Oracle announced the latest version of its APEX low-code platform. While low-code has historically been targeted at non-developers, this release makes a case that professional developers also can benefit from the use of low code platforms. As is the case with almost every developer-related announcement this year, there is a set of GenAI assistance technologies incorporated in this offering. However, the tight integration with the new Oracle DB 23ai may be the bigger story. This latest version of Oracle DB supports vector database functions, which are the foundation for machine learning and GenAI data interpretation. But Oracle has also cleverly included a lot of developer tools and transformers that allow Oracle devs who may not be up to speed on AI to use their own native tools (such as SQL queries) to work on AI projects.

On the heels of SAP Sapphire, SAP is highlighting the use of AI in its Business Transformation Platform. Powered by its own Joule AI assistant, SAP is providing developer assistants for its ABAP coding language as well as AI-driven workflow creation and modeling. As is the case with many developer assistance technologies, there is a vision of seamless migration from older code releases. This would be a big bonus to SAP’s RISE upgrade methodology because code and workflow customizations are amongst the most challenging tasks in SAP upgrades.

HPE Discovery 2024 was last week, and we had coverage from multiple analysts. HPE presented a comprehensive set of new technologies led by what the company describes as the “deepest integration with NVIDIA in the industry.” While my colleagues will be sure to dive into that, I was quite taken with the AI capabilities embedded in HPE products such as Aruba Central. Given the company’s long history in systems management, these new capabilities in Aruba Central suggest that an AIOps play could be in the cards down the road.

Oracle announced the latest version of its APEX low-code platform. While low-code has historically been targeted at non-developers, this release makes a case that professional developers also can benefit from the use of low code platforms. As is the case with almost every developer-related announcement this year, there is a set of GenAI assistance technologies incorporated in this offering. However, the tight integration with the new Oracle DB 23ai may be the bigger story. This latest version of Oracle DB supports vector database functions, which are the foundation for machine learning and GenAI data interpretation. But Oracle has also cleverly included a lot of developer tools and transformers that allow Oracle devs who may not be up to speed on AI to use their own native tools (such as SQL queries) to work on AI projects.

On the heels of SAP Sapphire, SAP is highlighting the use of AI in its Business Transformation Platform. Powered by its own Joule AI assistant, SAP is providing developer assistants for its ABAP coding language as well as AI-driven workflow creation and modeling. As is the case with many developer assistance technologies, there is a vision of seamless migration from older code releases. This would be a big bonus to SAP’s RISE upgrade methodology because code and workflow customizations are amongst the most challenging tasks in SAP upgrades.

HPE Discovery 2024 was last week, and we had coverage from multiple analysts. HPE presented a comprehensive set of new technologies led by what the company describes as the “deepest integration with NVIDIA in the industry.” While my colleagues will be sure to dive into that, I was quite taken with the AI capabilities embedded in HPE products such as Aruba Central. Given the company’s long history in systems management, these new capabilities in Aruba Central suggest that an AIOps play could be in the cards down the road.

Microsoft and Qualcomm have finally reached the launch date for the Snapdragon X Elite Copilot+ PCs from all the usual OEMs; my initial impressions are that performance and battery life are up to par, and I am genuinely impressed with the experience. That said, there are still software compatibility issues with some games, but I expect those will be quashed quickly. I haven’t used mine enough to give a full assessment yet, but I am trying to get my hands on as many systems as possible to provide a good perspective on the platform as a whole as soon as possible.

Salesforce has introduced a benchmark for evaluating generative AI models in CRM applications. Using rea-world CRM data and expert human evaluations, this benchmark assesses models based on accuracy, speed, cost, trust and safety. It aims to assist businesses in selecting the most suitable AI models for their specific needs.

Conference season closed out this week with back-to-back conferences in every analyst’s home away from home—lovely Las Vegas. The first conference, HPE Discover, was all about—you guessed it—AI and the cloud. From an AI perspective, HPE focused on its partnership with NVIDIA across hardware, software, and go-to-market (GTM). And this is where HPE draws a distinction from the competition: the depth of its observability and manageability of the HPE–NVIDIA environment and a joint GTM strategy. I like how HPE has looked to create a unique partnership with NVIDIA. Further, I believe the deep integration of management simplifies life for IT organizations. However, executing against the joint GTM agreement is critical to the success of this partnership in the market.

