B2B marketing, sales, product, and customer success leaders are no strangers to disruptive change — in the markets they serve, in buyer expectations, and in the technologies and tools they use. With the intense economic and geopolitical volatility we’re now experiencing, the imperative to drive growth and profitability persists but seems even less attainable. The key is for B2B leaders to not just seek to weather the storm but to chart a course through it, transforming challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation wherever possible. Here are the actions that we’re guiding senior B2B leaders to take — now: Increase focus on stable market segments. Anticipate budget tightening and prioritize market segments that offer the greatest potential for growth. At a minimum, you’ll be optimizing your costs, and you’ll be ready if the CFO and CEO come calling to ask you to give budget back. Streamline technology and operations. With tech sprawl at an all-time high, it’s time to look for opportunities to consolidate. Focus on incumbent vendors that offer broad capabilities, reducing investment in overlapping tech. Identify non-strategic operational tasks and stop supporting them. Double down on customer insights. In volatile times, understanding and empathizing with customers must be continuous. Use insights to improve high-friction processes and guide the tone and tenor of communications. This will enhance your resilience and benefit customer satisfaction. Embrace scenario planning. Preparedness is the best defense against uncertainty. Develop contingency plans for a wide range of scenarios (e.g., increased costs to operate in a market, stalled deals in a specific segment) to help ensure swift and informed decision-making when challenges arise. Accelerate decision-making. The pace of change demands agility. Empower your frontline leaders to take actions in response to buyer and customer insights. Foster a dynamic decision-making environment to adapt more swiftly to market changes. Maintain compliance. Regulators and auditors don’t pause during periods of high volatility, but your policy adherence may break under the strain. Don’t let that happen by continuing to prioritize data compliance for internal systems and with partners and suppliers, too. Master Change Leadership Beyond these actions, successfully navigating volatility requires intentional change leadership. In times of rapid and unpredictable change, maintaining a connection to long-term goals remains important, but being nimble in the short term is also essential. Corporate and brand values can provide a compass for guiding decisions and behaviors — determine which are most important in the face of volatility and lean into them. To effectively guide your organization: Be a beacon of stability. Visible leadership means providing confidence and clarity to stabilize your organization amid chaos. Despite the volatility, set a vision, resolve uncertainty when able, identify barriers, and quickly release resources while actively listening to frontline teams. Focus on people. Change impacts every level of an organization. Take a balanced approach to both the human and procedural aspects of change to help you ensure that engagement and productivity remain high. Implement or strengthen listening strategies to understand the impact of the change and adapt accordingly. Prioritize well-being. High stress levels can undermine the effectiveness of even the most skilled leaders and teams. Promoting mental health and continuous learning (e.g., supporting teams with new tech such as AI) is important for maintaining morale and performance. Steer Your Path With Confidence — But Keep A Close Eye On Risk Your expertise as a B2B leader — most importantly, your commitment to meeting buyer and customer needs — will be key in helping your company weather the storm. Succeeding through volatility also means leaning into long-term risk management (across enterprise, ecosystem, and external risks). Put the most focus on risks over which you have the most control — for example, adapting to the surging buying power of younger generations and the need to engage with increasingly large and complex buying networks. Though the way through volatility is fraught with challenges and risk, savvy B2B leaders recognize that change also brings opportunity. If you’re a Forrester client, read our full report for B2B leaders and schedule a guidance session to discuss applying our recommendations. Not yet a client? Explore our complimentary resources for navigating volatility and reach out so we can help you build your action plan for thriving in uncertainty. source

