On the supply side, product forms have continuously evolved and diversified. They have expanded from early single-hardware terminals and question bank tools to a diversified product matrix of integrated software and hardware covering the full scenarios of teaching, learning, management, assessment, and research, forming a comprehensive product system adapted to personalized learning for households and smart teaching for campuses.

On the demand side, the large-scale implementation of smart teaching construction in educational institutions, as well as the growing demands for personalized learning at home and reducing teachers' workload while improving their efficiency, have been continuously released. Users are paying increasing attention to the technical adaptability, educational value, and interactive experience of AI-assisted learning products.

This Evaluation of Mainstream AI-Assisted Learning Products in China has established a scientific evaluation framework based on IDC's authoritative definition of AI-assisted learning products and conducted in-depth evaluations of mainstream AI-assisted learning products on the market.

The research aims to comprehensively sort out the current technical implementation achievements and product development characteristics of AI-assisted learning products, summarize the industry's best practices, provide research support for the standardized and high-quality development of the AI-assisted learning industry, and offer professional references for industry participants and users to fully understand product value and match application needs.

Enterprise Procurement and Partnership in the Age of AI and Outcome-Based Connectivity — Analysis by Region

Paul Hughes — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective is the first in a series of three documents that examine how businesses expect to procure connectivity services and related transformation projects in the era of AI and outcome-based connectivity. Drawing on IDC's 2025 Enterprise Connectivity Infrastructure and Services Survey and other related IDC data sources, this IDC Perspective identifies regional differences for connectivity provider preferences and procurement methods across North America, Europe, and APAC.

"Regional procurement patterns reveal that geography still shapes how enterprises source and evaluate connectivity," commented Paul Hughes, research director, Future Enterprise Connectivity Strategies at IDC. "This comes even as the underlying provider competition converges globally and as AI leadership from the supplier community differs in depth, perspective, and approach."

Market Analysis Perspective: EMEA AI-Fueled Business Strategies, 2026

Lapo Fioretti — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Analysis Perspective provides insight into the current and future state of the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) AI-fueled business strategies market. It includes an overview of the current market landscape, a technology buyer perspective, a market outlook, and IDC’s advice for technology suppliers/services suppliers in this market.

“AI is shifting technology discussions into the business domain, with maturity gradually increasing across EMEA. CEOs are looking beyond efficiency gains to reinvent business models, but challenges remain. Many organizations struggle to identify high-value use cases and measure ROI, often treating AI as a purely technical initiative while overlooking the need for effective change management,” said Lapo Fioretti, senior research analyst, AI-Fueled Business Strategies at IDC.

Market Forecast: Saudi Arabia IT Services Forecast, 2026–2030

Eric Samuel, Uzair Mujtaba — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Forecast covers the 2025–2030 forecast for Saudi Arabia's IT services market across its three primary and 11 foundation markets. It examines how Vision 2030 priorities, regulatory change, and enterprise AI adoption are reshaping demand, with managed services and consulting capturing the fastest growth. The analysis quantifies a roughly 9% CAGR, dissects segment-level drivers and inhibitors, and sets out the capability investments and go-to-market priorities technology suppliers need to compete through 2030.

"Saudi Arabia's IT services market is expected to enter a cyclical trough in 2026, not a structural one. Sovereign cloud activation, PDPL enforcement, and Vision 2030 delivery momentum provide a durable demand floor, and IDC projects the market to recover toward double-digit growth from 2028 as cloud environments operationalize and AI investment frameworks mature," said Eric Samuel, associate research director, Services at IDC.

Supply Chain Planning Challenges and Remediation in 2026

Simon Ellis — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines the current state of supply chain planning through the lens of persistent challenges and opportunities for remediation.

"As agentic AI is poised to change everything, supply chain planning sits in the crosshairs. Although traditionally performed by analog (aka human) planners, it is inherently a decision-making process that can, and often is, fully digitized," says Simon Ellis, Group VP, Manufacturing and Supply Chain, IDC. "It is also crucially important to the supply chain, and at IDC we have often noted that if you don't get planning right, you don't get the supply chain right."

