IDC

AI is no longer just a tool for productivity. It’s changing who makes buying decisions, how they evaluate vendors, and what they expect from every interaction. For analyst relations (AR) professionals, that means a new mandate: turning complex buyer insights into influence across executives, marketing, and sales teams.   During IDC’s recent webinar, Turning Insights into Influence: Leveraging Buyer Behavior Research, Laurie Buczek, Group VP of Executive Insights and Thought Leadership Services at IDC, explored how AI and shifting buyer behavior are reshaping go-to-market strategies. At the end of the session, Laurie answered audience questions about the role of AI, how buying committees are changing, and what AR professionals can do to help their organizations succeed.   How can AR professionals use AI, especially agentic AI, in their roles? Start with secure, ring-fenced AI tools that are approved within your organization, and avoid external large language models (LLMs) that may compromise your IP. AI can help AR leaders:  Synthesize analyst insights into key takeaways executives can act on.  Draft executive guidance aligned to business goals.  Offload repetitive tasks to agentic AI, such as generating AR plans, drafting key messages, or synthesizing analyst feedback.  Think of AI as both an assistant (helping optimize content) and an agent (able to draft or manage elements of strategy that humans then refine and execute).  How are buying committees using AI, and how shold vendors align with them? Buying groups are expanding, and each persona approaches discovery differently. Increasingly, they start with AI-powered chat functions to research solutions. That means vendors must rethink how their content is created and structured.  It’s no longer just about keywords and SEO. Content must be optimized for prompts, designed to answer the jobs-to-be-done that buyers will type into chat engines. In other words, organizations need to rebuild their content supply chain for an AI-first buyer journey.  Watch the webinar. Many companies collect buyer insights but struggle to act on them. How can we ensure insights actually influence executives? Too often, buyer insights live in a persona document or slide deck that gets shelved. AI can change this by:  Implementing insights in real time through optimized buyer journeys and engagements.  Measuring impact continuously: Using AI to track how journeys are performing and where optimizations are needed.  Speaking the executive’s language: Turning insights into meaningful KPIs that demonstrate business outcomes.  This helps AR professionals not just share insights but prove their value to leadership.  Buyers rely on AI, but do they still trust peers and analysts? Absolutely. AI doesn’t replace the importance of trusted experts and communities.   Buyers are:  Attending events to learn from peers.  Visiting vendor websites for direct information.  Turning to social communities and networks for validation.  The takeaway: AR leaders should help their organizations influence across multiple channels: AI, digital platforms, peers, analysts, and social networks. Learn more The buyer journey is no longer linear. It’s omnichannel, AI-led, and persona-rich. For AR professionals, that means a new mandate: translate insights into influence across executives, marketing, sales, and peers.  Watch the full IDC webinar on-demand: Turning Insights into Influence: Leveraging Buyer Behavior Research.  source

Financial service providers benefit from large global fintechs as well as startups. The role of fintechs While the names of the vendors have changed, the impact fintechs have, both large and small, in shaping how we learn, transact and plan our financial journeys has not.  Today’s customers are looking for many things when it comes to their financial relationships.  First and foremost is that they generally will start their process by doing their research online, whether it’s to compare rates, products, locations or reviews, they want to know the information ahead of time before taking things to the next level.  Let’s look specifically at the banking industry. Consumers are savvy, and will be loyal if their expectations, both digitally and through employees, is being met.  That often starts right at the point of beginning a new relationship, and the importance of engaging a customer where they are, on any device, with relevant and personalized offers and messages. To do this, often times banks will look towards their core provider, an enterprise platform solution, or specialized vendors to develop solutions.  Large institutions may choose to build their own, but will often augment areas with prebuilt components in order to improve speed to market.  