Image: Gartner (April 2025) In a new report by Gartner, the research firm spotlighted 12 early-stage innovations that will redefine industries and create new market frontiers. The list includes disinformation security, algorithm-aligned silicon, and hyper-synthetic data — each signaling seismic shifts in how intelligence is computed, secured, and simulated. Polyfunctional robots, domain-specific AI, and digital ethics frameworks are also poised to shake up the tech landscape. Gartner issued a call to action for tech leaders, saying they must act now to gain a competitive advantage. Gartner’s playbook for emerging tech: What to prioritize and why it matters Although all 12 disruptive technologies are considered important, Bill Ray, a distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, told TechRepublic that prioritization will ultimately depend on each organization’s goals and industry context. Preemptive cybersecurity: A universal priority Cybersecurity remains critical to all industries. Given the dangers of inaction, Ray called preemptive cybersecurity a high priority “across the board.” As threats become more sophisticated and proactive defense becomes essential, preemptive cybersecurity is no longer optional — it’s foundational. Domain-specific language models: The future of GenAI Domain-specific language models (DSLMs) — AI models trained on datasets tailored to a particular industry — will also significantly impact various sectors, Ray explained. Gartner projected that 90% of GenAI-enabled systems will use DSLMs by 2030. Ray stressed the importance of competitiveness, warning DSLMs “will be adopted by your competitors, so the cost of ignoring them is high.” Earth intelligence: Environmental insight at scale Another top area of focus is the use of satellite-based remote sensing and AI to track and respond to environmental changes — or earth intelligence. Gartner forecasted that, by 2028, 80% of major earth surface assets will be monitored from space. While the defense sector pioneered its adoption, other industries are quickly catching up due to data collection and advances in analysis. Industry-specific disruptors: Robots and silicon Some technologies will have a more targeted impact. Polyfunctional robots, capable of performing multiple tasks via intelligent software and modular hardware, are expected to disrupt physical industries like manufacturing, logistics, and supply chain operations. Other sectors may have a lower urgency. Algorithm-aligned silicon, which uses algorithmic design to optimize silicon components for AI, will significantly affect those building AI infrastructure but may represent only incremental change for downstream users. Ray rounded out his list of priorities with digital ethics, power shortages, and GenAI-enabled code production, saying they “will be wide ranging, but the celerity of impact will vary quite widely between industries.” More about Innovation Disinformation security is an emerging discipline Disinformation security, which focuses on threats from outside the corporate network, is another emerging discipline organizations should pay attention to, Gartner advised. The firm predicted that at least half of enterprises will have adopted products or services to address disinformation security by 2030, up from less than 5% in 2024. “Disinformation attacks use external infrastructure like social media and originate from areas with limited legal oversight,” explained Alfredo Ramirez IV, senior director analyst at Gartner, in a statement. “Tech leaders must add ‘disinformation-proofing’ to products by using AI/machine learning for content verification and data provenance tracking to help users discern the truth.” source

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More OpenAI released GPT-4.1 this morning, directly challenging competitors Anthropic, Google and xAI. By ramping up its coding and context-handling capabilities to a whopping one-million-token window and aggressively cutting API prices, GPT-4.1 is positioning itself as the go-to generative AI model. If you’re managing budgets or crafting code at scale, this pricing shake-up might just make your quarter. Performance upgrades at Costco prices The new GPT-4.1 series boasts serious upgrades, including a 54.6% win rate on the SWE-bench coding benchmark, marking a considerable leap from prior versions. But the buzz isn’t just about better benchmarks. Real-world tests by Qodo.ai on actual GitHub pull requests showed GPT-4.1 beating Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet in 54.9% of cases, primarily thanks to fewer false positives and more precise, relevant code suggestions. That’s significant because Claude 3.7 Sonnet has been considered the coding leader when it comes to LLMs. OpenAI’s new pricing structure—openly targeting affordability—might finally tip the scales for teams wary of runaway AI expenses: Model Input cost (per Mtok) Output cost (per Mtok) GPT-4.1 $2.00 $8.00 GPT-4.1 mini $0.40 $1.60 GPT-4.1 nano $0.10 $0.40 The standout here? That generous 75% caching discount, effectively incentivizing developers to optimize prompt reuse—particularly beneficial for iterative coding and conversational agents. Feeling the heat Anthropic’s Claude models have established their footing by balancing power and cost. But GPT-4.1’s bold pricing undercuts their market position significantly: Model Input cost (per Mtok) Output cost (per Mtok) Claude 3.7 Sonnet $3.00 $15.00 Claude 3.5 Haiku $0.80 $4.00 Claude 3 Opus $15.00 $75.00 Anthropic still offers compelling caching discounts (up to 90% in some scenarios), but GPT-4.1’s base pricing advantage and developer-centric caching improvements position OpenAI as a budget-friendlier choice—particularly appealing for startups and smaller teams. Hidden financial pitfalls Gemini’s pricing complexity is becoming increasingly notorious in developer circles. According to Prompt Shield, Gemini’s tiered structure—especially with the powerful 2.5 Pro variant—can quickly escalate into financial nightmares due to surcharges for lengthy inputs and outputs that double past certain context thresholds: Model Input cost (per Mtok) Output cost (per Mtok) Gemini 2.5 Pro ≤200k $1.25 $10.00 Gemini 2.5 Pro >200k $2.50 $15.00 Gemini 2.0 Flash $0.10 $0.40 Moreover, Gemini lacks an automatic billing shutdown, which Prompt Shield says exposes developers to Denial-of-Wallet attacks—malicious requests designed to deliberately inflate your cloud bill, which Gemini’s current safeguards don’t fully mitigate. GPT-4.1’s predictable, no-surprise pricing seems to be a strategic counter to Gemini’s complexity and hidden risks. Context is king xAI’s Grok series, championed by Elon Musk, recently unveiled its API pricing for its latest models last week: Model Input Cost per Mtok Output (per Mtok) Grok-3 $3.00 $15.00 Grok-3 Fast-Beta $5.00 $25.00 Grok-3 Mini-Fast $0.60 $4.00 One complicating factor with Grok has been its context window. Musk touted that Grok 3 could handle 1 million tokens (similar to GPT-4.1’s claim), but the current API actually maxes out at 131k tokens​, well short of that promise. This discrepancy drew some criticism from users on X, pointing to a bit of overzealous marketing on xAI’s part​.  For developers evaluating Grok vs. GPT-4.1, this is notable: GPT-4.1 offers the full 1M context as advertised, whereas Grok’s API might not (at least at launch). In terms of pricing transparency, xAI’s model is straightforward on paper, but the limitations and the need to pay more for “fast” service show the trade-offs of a smaller player trying to compete with industry giants. Windsurf bets big on GPT-4.1’s developer appeal Demonstrating high confidence in GPT-4.1’s practical advantages, Windsurf—the AI-powered IDE—has offered an unprecedented free, unlimited GPT-4.1 trial for a week. This isn’t mere generosity; it’s a strategic gamble that once developers experience GPT-4.1’s capabilities and cost savings firsthand, reverting to pricier or less capable models will be a tough sell. A new era of competitive AI pricing OpenAI’s GPT-4.1 isn’t just shaking up the pricing game, it’s potentially setting new standards for the AI development community. With precise, reliable outputs verified by external benchmarks, simple pricing transparency, and built-in protections against runaway costs, GPT-4.1 makes a persuasive case for being the default choice in closed-model APIs. Developers should brace themselves—not just for cheaper AI, but for the domino effect this pricing revolution might trigger as Anthropic, Google, and xAI scramble to keep pace. For teams previously limited by cost, complexity, or both, GPT-4.1 might just be the catalyst for a new wave of AI-powered innovation. source

