This Week in Enterprise Tech

In the audio recording of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess the biggest tech news for the CIO office:

1. The Dissection of Intel Begins…
2. AWS Marketplace Changes Affect SaaS FinOps Strategy
3. Glean Releases Agents to Manage Data
4. Snowflake Brings Cortex Agents to Public Preview
5. SAP & Databricks Team Up to Unlock SAP Data
6. Workday Releases Agent System of Record
7. Outshift by Cisco Discusses Internet of Agents
8. PegaSystems Points Out Employee Concerns for Agents
9. Anthropic Economic Index Measures Enterprise AI Usage
10. Microsoft Research Finds AI Atrophies Cognitive Confidence
11. DOGE Struggles to COBOL Together a Mainframe

Sources:

The Dissection of Intel Begins …

WSJ: https://tinyurl.com/IntelSplitSpec

AWS Marketplace Changes Affect SaaS FinOps Strategy

Duckbill Group: https://tinyurl.com/AWSMktRules

Glean Releases Agents to Manage Data

Glean: https://tinyurl.com/GleanAgents 

Snowflake Brings Cortex Agents to Public Preview

Snowflake: https://tinyurl.com/SnowflakeCortexPreview 

SAP & Databricks Team To Unlock SAP Data

SAP: https://tinyurl.com/SAPDatabricks 

Workday Releases the Agent System of Record

AOL: https://tinyurl.com/HRofAIAgents 

Workday: https://tinyurl.com/WorkdayAgentSOR 

Outshift by Cisco Discusses the Internet of Agents

VentureBeat: https://tinyurl.com/IoAgentsCisco 

PegaSystems Points Out Employee Concerns for Agents

CIODive: https://tinyurl.com/WorkforceAIConcern 

Anthropic Economic Index Measures Enterprise AI Usage

The Register: https://tinyurl.com/AIJobsImpact 

Paper: https://tinyurl.com/AnthropicEI 

Microsoft Research Discovers AI Atrophies Cognitive Confidence

404 Media: https://tinyurl.com/AIAtrophiesCognition 

Microsoft: https://tinyurl.com/MSCritThink 

DOGE Struggles to COBOL Together a Mainframe

Fast Company: https://tinyurl.com/DOGECOBOL

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights

For the audio podcast of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess last week's biggest tech news:

1. Good News: Ransomware Down 35%!
2. AWS S3 Bucket Registrations: A Sneaky Backdoor Threat
3. Zoho Day and the Race to Agentic AI
4. Fei-Fei Li: “It Takes $50 to Distill A Reasoning Model”
5. Will Semiconductor Tariffs Force CIOs to Close the Deal?
6. Is the CIO a Policy Strategist or a Rubber Stamp?
7. Will the Windows 10 Sunset Force AI PCs into the Workplace?
8. CIOs Bullish on AI, IT Employees Not So Much
9. Where Salesforce AI’s Super Bowl Ad Missed the Mark

Sources:

Good News: Ransomware Down 35%!

Chainalysis: https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/crypto-crime-ransomware-victim-extortion-2025/ 

AWS S3 Bucket Registrations: a Sneaky Backdoor Threat

Watchtowr: https://labs.watchtowr.com/8-million-requests-later-we-made-the-solarwinds-supply-chain-attack-look-amateur/ 

Zoho Day and the Race to Agentic AI

CX Today: https://www.cxtoday.com/crm/zoho-previews-ai-agents-commits-to-low-pricing-shares-more-on-its-ceo-transition/ 

Fei-Fei Li: “It Takes 50 Dollars to Distill A Reasoning Model”

TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/05/researchers-created-an-open-rival-to-openais-o1-reasoning-model-for-under-50/ 

Will Semiconductor Tariffs Force CIOs to Close the Deal?

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/04/nvidia_trump_tariffs/ 

Is the CIO a Policy Strategist or a Rubber Stamp?

CHCOC.gov: https://chcoc.gov/sites/default/files/OPM Memo Guidance Regarding Redesignating SES CIO Positions 2-4-2025 FINAL.pdf

Will the Windows 10 Sunset Force AI PCs into the Workplace?

CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3812887/will-the-end-of-windows-10-accelerate-cio-interest-in-ai-pcs.html 

CIOs Bullish on AI, IT Employees Not So Much

CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3815935/cios-are-bullish-on-ai-agents-it-employees-not-so-much.html 

Where Salesforce AI’s Super Bowl Ad Missed the Mark 

Defector: https://defector.com/salesforce-is-using-a-hallucination-to-sell-ai 

Salesforce AI Super Bowl Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4JNLL7U8H8

Google Gemini Super Bowl Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7e6g11BJc0

ServiceNow AI Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IqR735mAo4

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights

For the audio podcast of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess last week's biggest tech news:

1. Earnings: IBM, SAP, ServiceNow
2. ServiceNow’s AI Orchestrator Automates Complex Workflows
3. IT Service Automator Atomicwork Secures $25M
4. EU AI Act In Effect: Now What?
5. Musk’s Government Actions Stoke CIO Concerns
6. DeepSeek’s Disruption: Lower AI Costs, More Efficient Models
7. New US CIO Barbachi’s Background Brings Up Big Questions

Sources:

Earnings: IBM, SAP, ServiceNow

CNBC on IBM: https://tinyurl.com/IBMQ424CNBC

SAP: https://news.sap.com/2025/01/sap-announces-q4-and-fy-2024-results/ 

ServiceNow: https://tinyurl.com/ServiceNowQ424 

ServiceNow’s AI Orchestrator Automates Complex Workflows

VentureBeat: https://tinyurl.com/SNAIOrch

IT Service Automator Atomicwork Secures $25M

Atomicwork: https://tinyurl.com/Atomicwork25M

EU AI Act In Effect: Now What?

Official EU AI Act Website: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/high-level-summary/ 

Littler: https://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/first-requirements-eu-ai-act-come-force-february-2025

NCC Group: https://www.nccgroup.com/us/the-eu-ai-act-pioneering-the-future-of-ai-regulation/

Musk's Government Actions Stoke CIO Concerns

Fortune: https://tinyurl.com/MuskDogeFortune

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/01/elon-musk-treasury-payments-system/

MSNBC: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rcna190222

DeepSeek’s Disruption: Lower AI Costs, More Efficient Models

Stratechery DeepSeek FAQ: https://stratechery.com/2025/deepseek-faq/ 

Dario Amodei: https://tinyurl.com/AmodeiDS

VentureBeat: https://tinyurl.com/VentureBeatDS

Prateek Kathpal: https://tinyurl.com/KathpalDS 

New US CIO Barbachi’s Background Brings Up Big Questions

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/28/the_us_governments_new_cio/

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights

For the audio podcast of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess last week's biggest tech news:

1. DeepSeek Simplifies AI, Big Tech Freaks Out
2. Project Stargate: Sam Altman Strikes Back
3. OpenAI Wants Operator to Control Your Computer
4. Microsoft AutoGen and the New Event Driven Architecture
5. Gartner Forecasts 9.8% IT Growth: Too Much or Not Enough?
6. Can AI Replace Humans in the Gig Economy?

Sources:

DeepSeek Simplifies AI, Big Tech Freaks Out

Wired Coverage by Zeyi Yang https://www.wired.com/story/deepseek-china-model-ai/

DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/

Project Stargate: Sam Altman Strikes Back

CIODive: https://www.ciodive.com/news/trump-stargate-openAI-nvidia-oracle/738060/ 

OpenAI Wants Operator to Control Your Computer

OpenAI: https://openai.com/index/introducing-operator/ 

Microsoft AutoGen and the New Event-Driven Architecture

Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/autogen-v0-4-reimagining-the-foundation-of-agentic-ai-for-scale-extensibility-and-robustness/  

Venturebeat  https://venturebeat.com/ai/microsoft-autogen-v0-4-a-turning-point-toward-more-intelligent-ai-agents-for-enterprise-developers 

Gartner Forecasts 9.8% IT Growth: Too Much or Not Enough?

Gartner: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-01-21-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-it-spending-to-grow-9-point-8-percent-in-2025 

CIO.com coverage by Paula Rooney: https://www.cio.com/article/3808191/cost-concerns-put-cios-ai-strategies-on-edge.html

Can AI Replace Humans in the Gig Economy? 