The other big news for me was related to HPE’s GreenLake private cloud. HPE announced a new virtualization solution based on KVM. This offering is the foundation for GreenLake’s own private cloud stack. This is for both greenfield opportunities and for customers that may be considering a move away from VMware. I can understand the approach that HPE is taking because it is able to offer a (HPE) native cloud stack that enables greater levels of control for customers. However, I also think there’s a delicate balancing act the company must perform as its success is so strongly tied to partners that can now be seen as competitors.

I walked away from Discover seeing HPE as a company that has all of the critical pieces of the AI and cloud equation. Not only this, it has a software portfolio for managing infrastructure and multi-cloud environments that is virtually unmatched. All of this is being brought together through its partnerships with NVIDIA and channel partners.

The second conference—and the official closer for the spring conference season—was Pure Accelerate. As with HPE Discover (and every other conference), there was a keen focus on AI, again with a big dose of NVIDIA. There was one other theme to the Pure story that I think was spot-on: simplicity. Simplicity of deploying, provisioning, and managing an IT organization’s storage environment, from traditional line-of-business applications to managing data in the AI environment.

There are a lot of storage companies running away from their storage identity and repositioning themselves as data management companies. And I get it: it’s a way to differentiate and become a part of more strategic discussions. However, Pure seems to be staying true to its roots and what has been the cause of its success—universal storage platforms combined with software that abstracts all of the complexity from storage management. And of course, its pioneering storage-as-a-service further enables the customer-centric approach that has led to the company’s growth outpacing the storage market.

LogicMonitor completed its Elevate Summit 2024, held virtually on June 20. The summit centered on IT observability and modernization. CEO Christina Crawford Kosmowski’s keynote emphasized AI’s role in improving IT operations. I particularly liked the discussion between Kosmowski and NBA legend Magic Johnson, as Magic spoke about leadership and resilience.

The event spotlighted Edwin AI for the LogicMonitor platform. Edwin AI is a generative AI observability tool designed to speed up issue resolution, provide customizable explanations, and ensure enterprise-level security.

Data breaches are on the rise. In 2024 alone, around 20 major cyber breaches have already been reported. These attacks have targeted major businesses, healthcare facilities, and infrastructure across North America, Europe, and Japan. (You can find more details on these data breaches here.)

Main Causes of Data Breaches:

• Lost or Stolen Devices—When devices with sensitive information are lost or stolen, cybercriminals can access your critical data.
• Insider Threats—Employees or contractors accessing sensitive information steal or compromise data.
• Cyber Attacks—There is a huge issue with hackers using various methods, such as phishing, malware, and ransomware, to infiltrate systems and steal data.

Slack has introduced Slack Lists, a new feature that allows users to turn conversations into actionable tasks directly within the Slack platform. It aims to streamline project management and boost productivity by centralizing task tracking, organization, and collaboration in one place. The feature offers customizable templates and integrates with Slack tools such as Workflow Builder and Canvas. Slack Lists could eliminate the need to toggle between Slack and a separate project management tool, thereby reducing context switching. This feature might not be enough to lure away people already using Monday.com, Jira, or other Slack integrations, but Lists looks like an enticing offer for light task tracking.

HPE Discover 2024 concluded and much of the event’s focus was on the company’s aspirations to capitalize on generative AI. I believe that HPE is very well positioned relative to its traditional competitors Dell and Lenovo for two reasons. First, its deep networking capabilities will be augmented by Juniper Networks when that acquisition closes by the end of the year. Second, the company’s HP Labs have been engaged in applied research efforts focused on improving data center sustainability, power management, and generative AI.

At SAP’s Sapphire 2024 conference in Orlando earlier this month, SAP touted the benefits of moving ERP functions to the cloud. Last week, SAP announced that the big Germany-based auto parts maker MAHLE Group will move its entire on-prem SAP deployment to SAP S/4HANA Cloud using the RISE with SAP solution for migration.