As we put together our game plan for what to see at RSA Conference 2025, we want to scope out innovation. Here’s trends to know going in. source

Quantum professionals around the world overwhelmingly agree that quantum utility will arrive within the next decade, according to a new survey by Economist Impact. Quantum utility refers to the point at which quantum computers provide practical advantages over classical computers in solving specific real-world problems. A whopping 83% of the survey’s respondents think that moment will come within 10 years or less.  One-third of them are even more optimistic, predicting that quantum utility could be achieved within the next one-to-five years. That’s more in line with the roadmaps of quantum companies like Finnish startup IQM, which is targeting quantum utility as early as next year.  Some of the world’s biggest tech leaders have also cast their predictions on this hot topic in recent months. In February, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said he believes “practically useful” quantum computers are five-to-10 years away. A month earlier, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang suggested we’re still at least 15 years out — a comment that sent quantum stocks tumbling. The discrepancy in estimates reflects the uncertainty over when quantum will have its breakout moment. It also points to a broader confusion over quantum jargon. The 💜 of EU tech The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now! Quantum utility will mean that quantum computers can solve meaningful real-world problems. However, even within the industry, the term is often used interchangeably with quantum “advantage” or “supremacy,” which is widely considered the point at which quantum computers outperform classical ones.  Economist Impact — a research-driven consultancy and content arm of Britain’s Economist Group — illustrates how muddled the terms have become in its own press release: “Quantum utility [is] when quantum computers will overcome hardware and error correction challenges to perform better than classical computers.”   That makes the next finding from the survey quite fitting.  Quantum utility challenges Over half of the respondents believe misconceptions about quantum computing are actively hindering advancement. The findings highlight a gap between technological progress and business preparedness, emphasising the need for improved education about what quantum computing is. Public misunderstanding of quantum computing is far from the biggest headache for quantum professionals, however. Overcoming engineering challenges and acquiring enough talent to grow are right at the top of the list of concerns.   Over 80% of respondents cited overcoming technical challenges — particularly error correction — as a key hurdle to reaching quantum utility.  Three-quarters identified a shortage of talent and expertise as a critical issue. Quantum experts are in short supply, exacerbated by the rapid growth of the quantum sector, where startups and tech giants alike are competing for a small pool of qualified professionals.    Tapping into the subatomic world of quantum mechanics to perform useful calculations was never going to come easy, though. It is one of the toughest challenges in modern science — but if cracked, the payoff could be huge.  Quantum computers have the potential to solve problems that are far beyond the reach of today’s most powerful supercomputers. They could simulate complex molecules for drug discovery, design new materials from the atomic level up, and revolutionise logistics and finance by cracking massive optimisation problems. They could also break all internet encryption on what is known as Q-Day — so there are risks, too. Europe’s race to secure leadership in quantum is on the agenda for TNW Conference, which takes place on June 19-20 in Amsterdam. Tickets for the event are now on sale. Use the code TNWXMEDIA2025 at the check-out to get 30% off the price tag. source

