In 2025, European technology spending will witness a significant uptick, growing 5% to reach a monumental €1.4 trillion. Software and IT services capture three-quarters of tech spend, a notable rise from its 68% share in 2016. Cloud computing, cybersecurity, generative AI, and the burgeoning digital economy will drive much of the growth. Highlights of European tech spending growth include: Software spending. Software will see 10.4% growth and will capture more than a third of Europe’s tech spend by 2029. Enterprise adoption of cloud services are accelerating, with 45% of European enterprises using cloud computing in 2023, up from a 41% share in 2021. SAP’s EMEA software and cloud revenues indicate robust demand, with 12.5% growth in 2024. The AI growth opportunity is significant, as only 11% of EU enterprises were using AI in 2024. AI software spend in EU-5 is growing at twice the rate of the software market. Hardware. Demand for AI-capable servers and the transition to Windows 11 following the end of support for Windows 10 help drive 10% hardware growth in 2025. Companies such as Dell and Lenovo reported strong revenue growth in 2024, and that trend is expected to continue in 2025. IT services. IT services will see modest 2.9% growth in 2025, as companies like Capgemini, which generates 63% of its revenues from Europe, and Accenture saw slower growth in 2024. Infrastructure as a service remains a bright spot, helping outsourcing capture a larger share of the IT services market. Markets in transition. The European telecom market, characterized by its fragmentation, will consolidate as companies optimize costs and achieve economies of scale. Europe faces the dual challenge of enhancing productivity to compete globally while balancing the environmental impact of increased tech adoption. Investments in AI, smart buildings, and the digitalization of sectors such as healthcare and automotive are key to addressing these challenges. Although the EU is currently falling short of its digital transformation plans, the more that countries invest in intangible goods like software, the more they transform their economies. Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, the UK, France, and Switzerland focus more on high-value-add activities. With a focus on software, cloud services, and AI, Europe is poised for significant tech-driven growth, provided it navigates the complexities of adoption, consolidation, and sustainability. To learn more about how to balance these competing factors and to see the numbers behind Europe’s forecasted €1.4 trillion tech spend in 2025 (which accounts for 31% of global tech spend), Forrester clients can read our new report, European Tech Market Forecast, 2024 To 2029. Other connected forecasts include our US and global tech spend forecasts for 2024 to 2029. source

Image: DC_Studio/Envato Elements Organised crime gangs are using artificial intelligence for fraud, data theft, and money laundering, according to a new report by Europol. The European law enforcement agency revealed the extent to which criminals are exploiting the technology and said it has “fundamentally reshaped the organised crime landscape.” “The same qualities that make AI revolutionary — accessibility, adaptability and sophistication — also make it a powerful tool for criminal networks,” the authors wrote in a press release. “These technologies automate and expand criminal operations, making them more scalable and harder to detect.” Must-read security coverage Familiar crimes, enhanced capabilities While many of the examples provided in Europol’s 2025 E.U. Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment have been previously reported — such as deepfakes being used to impersonate trusted executives, automated ransomware, and AI-generated malware — the report also highlighted lesser-known applications. Criminals have reportedly been using AI to automate money laundering processes and obfuscate financial transactions, making illicit fund movements harder to track. Europol also said that generative AI is being used to create child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which may have contributed to a disturbing rise in its volume and related offenses in recent years. SEE: $1.5 Billion Bybit Hack is Potentially the Largest Crypto Heist Ever “It can support the editing of existing CSAM and the creation of new content,” the authors wrote. “Explicit pictures of adults can be manipulated to make the individual look younger or applications can ‘nudify’ non-explicit images.” In February, Europol announced the arrest of 25 people involved in operating an online platform that used AI to generate and distribute child sexual abuse material worldwide. This marked one of the first cases of its kind and proved difficult due to the absence of a national legislature addressing such AI-generated crimes, the agency said. The report also speculated on a future in which “fully autonomous AI,” requiring no human interference, “could pave the way for entirely AI-controlled criminal networks, marking a new era in organised crime.” Nearly all organised crimes leave a digital footprint With or without AI, Europol says that very little organised crime occurs without some form of digital presence — even for crimes in the physical world. For instance, drug traffickers use digital infrastructure for communication or to gather information about the shipments hiding their products. Criminal networks are acting as proxies for hybrid threat actors, who blend various tactics in coordinated attacks. These actors find each other in the online spaces, where they can exchange cutting-edge AI and digital tools used for attack. “In addition, criminal networks operate unhindered by borders or by imprisonment,” the authors wrote, “and integrate beneficial tactics in their operating procedures.” SEE: What It Costs to Hire a Hacker on the Dark Web The corruption and radicalisation of young people remain a central strategy for organised crime, enabling expansion while shielding leadership from direct prosecution. Europol noted that this has been fuelled by “encrypted communication tools and online platforms that facilitate borderless recruitment, extortion and coordination.” These platforms could include social media or gaming channels. Criminals are also channeling money into parallel financial systems facilitated by emerging technologies like blockchain to launder their illicit profits. Beyond offering secrecy, these systems are designed to grow criminal wealth through digital asset trading. “The very DNA of organised crime is changing,” Europol Executive Director Catherine De Bolle said in a press release. “Criminal networks have evolved into global, technology-driven criminal enterprises, exploiting digital platforms, illicit financial flows, and geopolitical instability to expand their influence. They are more adaptable, and more dangerous than ever before.” source

