Next in Tech

We're just out of the recent earnings season and we've seen a wild range of results and some interesting implications. Melissa Otto CFA, head of S&P Global's Visible Alpha research team, returns to discuss what that markets have been saying and what she makes of the data with host Eric Hanselman. Macroeconomic effects are having some impact, as consumer sentiment diverges across the top and the bottom of the economy. In technology, there are mixed feelings about AI as the hunt continues for use cases with decisive revenue returns. The hyperscalers are continuing to invest capital at staggering rates and, so far, the markets have mostly approved. AI supply chain companies, like NVIDIA, are generally moving forward with solid results.
The larger question is where is the AI boom headed. There are constraints not only in supply chains for data centers, but also in energy supply. Agentic AI has a lot of promise, but needs to prove out its value and earn trust, as providers look to improve efficiency with more targeted silicon, like ASICs, to stand up alongside the forests of GPU's being deployed. As investors hunt for improved returns, they may be rotating to international opportunities and small cap companies that might be able to see faster returns from AI deployments.
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Next in Tech podcast, Episode 239: AI Infrastructure
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A view of peaks and plateaus
AI to lead tech spending in 2026, but orgs losing track of energy efficiency – Highlights from Macroeconomic Outlook, SME Tech Trends
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Agents are already driving workplace impact and agentic AI adoption – Highlights from VotE: AI & Machine Learning
Big Picture 2026 AI Outlook: Unleashing agentic potential
Credits:
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
Guest: Melissa Otto, CFA
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith

For the 250th episode, we're looking a bit further forward to explore what enterprises should be thinking about as they look to put agentic capabilities to work. Melissa Incera, Alex Johnston and Sheryl Kingstone return to discuss the challenges and potential with host Eric Hanselman. As AI agents evolve beyond simple chatbots in customer experience and business operations, enterprises have to adapt both their infrastructure and data management capabilities to benefit from agentic potential. Automation is great, but getting to fully autonomous operations requires building more trust than exists today for most. In fact, 451 Research Voice of the Enterprise study results show that those who show a healthy skepticism about agent capabilities are the most successful in achieving their AI project goals.
Agents are making big step forward in establishing continuity in processes by adding memory to AI model interactions. At the same time, concerns about cost are bringing up the need for the same types of visibility and control that's being used with FinOps efforts in cloud. All of this is taking place in an evolving regulatory landscape where the need for a balanced approach between innovation and safety is guiding the best outcomes.
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AI for security: Agentic AI will be a focus for security operations in 2025
For S&P Global Subscribers:
Agents in the enterprise: Laying the groundwork for automation
The CX AI Agent Index 2025
Agents are already driving workplace impact and agentic AI adoption – Highlights from VotE: AI & Machine Learning
Big Picture 2026 AI Outlook: Unleashing agentic potential
Credits:
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
Guests: Melissa Incera, Alex Johnston, Sheryl Kingstone
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith

This year's AWS re:Inforce conference was larger and fueled by greater agentic capabilities. Part of the 451 Research team that was at the conference, Henry Baltazar, Scott Crawford, William Fellows and Melanie Posey, join host Eric Hanselman to explore the announcements and progress that's been made in expanding agentic capabilities and much more. As an incumbent infrastructure provider, AWS is looking to the top of the infrastructure stack to secure their advantage. A suite of developer tools, including the Kiro IDE, are looking to make the creation and operation of agents simpler. There was progress in FinOps, with greater cost transparency and support for partner opportunities in helping customers manage their cloud spend.
 
There was also a more enthusiastic embrace of multicloud environments, with the introduction of AWS Interconnect, a service that provides easy and scalable interconnection with other cloud providers, with Google being the first and Microsoft Azure said to be in the works. 451 Research's Voice of the Enterprise (VotE) data shows dramatic increases in data migration volumes, making interconnection performance more critical. With the holidays in full swing, how many Mariah Carey song title references can you spot in this episode?
 
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2026 Trends in Applied Infrastructure & DevOps
Data Insight: SKU removals run out of steam — hyperscale SKU changes for November 2025
AWS' agentic strategy comes into focus with AgentCore platform and pre-built agents
Cloud spending expansion on tap for 2026 despite bleak macroeconomic outlook – Highlights from VotE…
 
Credits:
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman 
Guests: Henry Baltazar, Scott Crawford, William Fellows, Melanie Posey
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith

Supercomputing has shifted from an esoteric and exotic part of technology to much more mainstream, mostly driven by AI. The massive amounts of computational power that once were reserved for the largest of computing problems in high performance computing (HPC), like weather and seismic analysis, are now commonplace in the world of AI. Analyst Gabriella Brown returns to talk about complex computing problems, quantum computing and photonics with host Eric Hanselman. SC25 has grown to over 16,000 attendees and almost 600 exhibitors, enough to sprawl across St. Louis' Americas Center and into its football stadium. As they mature, the next step in enterprise adoption is working out how all of these will work together. AI is tackling many problems, but quantum could address a whole different class of computing questions.
Quantum computing is scaling up and moving closer to becoming a key part of an everyday computing portfolio. Techniques like quantum annealing are finding practical applications today while pure-play quantum approaches are increasing the density and stability of their computing capabilities as they push for quantum advantage, the point at which they're doing things that classical computers can't. New areas like photonic computing were also on display at SC25, as well as all of the supporting infrastructure to power, house and cool HPC installations. As AI clusters head toward gigawatt power dissipation, they require specialized support.
 
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Quantum Computing Market Monitor & Forecast
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Mea culpa — NVIDIA GTC brings quantum to the stage to help set the record straight
Credits
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman 
Guests: Gabriella (Ellie) Brown
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith

The worlds of IT security and operations are being pulled together and AI is a catalyst that's making it happen. The focus on observability that's been part of the DevOps movement, is playing an important role in improving security effectiveness and Scott Crawford, Mark Ehr and Mike Fratto return to look at how this is happening with host Eric Hanselman. Security teams have always wrestled with making effective use of telemetry data from the infrastructure and applications they are securing. Correlating data from just the security tooling is hard enough, let alone adding operational data to the mix. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems came into existence many years ago specifically to address this problem, but they were complex to configure and operate and needed tending to stay accurate. The volumes of data coming from observability initiatives was promising, but new approaches were required and AI and ML have been key to unlocking that value.
Once again, we've hit an opportunity where it's all about the data and getting it to where it can be put to work. The Open Telemetry project simplified data interchange, but the question remained as to where all of this data had to live. It's not practical to get all of the data in one place, but data fabrics and federation can manage access effectively. Better correlation opens the door to many possibilities, including building a single source of truth for IT assets. There's a lot of benefit to bringing security and operations together.
 
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Credits:
Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
Guests: Scott Crawford, Mark Ehr, Mike Fratto
Producer/Editor: Feranmi Adeoshun
Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Kyra Smith