IDC 2025 FinTech Rankings IDC Financial Insights has been conducting its IDC FinTech Rankings research for over two decades. The research is a quantitative “state of the industry” measurement for financial services– and fintech-based revenue earned by the top 150 technology firms globally. The financial services industry is made up of banking, insurance, capital markets, and fintech firms that buy hardware, software, and services from third-party IT providers. Two major categories of IT companies are ranked:  IDC FinTech Top 100: Solution providers that derive more than one-third of their revenue from the financial services and fintech industries and across no more than two additional key non-FSI industry verticals  IDC FinTech Enterprise Top 50: Solution providers that support four or more key industries yet have sufficient revenue from the financial services and fintech industries to be ranked  While the names of the vendors have changed over the years, the impact fintechs have, both large and small, in shaping how we learn, transact and plan our financial journeys. To see this year’s list, plus our IDC Real Results winners click here. When one looks at the amount of budget earmarked for technology spend, again in hardware, software and services (not employees), IDC estimates that annually over USD 550 billion is spent by banks, capital market and insurance providers. To put that in perspective, that would make the IT spend by FSI equivalent to being one of the largest 25 in the world by nominal GDP, equivalent in size of the economy of Ireland.   Of the 150 companies ranked in the IDC FinTech Rankings, they comprise nearly 60% of the market share of IT spending by financial services, which still leaves significant market share remaining for the 1000’s of additional fintech providers.  Finovate Fall themes and messages As in year’s past, I have had the opportunity to see what the next generation of fintech providers are working on at the Finovate event in New York City. It was great to see so many exciting solutions spanning the banking and wealth management industries. While these fintechs only had a few minutes, seven to be exact, to demonstrate their solution, there were some themes that seemed to resonate with the solutions demonstrated.  First, the importance of customer experience remains a key component of the demonstrated solutions, but glad to see that the importance of employee experiences has equaled in importance. The reality is that the industry has neglected the solutions supporting our employees, and often times they are being asked to support customers who are using modern technology with outdated interfaces and disparate platforms. Single sign in has been helpful, but there is much that needs to be done.  Second, and to nobodies surprise is leveraging AI to automate and create efficiencies.  Our research would agree that the primary benefit of AI is to create efficiencies out of inefficient processes, but this does not always necessarily mean that it will automate a process. For example, using AI to begin a fraudulent transaction makes sense to gather as much information as possible, yet we are not ready to have AI actually execute the steps necessary to either disable a card or issue a refund. There still needs to be a human on the loop, whether it is the customer or the bank employee.  And finally, there were solutions pitched that focused on identify management and improving security, particularly focused on money movement and maintaining compliance with existing and future regulatory requirements.  The idea, which is more refinement than innovation, is to embed fraud prevention within the solution, but ensure that the forensics are available to detect and deter actions by bad actors.  source

Apple’s “Awe-Dropping” event this week delivered more than routine updates; it marked a strategic realignment of the company’s hardware portfolio and a deepening of its ecosystem strategy. The new iPhone 17 lineup, including the all-new iPhone Air (starting at $999), addresses competitive pressures, redefines market segments, and further entrenches Apple’s services into customers’ daily lives. Driving upgrades and shortening cycles Apple’s 2025 product strategy is simple: increase upgrade rates and shorten replacement cycles. The iPhone 17 Pro redesign and the debut of the iPhone Air introduce distinctive form factors designed to encourage users to upgrade earlier. The new iPhone 17 lineup represents Apple’s most significant design overhaul since the iPhone X. With the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, Apple is moving beyond simple size-based differentiation and introducing a lineup segmented by design, performance, and professional capabilities. This approach aims to sustain iPhone market share, which currently stands at 18% of the global smartphone market and 42% of the global market value as of the first half of 2025, and will likely achieve IDC’s forecast of 4% volume growth this year. A shift in portfolio strategy: The iPhone Air The biggest shift revealed was Apple’s discontinuation of its “Plus” model in favor of a new, ultra-thin iPhone Air. This marks a deliberate pivot from segmenting the market by screen size to a more nuanced strategy based on design philosophy and form factor. The goal is to create a new still-premium, but non-Pro tier, fundamentally altering the