By Katryna Perera ( March 25, 2025, 10:15 PM EDT) — A New York state court judge has dismissed claims against fintech firm dLocal and its underwriters in a proposed class action alleging the company misstated a key financial metric and misrepresented the state of its financial controls in advance of its June 2021 initial public stock offering that saw the company valued at nearly $9.5 billion…. 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

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More If you’ve been on the internet — or, at least, on the social network X — in the last day or so, you’ve likely come across colorful, smooth anime-style images of famous photographs rendered in the style of the Japanese studio, Studio Ghibli (the one that made Princess Mononoke, The Boy and the Crane, and My Neighbor Totoro, among many other classic animated films). In fact, some users are complaining because their feeds seem to be filled with nearly exclusively these types of images. Whether it’s current President Trump, the iconic image of the “Tank Man” during the 1989 pro-Democracy Tiananmen Square protests, Osama Bin Laden, Jeffrey Epstein, or even other pop culture moments and characters like Sam Rockwell’s iconic cameo on The White Lotus and many popular memes of yore, people have been making and sharing these images at a rapid clip. Powered by the new GPT-4o model’s native image gen Much of that is thanks to OpenAI’s new update to the GPT-4o model behind ChatGPT for Pro, Plus, and Team subscription tiers, which turns on “native image generation.” While ChatGPT previously allowed users to create images from text prompts, it did so by routing them to another, separate OpenAI model, DALL-E 3. But OpenAI’s GPT-4o model is so named with an “o” because it is an “omni” model — the company trained it not only on text and code, but also on imagery and presumably, video and audio as well, allowing it to be able to understand all these forms of media and their similarities and differences, conceive of ideas across them (an “apple” is not just a word, but also something that can be drawn as a red or yellow or green fruit), and accurately produce said media given text prompts by a user without connecting to any external models. As a consequence, like rival Google AI Studio’s recent update to include a Gemini 2.0 Flash experimental image creation model, the new OpenAI GPT-4o can also accept image uploads of any pre-existing image in your camera roll or that you’ve screenshotted or saved off the web. How to use ChatGPT to make Studio Ghibli-style images (and change or transfer any image into any style!) First, navigate to Chat.com or ChatGPT.com and ensure you’re logged in with your ChatGPT Plus, Pro, or Team account and that the AI model selector (located in the left corner of the session window) is showing “GPT-4o” as the chosen model (you can click it to drop down and select the proper model between the available options). Once you do that, you can upload an image to ChatGPT using the “+” button in the lower left hand corner of the prompt entry text box, you can now ask the new GPT-4o with image creation model to render your pre-existing image in a new style. If you want, you can try it by uploading a photo of yourself and friends and typing “make all these people in the style of a Studio Ghibli animation.” And after a few seconds, it will do so with some pretty convincing and amusing results. It even supports attaching multiple images and combining them into a single piece. ChatGPT free tier usage delayed OpenAI initially said it would also enable this feature for free (non-paying users of ChatGPT), but unfortunately for them, co-founder and CEO Sam Altman today posted that the feature will be delayed due to the overwhelming demand by existing paying subscribers to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Team tiers. As he wrote on X: “images in chatgpt are wayyyy more popular than we expected (and we had pretty high expectations). rollout to our free tier is unfortunately going to be delayed for awhile.“ Meanwhile, those who do have access will likely continue cranking out image edits in this and other recognizable or novel styles. Of course, not everyone is a fan of OpenAI’s work here. In fact, Studio Ghibli creator Hayao Miyazaki himself appeared in a documentary back in 2016 — and one of the most memorable moments from it still referenced to this day is him reacting with overwhelming disgust and revulsion to an early example of AI-powered animation and physics by, you guessed it, an OpenAI model. As with many generative AI products and services, OpenAI’s training data for this new image generation capability remains under wraps, but is widely speculated to contain copyrighted material — and while imitating a style is generally not considered copyright infringement in the U.S., it is rubbing some fans of the original animation the wrong way. For now, those brands and enterprises looking to play with this style should do so with caution and after serious consideration, given the possible negative blowback among some users. But for those who are unabashedly pro-AI tools or with more forgiving and fun-loving fanbases, it’s clear that OpenAI has yet another hit on its hands. source

