Digital Lifescapes

What started as a convenience tool for developers writing faster software boilerplate code has evolved into something considerably more consequential: an autonomous layer of software engineering capability that is beginning to restructure how organizations design, build, and govern technology at scale. Gartner's latest market study and analysis of this market makes one thing clear. This is no longer a story about productivity enhancement at the margins. It is a story about competitive realignment at the platform level, with trillion-dollar implications for the vendors who supply these tools and the enterprises deciding which ones to trust with their core development infrastructure. AI Coding Agents Market Development The scale of the market alone signals how far this category has matured. Enterprise AI coding agents are now capturing a growing share of enterprise software engineering spend, with the market estimated at roughly $9.8 billion to $11 billion annualized as of April 2026...

The evolution of network APIs is one of the telecom sector’s most compelling growth opportunities. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have long connected disparate systems, but within telecommunications, their transformation holds a pivotal role in ushering networks from siloed infrastructure toward open, programmable platforms. Juniper Research’s latest market study underscores how global network operators can unlock new applications, reshaping digital connectivity and enterprise innovation. Network API Market Development Historically, telecommunication networks have operated under a closed model, restricting third-party access and fostering complexity for developers. The new paradigm, supported by initiatives such as GSMA Open Gateway and CAMARA, is shifting the narrative. Operators are now embracing standardized APIs, allowing developers to integrate advanced network capabilities directly into their applications, bypassing proprietary barriers and unlocking greater innovative...

The field of enterprise software development has long been driven by human ingenuity. Programmers have meticulously crafted lines of code, bringing complex apps and systems to life. However, a new era is dawning, one where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to fundamentally change the way software is created, tested, and deployed. According to the latest market study by Gartner, a significant shift is on the horizon. By 2028, 75 percent of enterprise software engineers will be utilizing AI-powered code assistants. This statistic paints a clear picture: AI is not here to replace software programmers, but rather to augment their capabilities and usher in a new era of collaborative co-creation. AI Code Assistant Market Development The rise of AI code assistants can be attributed to several factors. Firstly, the ever-increasing complexity of software demands new tools to streamline development. Modern applications are intricate networks of code, often built upon a foundation of existin...

The growth in Artificial Intelligence (AI) software could lead to many benefits. As more organizations adopt AI, they may become more efficient, productive, and able to offer improved products and services. The global job market could also expand, with demand growing for roles like AI engineers and technicians. Plus, AI apps could enable breakthroughs in fields like healthcare, transportation, and energy. The worldwide AI software market will grow from $64 billion in 2022 to nearly $251 billion in 2027 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.4 percent, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). AI Software Market Development The forecast for AI-centric software includes Artificial Intelligence Platforms, AI Applications, AI System Infrastructure Software (SIS), and AI Application Development and Deployment (AD&D) software (excluding AI platforms). However, it does not include Generative AI (GenAI) platforms and applications, which IDC recen...

Most digital transformation is enabled by cloud solutions. Worldwide spending on public cloud services is forecast to reach $1.35 trillion in 2027, according to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Although annual spending growth is expected to slow slightly over the 2023-2027 forecast period, the market is forecast to achieve a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.9 percent. "Cloud now dominates tech spending across infrastructure, platforms, and applications," said Eileen Smith, vice president at IDC . Public Cloud Services Market Development IDC believes that most organizations have adopted the public cloud as a cost-effective platform for hosting enterprise applications, and for developing and deploying customer-facing solutions. Looking forward, the cloud computing model remains well positioned to serve customer needs for innovation in application development and deployment -- including as data, artificial intelligence ...

Forward-thinking CEOs create a digital business transformation agenda. They're eager to develop and deploy new digital business models. However, their IT team often lacks the skills and experience to reach key business outcome objectives. There's growing demand for skilled digital talent in 2023, and beyond. As a result, 81 percent of large enterprise (LE) CIOs plan to increase their IT headcount in 2023, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Meanwhile, only 14 percent expect their IT staff to decrease and 5 percent expect their headcount to remain the same. Enterprise IT Talent Market Development "Attracting and retaining technology talent remain critical areas of concern for CIOs," said Jose Ramirez, senior principal analyst at  Gartner . Even with advances in artificial intelligence (AI), Gartner predicts that the global job impact will be neutral in the next several years due to enterprise adoption lags, implementation times and learning curve...

Worldwide revenue for enterprise software applications will grow from $279.6 billion in 2022 to reach $385.2 billion in 2026 with a five-year CAGR of 8 percent, according to the latest global market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Nearly all the upside growth will come from investments in public cloud software applications, which are expected to represent nearly two-thirds of all enterprise applications revenue in 2026. While the process of migrating from legacy on-premises apps to cloud services can take years, senior executives will drive a transition to the public cloud as an essential part of their digital transformation. Application Software Market Development Companies that don't pursue this approach may sustain losses due to their competitors adopting cloud services, and their use of application programming interfaces (APIs) to gain momentum. "It's no longer enough for businesses to sit back and rely on their technological debt of software and hardwar...