Henry Shi on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/henrythe9th_we-tried-replacing-1000-human-jobs-with-ai-activity-7288235299191603201-mH4H 

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights

For the audio podcast of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess last week's biggest tech news:

1. DOGE is Not a Department. It’s a Service. 
2. Can OpenAI Influence America’s AI Policy?
3. Google Gemini Wants 500 Million Users
4. Microsoft Restructures to Support Agents
5. ServiceNow Acquires CueIn for Conversation Analysis
6. ContextualAI Launches for Custom RAG

Sources:

DOGE is Not a Department. It’s a Service. 

The White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/establishing-and-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency/ 

Can OpenAI Influence America’s AI Policy?

New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/technology/openai-economic-blueprint.html

Google Gemini Wants 500 Million Users

Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-gemini-2025-chatgpt-openai-b6eb595d  

Microsoft Restructures to Emphasize Agents

Microsoft: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/01/13/introducing-core-ai-platform-and-tools/ 

The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/15/24344214/microsoft-365-copilot-chat-agents-pricing-availability 

ServiceNow Acquires CueIn for Conversation Analysis

ServiceNow: https://www.servicenow.com/company/media/press-room/servicenow-to-acquire-cuein.html?ref=runtime.news 

ContextualAI Launches for Custom RAG 

Contextual.ai: https://contextual.ai/blog/contextual-ai-platform-generally-available/ 

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights

For the audio podcast of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess last week's biggest tech news:

1. NVIDIA Makes AI More Accessible with Project Digits
2. NVIDIA Nemotron: Advantage or Market Tension?
3. NVIDIA, Google, and the Future of AI-Powered Robotics
4. KPMG: 2025 is the Year of AI Deployment
5. Open AI’s Pro Pricing Dilemma: How We’d Fix It
6. Half of CIOs Struggle to Own Enterprise AI Responsibilities 
7. Nékojita FuFu Revolutionizes Coffee Ecosystems

Sources:

NVIDIA Makes AI More Accessible with Project DIGITS

NVIDIA Project DIGITS Press Release: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/project-digits/   

NVIDIA Nemotron: Advantage or Market Tension?

Emilia David’s coverage on VentureBeat: https://venturebeat.com/ai/nvidias-ai-agent-play-is-here-with-new-models-orchestration-blueprints/?utm_source=AmalgamInsights 

NVIDIA Nemotron Blog: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/nemotron-model-families/ 

NVIDIA, Google, and the Future of AI-Powered Robotics

Jess Weatherbed on The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/7/24338053/google-deepmind-world-modeling-ai-team-gaming-robot-training 

KPMG: 2025 is the Year of AI Deployment

Gyana Swain on CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3778320/enterprises-willing-to-spend-up-to-250-million-on-gen-ai-but-roi-remains-elusive.html?utm_source=AmalgamInsights 

KPMG AI Quarterly Pulse Survey: https://kpmg.com/us/en/media/news/kpmg-ai-quarterly-pulse-survey.html 

Open AI’s Pro Pricing Dilemma: How We’d Fix It

Kyle Wiggers on TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/05/openai-is-losing-money-on-its-pricey-chatgpt-pro-plan-ceo-sam-altman-says/ 

Half of CIOs Struggle to Own Enterprise AI Responsibilities 

Paul Barker at CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3800869/study-probes-trends-around-ai-in-the-enterprise.html 

Nékojita FuFu Revolutionizes Coffee Ecosystems

Brian Heater on TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/05/this-tiny-robot-cat-will-blow-on-your-coffee-to-cool-it-off/ 

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights

For the audio podcast of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess last week's biggest tech news:

1. How Does Florida’s Pornhub Ban Affect Content Access?
2. 6th Circuit Kills Net Neutrality: IT Investment Concerns
3. Has Google Figured Out GenAI's Killer App?
4. Agentforce 2.0 Evolves Enterprise Agentic AI
5. What Is the Future of AI Pricing?
6. Aaron Levie Clarifies the Value of AI Access to PCs
7. Bench's Rough Winter Break: Enterprise SaaS Considerations
8. Felicis & The Promise of Lights Out Ops
9. Is AI Your New Organizational Strategist?
10. Are AI Hallucinations About Being Wrong or Being Creative?