portfolio’s architecture. The newly introduced iPhone Air is an ultra-thin model designed to replace the discontinued “Plus” variant. It features a 6.5-inch display, a 48MP Fusion camera system, an A19 Pro chip, eSIM-only support, and a smaller battery that Apple says will still last all day. It weighs 165 grams with a titanium frame and is 2.31mm thinner than the iPhone 17—which also makes it thinner than its direct competitor, the Samsung S25 Edge. This device represents a bet on the market appeal of industrial design. The strategic positioning of the iPhone Air has a direct parallel with the launch of the MacBook Air in 2008 and the iPad Air in 2013. Like those devices, the iPhone Air trades some specifications for portability and design, targeting consumers who value aesthetics, in-hand comfort, and thinness over maximum camera performance or battery capacity. With a more durable body, an advanced chip, and most of the iPhone 17’s features, the iPhone Air offers fewer compromises than expected. This product aims to improve sales in the segment between the standard version and the Pro Max version—a segment where the former Plus models were never able to establish themselves as strong performers. Although Plus models accounted for only 5–7% of Apple’s shipments, we expect the Air to contribute well over that given the novelty. The iPhone Air offers similar specs to the standard iPhone 17 but is positioned as a different model and a more desirable kind of premium device, which will help Apple establish a new premium, non-Pro tier that can help grow the overall average selling price, which the Plus version never did. Although there’s a question mark about how much consumers care about thinner devices, the performance of similar competing products is promising. For example, the Samsung S25 Edge sold over a million units in the first month of sales in Q2 2025 to become the sixth highest-selling smartphone globally in the high-premium ($1,000–$1,600) price segment. This suggests there’s an appetite for thinner devices—or perhaps a desire for a device that stands out from the others—making it a compelling driver for many users to upgrade. iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max: Performance and design redefined For its flagship models, Apple is undertaking a significant re-engineering effort focused on performance, professional-grade imaging, and durability. A key element of this strategy is the material shift for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. The new lineup moves away from the titanium frames of the previous two generations to a new aluminum unibody. There are two main reasons for this change: first, thermal management; and second, durability. The new A19 Pro chip with advanced AI capabilities is expected to generate significant heat. This shift from titanium to aluminum is essential for maintaining peak performance during intensive tasks, such as gaming or ProRes video recording. Durability is another important factor. While titanium is stronger, it is also more rigid. Softer aluminum is better at absorbing and dissipating impact energy. Other factors that went into this strategic decision are design and aesthetics. By using aluminum, Apple gains flexibility in colors and finishes. For example, the new cosmic orange option would not have been possible with titanium. Providing more colors in the lineup also addresses user demands and expands Apple’s user demographics and overall user experience. Finally, switching to aluminum helps Apple scale production and control costs—factors that are increasingly important in today’s volatile economic climate where Pro devices remain in high demand. The camera system also sees a significant improvement. For the first time, all three rear lenses—Wide, Ultra Wide, and Telephoto—will have 48MP sensors. This upgrade, particularly for the telephoto lens, will enable up to 8x optical zoom in the Pro versions—a substantial leap from the 5x zoom on the iPhone 16 Pro. The front-facing camera is also receiving an upgraded 24MP sensor, a jump from the 12MP sensor of previous generations. Externally, the new design offers a horizontal camera bar, replacing the traditional square bump. This simple redesign of the cameras will become one of the main motivators for users to upgrade, which will accelerate Apple’s replacement cycle. Apple increased the price of the iPhone 17 Pro by $100, as it now comes with a minimum of 256GB of storage (compared to 128GB in the iPhone 16 Pro), and maintained the price of the Pro Max model at $1,199—which is noteworthy given the current economic environment impacting the U.S. market. iPhone 17: Solid, incremental upgrades The standard iPhone 17 introduces only incremental changes, underscoring