Apple is shutting down its Pay Later program, which allowed customers to make purchases on an installment plan, marking a retreat from efforts to offer more financial services in-house. The company said it’s no longer offering loans through Apple Pay Later, which covered purchases up to $1,000. The iPhone maker took the step after announcing that third-party services such as those from Affirm and Citi would be integrated into its upcoming iOS 18 software. Apple Cardholders can still use Apple Card Monthly Installments, which allows them to pay for eligible Apple products including iPhones, iPads, and Macs over time with interest-free monthly payments. Each device has its own installment plan, and the amount financed is deducted from available Apple Card credit. Users can buy multiple devices with this option, limited only by their available credit. The Apple Card requires a hard credit check pull, unlike BNPL options. By partnering with BNPL providers, Apple can still offer the installment plan features without acting as the bank in the transaction, removing an element of risk.

LinkedIn has rolled out new AI-powered features to streamline recruiting and enhance the job search experience. These include an AI tool that assesses how well a job seeker’s expertise matches a job opening, helping candidates and recruiters make informed decisions. Additionally, an AI assistant aids premium users in navigating the platform, refining their profiles, and discovering suitable job opportunities. By leveraging AI, LinkedIn aims to make the hiring process more efficient and personalized, benefiting job seekers and employers in building stronger connections and employer brands.

Zingly.ai, a new collaborative customer experience (CCX) platform, has emerged from stealth mode and recently secured $10 million in seed funding. Founded by industry veterans (former Avaya, Five9, Talkdesk, etc.), Zingly aims to improve customer interactions by merging generative AI, digital interactions, and telephony. The company wants to empower agents with real-time access to customer information for more efficient issue resolution. Zingly also offers a “Zingly Rooms” feature, which is a persistent digital space for customers to engage with businesses on the customer’s terms.

Out of the gate, Zingly has shown promising results with a Fortune 500 financial services client, significantly improving the client’s net promoter score and reducing handling time for complex tasks. With the $10 million in new funding, the company is set to expand its market reach and apply its technology to various customer experience stages, from acquisition to support. I’m looking forward to following the company’s progress.

Verint’s Coaching Bot, an AI-powered solution, has been shown to increase contact center sales by 48% over two months for an unnamed multinational bank. The bot provides real-time guidance to agents, helping them identify and deliver suitable upsell offers based on individual customer profiles. The success of Verint’s Coaching Bot indicates a promising future for AI-powered tools in the CX coaching space.

A recent Cisco survey of over 1,000 Webex customers using the Webex AI Assistant for hybrid work and CX shows that beta customers testing Webex AI in the Webex Cloud Contact Center anticipate significant improvements in several key areas. Most (70%) expect faster agent response times, and one in three believe handling times will decrease thanks to AI-generated summaries. 92% think AI will help agents get up to speed faster, having access to customer histories. Additionally, 68% of customers predict improvements in customer satisfaction (as measured by net promoter scores), 75% foresee an increase in customer retention, and 65% expect a lift in customer lifetime value. While these early results are specific to Webex AI, they indicate that users feel AI has the potential to substantially enhance contact center efficiency and customer experience.

Zscaler held its signature Zenith Live event recently and unsurprisingly much of it focused on generative AI and two new copilot digital experience monitoring assistant collaborations with NVIDIA. The first is Zscaler ZDX Copilot with Nvidia Morpheus—a GPU-accelerated AI framework that aims to allow developers to build new applications that filter, process, and classify larger volumes of threat data. Zscaler is already analyzing trillions of data points, and that number will continue to grow over time. With NVIDIA’s help, Zscaler hopes to dramatically increase its capabilities in this regard through AI-driven analysis and automation. I believe that it’s a great co-development effort, one that could enhance the capabilities of Zscaler’s security cloud—the largest security cloud in operation today.

The second new assistant is Zscaler ZDX Copilot with NVIDIA NIM that uses the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software stack to deliver a set of microservices that accelerate AI inferencing; this in turn helps customers optimize security and data protection outcomes and do so very efficiently. Zscaler has been refining its DLP capabilities for over a decade, and partnering with NVIDIA could strengthen these abilities further. NIM’s ability to support a wide range of large language models and multimodal capabilities is powerful, and Zscaler could see immediate benefits in the form of higher degrees of efficiency and learning within its data protection suite.