Sources:

How Does Florida’s Pornhub Ban Affect Content Access?

Jessica Lyons on The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/05/pornhub_vpn_demand_surge/  

6th Circuit Kills Net Neutrality: IT Investment Concerns

Brian Barrett on Wired: https://tinyurl.com/NetNeutralityDead

Court Ruling: https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/25a0002p-06.pdf 

Has Google Figured Out GenAI's Killer App?

Will Douglas Heaven on MIT Technology Press: https://tinyurl.com/GenAIKillerApp 

Agentforce 2.0 Evolves Enterprise Agentic AI

Salesforce: https://tinyurl.com/Agentforce2 

What Is the Future of AI Pricing?

Grant Gross on CIO.com: https://tinyurl.com/AIPricingFuture

Aaron Levie Clarifies the Value of AI Access to PCs

Aaron Levie: https://x.com/levie/status/1867027506286694539 

Bench's Rough Winter Break: Enterprise SaaS Considerations

Bench FAQs: https://www.bench.co/transition-faqs

Josh Scott on BetaKit: https://betakit.com/bench-had-a-crazier-holiday-break-than-your-startup/

Felicis Outlines The Promise of Lights Out Ops

Felicis: https://www.felicis.com/insight/ai-it-qa-incident-response 

Is AI Your New Organizational Strategist?

Wired.com: https://tinyurl.com/AIOrgStrat

Are AI Hallucinations About Being Wrong or Being Creative?

New York Times: https://tinyurl.com/AICreativityHallucination 

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights

For the audio podcast of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess last week's biggest tech news:

1. AWS Enhances Amazon Connect with Generative AI Tools
2. AWS Takes on AI Hallucination Challenges
3. AWS Bedrock Adds Multi-Agent Orchestration and Model Routing
4. AWS Centralizes AI Efforts with SageMaker
5. Casey Newton Examines AI Skepticism’s Comforts
6. Emergence AI Coordinates Multi-Vendor Agents
7. Exa Redefines Generative Search Experiences
8. MLCommons Benchmarks LLM Output Risks
9. South Korea’s Unrest Threatens Global Memory Supply
10. Werner Vogels on Managing “Simplexity”
11. Broadcom Adjusts to Minimize VMware Migration Risks

Sources:

AWS Upgrades Amazon Connect with New Generative AI Features

Silicon Angle: https://siliconangle.com/2024/12/01/aws-upgrades-amazon-connect-new-generative-ai-features/ 

AWS Tackles AI Hallucinations

TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/03/aws-new-service-tackles-ai-hallucinations/ 

AWS Bedrock Updates: Multi-Agent Collaboration, Model Routing

AWS: https://tinyurl.com/AWSBedrockMAC

AWS: https://tinyurl.com/AWSBedrockIPR

AWS Wraps Everything Together Under Sagemaker

AWS: https://tinyurl.com/AWSSageMakerAI

Casey Newton and the Phony Comforts of AI Skepticism

Platformer: https://www.platformer.news/ai-skeptics-gary-marcus-curve-conference/ 

Emergence AI Orchestrates Multi-Vendor Agents 

Venture Beat: https://venturebeat.com/ai/emergences-ai-orchestrator-launches-to-do-what-big-tech-offerings-cant-play-well-with-others/ 

Exa Re-Envisions Generative Search

MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/03/1107726/the-startup-trying-to-turn-the-web-into-a-database/ 

MLCommons Benchmarks the Risks of LLM Outputs

MLCommons: https://ailuminate.mlcommons.org/benchmarks/ 

South Korea’s Political Unrest Threatens Global Memory

CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3617847/south-koreas-political-unrest-threatens-the-stability-of-global-tech-supply-chains.html 

Werner Vogels On Managing “Simplexity”

Runtime News: https://www.runtime.news/werner-vogels-complexity-is-inevitable/ 

Broadcom Pivots to Avoid Big VMware Migrations

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/05/vmware_user_migration_plans/ 

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights

For the audio podcast of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess last week's biggest tech news:

1. Pat Gelsinger Steps Down from Intel
2. Workday Hires Rob Enslin as President
3. Emergence of the Zero-Click Internet?
4. Altera Creates A Testing Ground for AI Interaction

Pat Gelsinger Steps Down from Intel

Tech executive legend Pat Gelsinger steps down from Intel amid a cratering stock price and logistical issues. Was Gelsinger’s vision too big? Is Intel able to come back? 