Colocation Providers Embrace AI-Driven Operations: Navigating the Intelligent Datacenter Era

Olga Yashkova — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note discusses the rapid integration of AI technologies by colocation providers to optimize datacenter operations, addressing rising infrastructure complexity, energy costs, and talent shortages. AI-driven solutions are transforming cooling, maintenance, capacity planning, and security, creating a performance gap between early adopters and laggards. While legacy monitoring tools remain rules based, new AI-native layers are emerging, with leading operators such as Equinix and Digital Realty pioneering advanced initiatives. The sector faces both risk and opportunity as it moves toward fully autonomous, AI-managed datacenter environments. "Colocation is no longer just about space and power; AI is transforming datacenters from passive infrastructure into intelligent, self-optimizing engines of competitive advantage," says Olga Yashkova, research manager, Worldwide Telecommunications Services, IDC.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Mailroom Solutions and Services 2026 Vendor Assessment

Robert Palmer — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC study assesses the market for mailroom solutions and services among the most prominent global vendors and identifies their strengths and challenges. This assessment discusses both quantitative and qualitative characteristics that position vendors for success in this important market. This IDC study is based on a comprehensive framework to evaluate mailroom solutions and services, including standalone capabilities suitable for self-managed environments and outsourced mailroom services.

"As enterprises accelerate their shift to hybrid work models, the mailroom is emerging as a critical enabler of digital transformation, moving from a back-office cost center to an intelligent intake hub that drives speed, compliance, and operational resilience," says Robert Palmer, research VP, IDC's Imaging Domain. "Organizations should partner with mailroom solutions providers that combine physical and digital mail capabilities with AI-driven automation, robust governance frameworks, and seamless enterprise integration to ensure secure, efficient, and auditable information flows across distributed workforces."

IDC Survey: IT Services Providers Performance, Growth Strategies, and Vendor Partnerships in South Africa, 2026

Eric Samuel, Jonathan Tullett — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC EMEA Partner Survey, 2025 (South Africa responses) was conducted to give IT SPs and technology vendors a data-backed view of how systems integrators (SIs) across South Africa are evolving their performance, capabilities, and ecosystem partnerships, with a specific focus on:

IT SP performance and growth dynamics, including revenue trajectories, growth bifurcation between leaders and laggards, and the capability factors separating scaling providers from stalled ones
Strategic priorities shaping the next 12–24 months, covering customer success, AI-enabled service delivery, workforce transformation, and the market shifts that SIs view as opportunities versus threats
AI capability and delivery maturity across client-facing and internal use cases, including where SIs are building capability, sequencing investments, and confronting skills gaps
Vendor partnership landscape, mapping which technology vendors SIs partner with, rank as strategic, and view as indispensable, alongside the program benefits and friction points that drive partner loyalty or churn
Cloud maturity, consumption economics, and marketplace engagement, including how SIs monetize proprietary IP, co-sell with ISVs, and scale workloads through hyperscaler marketplaces
Actionable implications for both IT SPs seeking to scale next-gen portfolios and technology vendors seeking to deepen SI partnerships across South Africa

Market Share: Worldwide IT Consulting Services Shares, 2025

Jason Bremner — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation provides the market shares for leading vendors in the worldwide IT consulting services market. This IDC presentation also provides insights into vendors, events, and trends that shaped the market and vendor performance.

“The IT consulting market saw lower-than-expected constant currency revenue growth in 2025. The top 15 vendors collectively increased their market share. The EMEA market grew the fastest, followed by Asia/Pacific and Japan, then the Americas.” — Jason Bremner, research vice president, IT Consulting and Systems Integration Services, IDC

The Third Wave: Why Agentic AI Will Expand the Worldwide Services Market

Lars Goransson, Linus Lai — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective argues that agentic AI will expand the worldwide IT services market, drawing on IDC's Worldwide Black Book Live Edition to trace the demand expansion pattern across the enterprise resource planning (ERP), cloud, and agentic AI waves and quantify the growth trajectory through 2029. It explains the mechanisms by which productization, lower buy thresholds, a continuous operations layer, and outcome alignment drive net positive demand across all three services foundation markets, and maps where transition pressure concentrates by subsegment and provider archetype. For services firm executives, this Market Perspective identifies five connected shifts in delivery, expertise codification, pricing, internal operations, and ecosystem partnerships that determine which firms capture the margin expansion side of a structurally enlarging market, and which do not.

"Agentic AI is shifting IT services from labor-led delivery to platform-led, outcome-based models. The result is an expanding services market, not a contracting one. Each great enterprise technology wave has enlarged the worldwide services market, and agentic AI is the third such wave. In all three services foundation markets, the net impact of agentic AI on services spending is positive: transformation demand, platform-enabled outcomes, and new buyer segments outweigh delivery automation and per-unit price compression. Transition pressure is real but is concentrated in commodity, effort-priced work and in firms that have not yet reshaped delivery, pricing, and their internal operating model. Services firm executives who complete those five shifts should land on the margin expansion side of a structurally expanding market. The pace is moderate, but the direction is decisive: The market keeps expanding through the transition while the bear case predicts contraction. Those who do not should expect margin contraction even as the market grows around them." — Lars Goransson, vice president, Worldwide Services Research, IDC