Over the past decade, I’ve watched healthcare providers invest in electronic health records (EHRs), revenue cycle management (RCM), and a broad range of health IT solution areas spanning clinical, operational, and administrative functions. Yet, one issue continues to drain resources and morale like no other: prior authorization, also known as “prior auth.” Despite being intended to ensure appropriate care and control costs, in my analysis, prior auth costs the U.S. healthcare system at least $41.4 billion to $55.8 billion annually, at least, depending on how you model and factor in labor costs, delays, and the downstream clinical impact. What is even more bothersome is that prior auth isn’t just an operational inefficiency but a symptom of a deeper failure to prioritize system redesign over entrenched inefficiencies, temporary workarounds, and conflicting incentives. Why Prior Auth Won’t Fix Itself What I’ve come to believe, contrary to prevailing narratives, is that the prior auth crisis is not a failure of process or technology, but people and mindset. For years, U.S. healthcare leaders, particularly within provider organizations, have largely abdicated meaningful engagement with system redesign or resistance to imposing external forces. Instead, they’ve defaulted to compliance despite any dysfunction, relying on short-term patches, manual workarounds, and narrowly scoped initiatives to ensure payment. Most efforts have been reactive, designed to navigate and endure the complexity than challenge it. Survey data from the American Medical Association (AMA) paints a stark picture. Physicians and their teams spend 13 hours a week handling an average of 39 prior authorizations per doctor, so burdensome that 40% of practices have staff solely dedicated to it. Nearly 9 in 10 physicians report it drives burnout and inflates healthcare utilization. Even more troubling, 94% say prior auth harms clinical outcomes, 93% say it causes care delays, 82% report it leads to treatment abandonment, and 29% cite serious adverse events as a direct result.[1] Underneath any cultural resignation is the sense that such administrative complexity is “simply healthcare,” and the sheer magnitude of it is “how U.S. healthcare works.” This has shaped decades of efforts and investments that have further baked such dysfunction into the very DNA of the system. By not challenging and, in turn, reengineering prior auth from the ground up, it was standardized. The problem has not only hardened but has also been operationalized and institutionalized, resulting in such friction and colossal costs. The problem with prior auth isn’t that it’s only expensive to do, but also that it’s resistant to change. Unlike RCM, which has evolved over the years toward better end-to-end, front-loaded models that begin well before the claim is filed or the patient is even seen, prior auth too often gets triggered late in the care episode, after key decisions have been made. It’s still mostly payer-facing and payer-driven in the continuum of care, with misaligned, frequently conflicting incentives and inconsistent criteria across the board, except in the case of “payviders” or integrated delivery networks, where the divide is less pronounced and may promote rather than block collaboration despite it needing to be more in the patient’s or member’s interest than the system for true value-based care delivery. U.S. healthcare providers have repeatedly mistaken digitization for modernization. Converting paper into PDFs instead of structured data, automating outdated steps, or adding a portal to a broken process. These were not transformative moves. At best, they converted paper files into EHRs or manual billing into RCM, without questioning the process design behind them. Does it drive approval any faster? Does it reduce burden or improve care quality and experiences? Rarely. Even traditional automation tools, like RPA, while helpful for repetitive administrative tasks, were never built to handle unstructured data or the dynamic, exception-heavy nature of prior authorization workflows. These tools, in essence, served more as digital band-aids over deep systemic wounds, not solutions. Market Signals Tell Us to Move On According to IDC survey data, 52.5% of U.S. healthcare providers are now adopting composable IT architectures to drive electronic prior auth (ePA), moving toward modular, plug-and-play systems designed for agility and continuous evolution. Meanwhile, only 6.6% remain dependent on rigid, custom-built platforms. The message is clear: the market is shifting toward flexibility, interoperability, and intelligent orchestration. I won’t go so far as to say the tide is turning, but signals are getting louder. Across the board, I’m seeing more healthcare leaders on both the technology buyer and supplier sides acknowledging that traditional automation has reached its limits. The complexity of an area like prior auth demands something more adaptive, scalable, and intelligent. Enter agentic AI, not just as another layer of automation, but a new class of automation. Where agents shine is that they can bridge the gap between automation with intelligence, autonomy, and context awareness, working not just faster, but smarter. As opposed to traditional rule-based systems or narrowly trained models, agentic AI can adapt, interpret, and learn on the fly. This