Intel: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-ceo-news-dec-2024.html 

Workday Hires Rob Enslin as President

Another long-time tech executive finds a new home. Rob Enslin joins Workday as the President and Chief Commercial Officer. This comes at a time when Workday is trying to get into the CFO office. Charles and Hyoun discuss what Workday needs to do to take full advantage of this hire. 

Workday: https://newsroom.workday.com/2024-11-26-Workday-Names-Rob-Enslin-President,-Chief-Commercial-Officer 

Emergence of the Zero-Click Internet?

Josh Tyler brings up an interesting concept on Techspot: the Zero Click Internet. Hyoun and Charles discuss what it means when we are increasingly locked into platforms and Generative AI brings information to us. 

https://youtu.be/42GumPwC1AM 

Techspot: https://www.techspot.com/article/2908-the-zero-click-internet/ 

Original X thread: https://x.com/joshtyler/status/1845715487126405414 

Altera Creates A Testing Ground for AI Interaction

Altera pitted 1000 autonomous agents against each other in Minecraft and… they started creating rudiments of a culture. What does this mean for the future of agentic and generative AI? Charles and Hyoun explore these findings and come to some surprising realizations for enterprise It departments. 

MIT Technology Review: https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/11/27/1107377/a-minecraft-town-of-ai-characters-made-friends-invented-jobs-and-spread-religion/ 

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights

For the audio podcast of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess last week's biggest tech news:

1. Microsoft Ignites a New Version of Enterprise AI
2. NVIDIA Makes Massive Profits, Disappoints Irrational Investors
3. Amazon Throws Another 4 Billion at Anthropic
4. Snowflake Rides a Wild AI Avalanche
5. NTT Data and CIOs Reinforce GenAI Trends
6. Menlo Ventures Rises Above in Researching Gen AI
7. Data is the New Yellowcake Uranium
8. True or False? Google Answers: “Please Die”

Sources:

Microsoft Ignites a New Version of Enterprise AI

The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/19/24300001/microsoft-ignite-2024-news-ai-announcements-copilot-windows-azure-office

VentureBeat: https://venturebeat.com/ai/microsoft-quietly-assembles-the-largest-ai-agent-ecosystem-and-no-one-else-is-close/

Also VentureBeat: https://venturebeat.com/ai/microsofts-new-ai-agents-support-1800-models-and-counting/

CIO.com: https://edt.cio.com/c/115KGPzXmkWxdqIGCi9OTRk8d4V0WrG

NVIDIA Makes Massive Profits, Disappoints Irrational Investors

NVIDIA: https://tinyurl.com/NVIDIA2024Q3Financials

Amazon Throws Another 4 Billion at Anthropic 

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/22/anthropic_amazon_funds/

CIO Dive: https://www.ciodive.com/news/Amazon-Anthropic-AWS-partnership-expansion/733808/

Snowflake Rides a Wild AI Avalanche

Snowflake: https://tinyurl.com/Snowflake2024Q3Financials

NTT Data and CIOs Reinforce GenAI Trends

NTT Data: https://tinyurl.com/NTTDataGenAI2024

CIO Dive: https://www.ciodive.com/news/ChatGPT-anniversary-enterprise-strategy-evolution-generative-AI/732951/

Menlo Ventures Rises Above in Researching Gen AI

Menlo Ventures: https://menlovc.com/2024-the-state-of-generative-ai-in-the-enterprise/

Data is the New Yellowcake Uranium

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/data_is_the_new_uranium/

True or False? Google Answers “Please Die”

Sky.com: https://tinyurl.com/GoogleGeminiPleaseDie

This Week In Enterprise Tech is hosted by:

Charles Araujo of The DX Report and

Hyoun Park of Amalgam Insights