Many CEOs have shared their concern that the digital transformation apps backlog within their organization is causing delays in planned growth initiatives. Therefore, they're investing in new approaches to the challenge. The worldwide market for low-code software development technologies is forecast to total $26.9 billion in 2023 -- that's an increase of 19.6 percent from 2022, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "Business Technologist" roles and a growing number of hyper-automation initiatives will be the key drivers accelerating the adoption of low-code software technologies through 2026. Low-Code Software Market Development "Organizations are increasingly turning to low-code development technologies to fulfill growing demands for speed application delivery and highly customized automation workflows," said Varsha Mehta, senior research specialist at Gartner . Equipping both professional IT developers and non-IT practitioners -- e.g. ...

More organizations across the globe are investing in business technology that streamlines enterprise workflow. The quest for business process automation is gaining new momentum, due in part to the increased demand for digital transformation. Global robotic process automation (RPA) software end-user spending is projected to reach $2.9 billion in 2022 -- that's an increase of 19.5 percent from 2021, according to the latest market study by Gartner. "By achieving a growth rate of 31 percent in 2021, the RPA market grew well above the average worldwide software market growth rate of 16 percent,” said Cathy Tornbohm, VP analyst at Gartner .  Robotic Process Automation Market Development Organizations are leveraging RPA to accelerate business process automation initiatives and digital transformation plans, with the anticipated intent to improve their operational efficiency. Although growing at a slower pace than in previous years, the worldwide RPA software market is projected to con...

The global cloud computing market is driven by the belief that provisioning IT infrastructure is without differentiation. Cost reduction is often the key motivation. Moreover, in order to shift their human resources toward the enablement of digital business outcomes, IT leaders are reskilling their legacy IT staff. The total worldwide public cloud services market grew 29 percent year-over-year in 2021 with revenues totaling $408.6 billion, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Market consolidation continued in 2021 with the revenue of the top five public cloud service providers capturing nearly 40 percent of the worldwide total and growing 36.6 percent year-over-year. Public Cloud Computing Market Development With offerings in all four deployment categories, Microsoft captured the top position in the overall public cloud services market with 14.4 percent share in 2021, followed closely by Amazon Web Services with 13.7 percent share. "Organiz...

The rapidly growing demand for modern enterprise software development skills and experience exceeds the current supply of qualified candidates. This increase has created a seller's market, where talented developers have the upper hand in negotiations with prospective employers. Moreover, the roles and responsibilities of developers continue to expand. International Data Corporation (IDC) survey results show that developers are the architects and visionaries of digital transformation and have an end-to-end line of sight into the processes that govern the creation of digital business solutions. This finding underscores the importance of software developers to both information technology (IT) vendors and buyers because developers have insights into how the operational efficiency of development processes can be improved. Enterprise Software DevOps Market Development "Given their role in designing, building, and executing digital strategies, developers have become indispensable to ...

The quest to accelerate digital transformation has advanced technologies that enable the rapid development of new applications and associated eCommerce business models. Now, CIOs and CTOs must support line of business leader demand for more open innovation and strategic commercial advantages. As a result, the worldwide low-code development technologies market is projected to total $13.8 billion in 2021 -- that's an increase of 22.6 percent from 2020, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner.  The surge in remote development during the global COVID-19 pandemic will continue to boost low-code adoption, despite ongoing IT cost optimization efforts. Low-Code Software Market Development "While low-code application development is not new, a confluence of digital disruptions, hyper-automation, and the rise of composable business has led to an influx of tools and rising demand," said Fabrizio Biscotti, research vice president at Gartner . Low-code, applied as a ...

The original concept of 'Hybrid Cloud' service deployment now seems outdated. In practice, few enterprise IT organizations have embraced private cloud models. And, even fewer will modernize their legacy non-cloud IT applications or the systems where they reside in the corporate data center. That said, new IT infrastructure investment continues to shift as more leaders execute their digital transformation plans. Many enterprise CIOs and CTOs prefer to develop customer-facing applications within public cloud environments, and then connect those Web services to apps and data that reside on legacy systems within their on-premises data center. The vendor impact is apparent. Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud environments -- including public and private cloud -- increased 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2020 (1Q20) while investments in traditional, non-cloud, infrastructure declined 16.3 percent ...