is a significant leap from simply executing pre-coded functions. What sets agents further apart is their ability to perform zero-shot reasoning, as well as their capability to handle new inputs or scenarios that haven’t been trained on by leveraging generalized knowledge across domains. This adaptability reassures healthcare leaders that agentic AI can function even in the face of edge cases, real-time policy updates, and unstructured clinical complexity, making it particularly well-suited for prior auth, where variability is the norm, not the exception. Rather than following static rulesets or requiring periodic retraining, agentic AI can: Interpret unstructured data by leveraging NLP and LLMs to extract relevant information from free-text sources such as physician notes, discharge summaries, radiology reports, and lab results. This enables the system to understand the clinical rationale behind a treatment or diagnostic order, allowing for more accurate and context-aware authorization decisions without requiring structured, template-based documentation. Adapt dynamically to evolving payer rules, rather than relying on static rule engines or periodic manual updates. Agentic AI can ingest real-time payer policy feeds, API-accessible rule libraries, or even scrape payer portals (when necessary) to automatically apply

The 2025 Asian Financial Services Congress (AFSC) and Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA) were more than just industry events. They reflected the rapid pace of financial services transformation and spotlighted the technologies and strategies that help institutions respond to constant change. One truth came out clearly this year: Resilience and innovation are essential for success in 2025 and beyond. At AFSC, financial services leaders explored the emerging technologies and real-world AI use cases that are driving competitive advantage—and discussed how institutions can respond to increasing complexity, from geopolitics to talent shortages. In adapting to the new landscape, two powerful forces are shaping transformation in 2025: Technology suppliers accelerating innovations, setting benchmarks, and raising the bar for performance. Financial institutions navigating shifting demand, geopolitical pressure, and execution risks. Staying competitive requires clarity. It’s no longer just about adopting technology—it’s about applying it with precision. Three strategies to strengthen financial services These three proven strategies emerged as critical for leaders navigating digital transformation and rising expectations. Responding to geopolitical risk with five key levers To stay agile, financial institutions are aligning technology and operating models to address: Technology decoupling and regional sovereignty Intraregional trade and its impact on growth Cybersecurity threats intensified by AI and automation De-dollarization trends in global finance Procurement changes in a shifting supply chain Closing the financial services skills gap The challenge isn’t technology, it’s execution. Despite a surge of more than 8 million new STEM graduates in Asia and the release of over 70 new large language models (LLMs) within three years of first launch, many projects failed before delivering value. To realize ROI, institutions must evolve their workforce. That means reskilling technically trained professionals into financial services experts who can connect innovation to business goals. Prioritizing high-impact AI use cases Leaders are no longer experimenting—they’re scaling what works. IDC identified 12 AI use cases delivering measurable value across banking and insurance, including: SME lending automation Customer onboarding optimization Fraud detection Risk modeling and forecasting Each use case was validated by case studies from top Asian financial institutions, demonstrating operational gains and business impact. Throughout the event, CXOs and digital transformation leaders reinforced these strategies during expert panels. Technology suppliers brought critical perspective, showcasing how successful AI implementations are creating repeatable models for the industry. Real use cases. Real results. Execution matters. The FIIA Awards honored institutions that turned their ideas into action. Ten awards were presented to eight financial institutions, including five full-service banks, one digital-only bank, and two insurers. Winners were selected based on clear, outcome-oriented criteria: Demonstrated scalability and ROI Customer-centric innovation promoting inclusivity and access Forward-looking initiatives with industry-wide implications. Congratulations to all the winners for showing how innovation can move from pilot to proof. What comes next for 2026 onwards As 2025 enters its final quarter, the direction is clear—financial services institutions must act on proven strategies, invest in execution, and double down on AI use cases that deliver value. Chart your Agentic AI future! Attend these IDC AI webinar series to dive deeper into the Agentic AI and its use cases: source