AI agents are hitting the mainstream in 2025 as major AI vendors launch offerings aimed at enterprise clients (e.g., Microsoft Copilot, Salesforce Agentforce). These AI agents enable enterprises to build end-to-end autonomous workflows that can both analyze data and provide answers, as well as complete actions without human intervention.   Domo unveiled its AI agent capability — Agent Catalyst — last week at Domopalooza 2025. To celebrate the release of Agent Catalyst, Domo is offering to build customers’ first agent for free upon signing up at agentcatalyst.ai. Users can build agents through a four-step process: selecting a large language model (LLM), giving instructions, providing knowledge sources, and assigning tools. Key enhancements include: DomoGPT, a secure, platform-hosted language model supporting multiple LLMs. FileSets, which manages unstructured data such as PDFs and images using retrieval-augmented generation for better AI context. A semantic layer to help AI understand business relationships and logic. An upcoming AI assistant and AI agent builders to simplify the creation of AI-driven workflows. Agents Still Need Human Cooperation While agents are powerful and rapidly improving, they are not (yet) a replacement for humans in many situations, and their effectiveness hinges on several important factors involving the people behind the screen: Successful AI implementation hinges on the willingness and ability of employees to adopt and integrate these technologies into their daily workflows. Forrester’s research highlights the importance of building psychological safety and fostering a culture of trust and collaboration to ensure smooth adoption of data and AI products. A positive digital employee experience is essential for maximizing the benefits of AI agents. This includes giving employees access to the right tools and resources as well as providing ongoing training and support. Effective data and communications governance is critical for ensuring that AI agents operate within a framework that promotes transparency, accountability, and security. Enhancing data and AI literacy within the organization is key to empowering employees to make informed decisions and leverage AI technologies effectively. For more insights and guidance on AI adoption, digital employee experience, data governance, and data literacy, Forrester clients can refer to our comprehensive research reports and schedule guidance sessions with us here: [email protected] source

source

B2B marketers overwhelmingly agree that their buyers and customers expect experiences relevant to their needs and preferences. Yet they struggle to define and deploy an audience-centric approach to B2B personalization that extends throughout the customer lifecycle. Compounding this challenge is that the “right” content — what is most relevant or meaningful to the buyer — is not absolute but changes with each interaction based on new information obtained and new experiences with the provider and within their buying network. B2B organizations overall have much work to do to catch up to audience expectations and evolving buying behaviors. Even with the proliferation of AI-powered personalization capabilities, no single technology has emerged as a personalization panacea: Most B2B organizations use between four and 10 discrete technologies to execute personalization (source: Forrester’s State Of Digital In B2B Marketing, 2023). Across tech categories, specialized AI agents are now poised to disrupt and democratize the design, deployment, measurement, and optimization of B2B personalization. They’ll soon be able to autonomously execute against your program and performance goals fueled by infinite content variations, a rich signal universe fed by unstructured data, and individualized experiences that enable each unique customer journey. The aspiration for precision and scale, however, will fall flat if B2B organizations fail to first address gaps in strategy and alignment — and documentation. Doing so will help ensure that new AI models and agents enabling personalization orchestration are learning the ideal state, not “the way we’ve always done things.” Focus On Five Elements To Elevate B2B Personalization A clear and actionable strategy for B2B personalization, driven by a shared vision of its role in delivering valuable interactions, helps organizations achieve goals for real-time buyer and customer enablement, revenue process transformation, increased sales efficiency, and improved customer satisfaction. To get there, B2B organizations should assess their personalization maturity across five core competencies: Strategy. B2B personalization requires a well-defined approach to deliver relevance throughout the purchasing journey and postsale experience using customer history, preferences, context, and intent. Data. B2B personalization requires a comprehensive marketing, sales, and product data strategy and the ability to collect and unify various sources of prospect and customer data into a single, holistic dataset. Design. Organizations must understand their target audiences’ information needs, desired outcomes, and interaction preferences throughout the customer lifecycle and use those insights to inform content requirements and signal-driven adaptation. Delivery. No one wants three “Dear [First Name]” emails in a day. B2B personalization must be omnichannel, signal-driven, group-aware, and connected across interaction types and information sources to effectively coordinate personalization across inbound and outbound delivery mechanisms. Measurement. Click-based activity metrics are not enough. A comprehensive view of B2B personalization requires additional mid- and long-term metrics aligned to established SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goals and a culture of experimentation to discover new ways to reach, engage, and enable audiences. Evaluate Your Approach To B2B Personalization — Then Reevaluate How does your organization’s approach to B2B personalization stack up? Join us in Phoenix at Forrester’s B2B Summit for the interactive workshop “Dear [Attendee Name]: Could Your Personalization Strategy Be Better?” You’ll leave with a completed B2B personalization maturity assessment and practical next steps for increasing personalization capabilities and impact. source