By Roland Eisenhuth ( April 9, 2025, 1:06 PM EDT) — The American legal system is being repurposed — not by lawmakers or judges, but by capital flows from hedge funds, private equity firms and offshore investment shops. What began as an access to justice innovation has become a parallel market: third-party litigation financing, in which foreign investors quietly bankroll lawsuits in exchange for a share of the recovery…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

By Rachel Riley ( April 11, 2025, 5:40 PM EDT) — An electric-vehicle charging network has launched a lawsuit in Seattle federal court accusing a number of Washington state residents of conspiring to rip equipment from its charging stations in order to resell it on the streets, while also lifting the company’s trade secrets…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

On March 18, Adobe announced its agentic AI roadmap at Adobe Summit. Listening to the keynote presentations and watching the demos at Adobe Summit, I was impressed with Adobe’s vision’s potential, the scope of change it portends, and the degree to which Adobe featured B2B use cases and examples. Behind the scenes, Adobe graciously engaged with me in several high-level executive meetings, starting with Scott Bajtos, global vice president of Adobe Customer Solutions, several members of his team, and other teams focused on helping customers succeed. From Adobe Experience League to user groups, advocacy programs, Adobe Champions, communities, value scorecards, and a glimpse at its upcoming customer portal, it’s clear that Adobe is serious about making investments that ensure that its B2B customers achieve their goals and get value from Adobe investments. This left me wondering: Why not specifically focus some of Adobe’s AI and agentic innovation on the postsale, as well? A Definite, But Future, Opportunity Lies In The B2B Postsale “Definitely” is the one-word answer to the question posed in the title of this post. The reality is that the postsale is just not the priority today, when there is more market opportunity to capture by focusing on consumer experiences that combine Adobe’s strengths in creativity and online experiences with the potential for more personalized, conversational, and digital experiences that the new AI/agentic offerings will enable. Among the 10 AI agents that Adobe introduced, one specifically supports evaluating and advancing new B2B opportunities to build sales pipeline and engage key members of a buying group. While its purpose has a distinct presale orientation, it’s not difficult to see how this agent — and ones focused on audience, data insights, content production, and journey orchestration, coupled with a prompt-driven, natural language interface — could be used by creative customer-facing teams to create truly personalized experiences that accelerate a customer’s time to value and help them achieve a healthy ROI. Focusing On The Postsale Helps You Thrive During Volatility — And AI Will Help There is a lesson here for postsale marketers, success managers, account teams, and anyone involved in helping customers succeed: As you experiment with and make bets on AI, don’t leave your customers’ experience out of the equation. The degree of change and upheaval happening today could rival what markets and businesses went through in 2020 but this time with many more sources of volatility. Volatility in 2025 includes massive global outages, cyber threats, new tariffs, trade wars, divided and impatient customers — and, of course, economic concerns. To survive in these times, Forrester believes that customer obsession is required and that it’s time to (re-)prioritize postsale investment by doubling down on customer insights, communication, and empathy (subscription required). Prioritizing customers puts postsale teams squarely in the spotlight. And when facing limited-surplus investment, it gets hot under that spotlight unless these teams not only operate more efficiently but also demonstrate a positive connection between their actions and the resulting retention and growth in customer revenue. Start Your B2B Postsale Agentic Journey With Objectives, Not Technology AI innovation, agents, and agentic operations all have lots of potential to assess, guide, and activate postsale experiences while enabling the teams who guide customers through their journeys. These teams need the right technology foundations, skills, and expertise to close AI literacy gaps, along with the control systems required to ensure maximum benefit with minimum risk. Insights and personalized experiences that would have seemed impossible five years ago are now made feasible and efficient with agentic and generative AI. As Adobe’s Summit and business announcements show, focusing on the postsale is the biggest hurdle, not the technology. For more help, set up a guidance session with me to find out how you can: source