AWE 2024—the biggest spatial computing event around—was held last week; it demonstrated that the XR industry is maturing, and that Apple’s entrance into the market has further pushed the industry towards enterprise applications. Given that the Apple Vision Pro is still very much a low-volume high-end product, most enterprises don’t see it as a scalable product but rather as a way to prove out ideas on VisionOS for cheaper, more scalable products yet to come.

Digilens demonstrated Google’s Gemini AI model running natively on its ARGO standalone AR glasses, which is the first time an LLM-based advanced assistant has been used on a pair of AR glasses. I believe that we will continue to see more AI assistants becoming the default on AR glasses, much like we’ve seen with Meta’s AI running on its Ray-Ban glasses (which don’t have a display).

HaptX, which has been one of the leaders in haptics for enterprise and defense training solutions, recently disclosed that it has expanded into using gloves to train AI models for robots. Using pressure and positional data they are able to better train robots to perform tasks than they ever could using only video-trained models. The company also announced its first commercial pair of goggles, the HaptX G1, which are designed to be cheaper and easier to use than competing tech.

Sightful, the creator of the Spacetop AR-based laptop, used AWE 2024 to announce its commercial product, the Spacetop G1. This laptop is designed to work so it can create a multi-monitor experience that is limited only by the field of view of the XReal glasses that it uses. One of the most interesting things about the Spacetop G1 is that it comes with 5G connectivity, which I believe is a nod to the company wanting this device to be as portable as possible.

Oculus founder and current CEO of defense company Anduril, Palmer Luckey, announced that he is developing a VR headset for defense applications using structured light and that it might also be used for non-defense applications as well.

On stage with Qualcomm at AWE 2024, Qonoq—the device division of NTT DoCoMo—announced its own XR headset that leverages the latest Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 chipset. I got a chance to try it out; I found the image quality to be decent, although the headset is lacking in field of view and comfort. That said, it should have pretty good battery life and decent outdoor visibility, even if it has a limited field of view and peculiar waveguides.

At AWE 2024, Ultraleap showed off its Hyperion platform, which eliminates the requirement to use proprietary hardware and instead allows headset makers to use existing sensors to do better hand-tracking. At the event, the company showed gesture-based controls on a prototype setup using Meta Ray-Bans and a third-party event-based sensor from Prophesee. This would allow for low-power always-on gestures and wake motions and could enable all kinds of new use cases for AR and VR.

Software developers continue to create their own VR and AR headsets. First came Valve with HTC Vive; then came Meta with Rift and Quest; then Bigscreen with Beyond; now we have small startup XRAI Glass coming with its own AR glasses for real-time translation. These glasses use a wearable chipset for low-power applications, although I believe an AR1 Gen 1 might have been a better fit.

A recent IBM survey reveals a global trend among tennis fans, with a majority expressing positive sentiments towards using AI to enhance their viewing experience. Fans appreciate AI’s ability to provide real-time updates, unique insights, and personalized content, making tennis more engaging and accessible. IBM surveyed 18,000 sports fans in 10 countries ahead of the Wimbledon tournament. IBM provides Wimbledon with AI-powered technology to enhance the fan experience and improve operational efficiency. This includes features such as personalized match highlights, real-time insights, and predictive analytics to predict the outcome of matches. IBM also helps manage the tournament’s vast data infrastructure to help ensure smooth operations and content delivery to fans worldwide.

Intel Corporation is implementing AI technologies for the Olympics in Paris this summer to improve the experience for both fans and athletes. These innovations include AI-driven 3-D models to assist the visually impaired, high-definition 8K live streaming with minimal delay, and automatic generation of custom highlights.

Let’s see if the new applications of technology make this year’s Olympics more interactive and engaging. Data and AI are adding value to many aspects of the fan experience across different sports. One thing to watch out for is ensuring that AI does not overly influence the actual games or play a role in determining the final outcomes.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is promoting sustainability for this year’s Paris Olympics. This is a great article detailing how Eco is part of the plan to be more digitally responsible.

Microsoft’s Azure for Operators business unit recently made the decision to focus exclusively on telecommunications infrastructure and move away from support network services. It’s an expensive move given the company’s investment of over one billion dollars in acquiring Metaswitch and Affirmed Networks four years ago. I suspect that the company will refocus efforts to boost its telco cloud infrastructure stack with generative AI enhancements to take advantage of those emerging monetization opportunities.