Server virtualization was one of the key steps toward further IT infrastructure abstraction. Every enterprise CIO and CTO knows that managing a server farm is problematic. That's why the quest for container and serverless platforms is driving more organizations to reassess their data center. Cloud container management revenue will grow from a small base of $465.8 million in 2020, to reach $944 million in 2024, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Among the various sub-segments, public cloud container orchestration and serverless container offerings will experience the most significant growth. Here are the study findings. Container Management Market Development Container management provides software and related services that support the ongoing operation of containers, at scale, in production environments. But production applications are uncommon. "There has been considerable hype and a high level of interest in container technology, but a lower ...

The evolution of information technology (IT) leadership -- sometimes driven by the line of business (LoB), sometimes by the legacy IT organization -- is reaching a state of balance where business-IT collaboration sets the stage for meaningful digital transformation. Software application leaders must examine these predictions to learn how this equilibrium will take shape in their organization. Over the next two years, ~50 percent of organizations will experience increased collaboration between their business and IT teams, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Gartner believes that the dispute between LoB leaders and traditional CIOs or CTOs over the control of enterprise technology deployment will lessen, as both sides learn that joint participation in the process is critical to the success of innovation within a digital workplace. Application Leadership Market Development "Business units and IT teams can no longer function in silos, as distant teams ca...

Many business leaders have a much better understanding of blockchain technology than just a couple of years ago. There's been a surge in R&D, both internally and in partnership with third parties, and a recognition that blockchain has the potential to be deployed in a variety of commercial use cases. As the number of blockchain research projects increased, awareness among the pilot participants and elsewhere in their industries gained momentum. Now other companies are beginning to consider whether they, too, should seek to gain a competitive advantage from a proof-of-concept deployment. Blockchain Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, 65 percent of survey respondent enterprises with over 10,000 employees are considering or actively engaged in blockchain deployment. This marks a significant rise from 2017 when the corresponding figure was 54 percent. Moreover, nearly a quarter of companies considering deploying blockchain ...

If you want to appreciate the full extent of the cloud computing phenomena, then you need to comprehend the ongoing impact to the IT ecosystem. It's been fueled by a disruptive series of innovations that have enabled software developers to accelerate the speed of digital transformation. The cloud delivery and consumption model has revolutionized the entire IT industry. But the cloud opportunity extends well beyond the public cloud -- which makes up less than half of all cloud-related spending today -- and includes private and hybrid clouds, as well as managed cloud services, cloud-related professional services, and hardware and software infrastructure for building clouds. Cloud Computing Market Development In its first forecast of the 'whole cloud' opportunity, International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that worldwide whole cloud revenues will reach $554 billion in 2021 -- that's more than double those of 2016. "The most obvious takeaway from this forec...

As the wearables market evolves, total shipment volumes will maintain their growth momentum. Vendors will ship a total of 125.5 million wearable devices worldwide in 2017, that's a 20.4 percent increase from the 104.3 million units shipped in 2016. According to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), the wearables market will nearly double before reaching a total of 240.1 million units shipped in 2021, resulting in a five-year CAGR of 18.2 percent. Wearables Market Development "The wearables market is entering a new phase," said Ramon T. Llamas, research manager at IDC . "Since the market’s inception, it’s been a matter of getting product out there to generate awareness and interest. Now it’s about getting the experience right – from the way the hardware looks and feels to how software collects, analyzes, and presents insightful data." According to the IDC assessment, this means that users will be treated to second- and third-gen...

Many enterprises across the globe are not creating mobile applications. According to the findings from a recent Gartner survey, 39 percent of respondents said they had not built, customized or virtualized any mobile apps in the previous 12 months. "Many IT teams will have significant backlogs of application work that need completing, which increases the risk of lines of business going around IT to get what they want sooner," said Adrian Leow, research director at Gartner . "Development teams need to rethink their priorities and span of control over mobile app development, or risk further erosion of IT budgets and the perceived value of IT development." Enterprise Mobile App Market Development According to the survey, those enterprises that have undertaken mobile app development have deployed an average of eight mobile apps, which has remained relatively flat when compared with 2016. On average, another 2.6 mobile apps are currently being developed and 6.2 are ...

A new market study by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) examined the commercial software environment and summarized the findings, assessing the IT DevOps and Continuous Delivery (CD) practices and related tools most relevant to managing online business services. "As the pace of business continues to accelerate, coordination across DevOps processes, practices, and tools becomes increasingly important," said Julie Craig, research director at EMA . DevOps and CD Tools Market Development This research provided insights into the ways in which high performing IT organizations are accelerating delivery of key business services and, in doing so, impacting the business bottom line. Research on these topics is particularly critical at this point in time. EMA is actively tracking what has amounted to a digital transformation movement -- and an accompanying revolution in software delivery -- that has occurred over the past five years. Today's rapidly changing and fast-...