By eliminating the consolidated audit trail’s collection of most retail customer information, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may squander a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deter securities market fraud and abuse, something new Chair Paul Atkins must ensure doesn’t happen, says former SEC data strategist Hugh Beck. source

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Midjourney, the boot-strapped startup viewed by many AI power users as the “gold standard” of AI image generation since its launch in 2022, has now introduced the much-anticipated, most advanced version of its generator model, Midjourney v7. The headline feature is a new way to prompt the model to create images. Previously, users were limited to typing in text prompts and attaching other images to help guide generations (the model could incorporate a variety of user-uploaded and attached images, including other Midjourney generations, to influence the style and subjects of new generations). Now, the user can simply speak aloud to Midjourney’s alpha website (alpha.midjourney.com) — provided they have a microphone in/on/attached to their computer (or using a networked device with audio input, such as headphones or a smartphone) — and the model will listen and conjure up its own text prompts based on the user’s spoken audio descriptions, generating images from this. It’s unclear whether or not Midjourney created a new voice input model (speech-to-text) from scratch or is using a fine-tuned or out-of-the-box version of one from another provider such as ElevenLabs or OpenAI. I asked Midjourney founder David Holz on X, but he has yet to answer. Using Draft Mode and conversational Voice Input to prompt in a flow state Going hand-in-hand with this input method is a new “Draft Mode” that generates images more rapidly than Midjourney v6.1, the most immediate preceding version, often in less than a minute or even 30 seconds in some cases. While the images are initially of lower quality than v6.1, the user can click on the “enhance” or “vary” buttons located to the right of each generation to re-render the draft at full quality. The idea is that the human user will be happy to use both together — in fact, you need to have “Draft Mode” turned on to activate audio input — to enter a more seamless flow state of creative drafting with the model, spending less time on refining the specific language of prompts and more on seeing new generations, reacting to them in realtime, and adjusting them or tweaking them as needed more naturally and rapidly by simply speaking the thoughts out to the model. “Make this look more detailed, darker, lighter, more realistic, more kinetic, more vibrant,” etc. are some of the instructions the user could provide through the new audio interface in response to generations to produce new, adjusted ones that better match their creative vision. Getting started with Midjourney v7 To enter these modes, starting with the new “Draft” feature, the user must first jump through one new hurdle: Midjourney’s personalization feature. While this feature had been introduced previously on Midjourney v6 back in June 2024, it was optional, allowing the user to create a personal “style” that could be applied to all generations going forward by rating 200 pairs of images (selecting which on the user liked best) through the Midjourney website. The user could then toggle on a style that matched the images they liked best during the pairwise rating process. Now, Midjourney v7 requires users to generate a new v7-specific personalized style before even using it at all in the first place. Once the user does that, they’ll land on the familiar Midjourney Alpha website dashboard where they can click “Create” from the left side rail to open a the creation tab. Then, in the prompt entry bar at the top, the user can click on the new “P” button to the right of the bar to turn on their personalization mode. Midjourney founder and leader David Holz confirmed to VentureBeat on X that older personalization styles from v6 could also be selected, but not the separate “moodboards” — styles made up of user-uploaded image collections — though Midjourney’s X account separately stated that feature will be returning soon as well. However, I didn’t see the opportunity to select my older v6 style. Nonetheless, the user can then click on the new “Draft Mode” button to the right of the Personalization button (also further to the right of the text prompt entry box) to activate this faster image generation mode. Once that’s been selected with the cursor, it will turn orange indicating it is turned on, and then a new button with a microphone icon should appear to the right of this one. This is the voice prompting mode, which the user can once again click on to activate. Once the user has pressed this microphone button to enter the voice prompting mode, they should see the microphone icon change from white to orange to indicate it is engaged, and a waveform line will appear to the right of it that should begin undulating in time with the user’s speech. The model will then be able to hear you and should also hear when you finish speaking. In practice, I sometimes got an error message saying “Realtime API disconnected,” but stopping and restarting the voice entry mode and refreshing the webpage usually cleared it quickly. After a few seconds of speaking, Midjourney will begin flashing some keyword windows below the prompt entry textbox at the top and also generate a full text prompt to the right as it generates a new set of 4 images based on what the user said. The user can then further modify these new generations by speaking to the model again, toggling voice mode on and off as needed. Here’s a quick demo video of me using it today to generate some sample imagery. You’ll see the process is far from perfect, but it is really fast and does allow for more of an interrupted state of prompting, refining, and receiving images from the model. More new features…but also many missing features and limitations from v6/6.1 Midjourney v7 is launching with two operational modes: Turbo and Relax. Turbo Mode provides high performance at twice the cost