Security engineer was the most common title in cybersecurity job listings in 2024, according to security and IT workforce management platform provider CyberSN. Its report “U.S. Cybersecurity Job Posting Data” was created by pulling together job postings from 30 major job boards and Fortune 500 companies’ job boards between January 2022 and December 2024. The report shows which roles are growing, which are decreasing in demand, and other hiring trends. Security engineer and security analyst job-seekers have a lot of options The top 10 most in-demand roles posted in 2024 were: Security engineer (64,300 posted jobs) Security analyst (45,496 posted jobs) DevSecOps (36,020 posted jobs) Cybersecurity/Privacy Attorney (22,456 posted jobs) Security Architect (22,246 posted jobs) Cybersecurity Manager (17,975 posted jobs) Identity and Access Management Engineer (12,223 posted jobs) Cybersecurity Specialist (8,221 posted jobs) Cyber Risk Analyst (8,187 posted jobs) Incident Responder (7,639 posted jobs) SEE: Scam Alert: FBI ‘Increasingly Seeing’ Malware Distributed In Document Converters Organizations are increasing their job postings for cyber lawyers and red team personnel If you have both legal and cybersecurity experience, you’re in luck: Demand for cybersecurity/privacy attorneys grew more than any other role in 2024, with the largest year-over-year growth, increasing 40% from 2023 to 2024 and 19% increase 2022 to 2024. Other roles that saw notable increases year-over-year were red teamer, cybersecurity sales engineer, cyber threat intelligence analyst, and cybersecurity specialist. For a longer-term look, the following roles grew the most between 2022 and 2024: Reverse engineer/malware analyst Cybersecurity/privacy attorney Cybersecurity technical writer Cybersecurity specialist Chief information security officer Software engineering and identity and access management jobs slowed in 2024 Conversely, roles for cloud security engineer and cybersecurity lead have significantly decreased since 2022. The titles that saw the largest decrease in number of job listings between 2023 and 2024 were: Cybersecurity software engineer Identity and access management engineer Cybersecurity lead Cloud security engineer Security analyst While product security engineers and DevSecOps positions decline overall from 2022 to 2024, a modest rebound from 2023 to 2024 could signal a return to growth. SEE: Broadcom announced a high-priority patch that fixes a security flaw in VMware Tools for Windows Regulatory pressure has shaped cybersecurity in the last three years Dom Glavach, chief security and technology officer at CyberSN, attributed job trends in 2022 to 2024 to “regulatory pressures on CEOs and Boards of Directors,” a trend that seems likely to change in the United States. Meanwhile, AI appears to be influencing hiring trends.  “Decreases in Security Engineer, Security Analyst, and DevSecOps job postings are signaling an industry-wide shift toward AI-powered security automation and internal security operations optimizations,” Glavach said. Job postings for security engineers, security analysts, and DevSecOps have decreased over the last three years, but this has not stopped them from remaining in the list of the top five most sought-after roles. “Our Cyber Workforce Risk Management Practice is seeing organizations prioritize talent retention, development, and the need to address workforce gaps,” said Deidre Diamond, founder and chief executive officer of CyberSN. source

By Tom Zanki ( March 27, 2025, 11:02 PM EDT) — Artificial intelligence-focused startup CoreWeave Inc. on Thursday priced a downsized $1.5 billion initial public offering, represented by Fenwick & West LLP and underwriters’ counsel Latham & Watkins LLP, well below its marketed range. … 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 ( March 27, 2025, 7:00 PM EDT) — The company behind the 1990s word-processing application WordPerfect has settled a Washington-based education technology firm’s lawsuit accusing it of stealing a trademarked name for a 2022 revamp, ending the case ahead of an early April trial date in Seattle federal court…. 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