NextTech
Analysis
Cisco Turns AI Agent Costs Into an Operations Metric
Splunk’s new Tokenomics and on-premises AI stack signal that agent spending, behavior and infrastructure are becoming core enterprise operations.
NextNow / Contributor
Kevin Laird
- AI implementation
- automation
- operations
- digital infrastructure
- analytics
- workflow design
- process improvement
Reporting and analysis
Latest articles
NextTech
Analysis
Salesforce’s Koa Makes Specialized AI a Platform Bet
Salesforce’s first CRM reasoning model turns decades of workflow knowledge into a controlled alternative to general-purpose frontier AI.
NextTech
Analysis
Microsoft’s School AI Deal Makes Privacy a Contract Term
The agreement with national and New York teachers unions moves AI governance from voluntary principles into school contracts that buyers can audit and enforce.
NextTech
Analysis
Microsoft’s AI Code Turns Human Control Into a Product Requirement
The draft rules make shutdown, legibility and bounded autonomy design requirements, turning abstract AI-safety promises into a procurement test.
NextTech
Analysis
Ellison’s Canceled Sale Puts Oracle’s AI Bet on Display
The Oracle founder’s reversal removes one uncertainty but leaves the company’s enormous AI infrastructure execution test unchanged.
NextTech
Analysis
Nscale Adds Fidji Simo as AI Infrastructure Grows Up
The former OpenAI and Instacart executive brings product, marketplace and public-company experience as the AI infrastructure race shifts toward operating discipline.
NextWork
Analysis
AI Is Removing Friction—and Flooding Public Services
AI can help more people complete difficult applications and complaints, but it also exposes how much service capacity depended on abandonment and administrative friction.
NextTech
Analysis
AI Agents Are Creating a New Identity Security Layer
Cymphony’s funding points to a larger enterprise shift: autonomous software needs identifiable owners, bounded permissions and auditable actions.
NextTech
Analysis
Salesforce Makes the AI Control Plane a Platform Bet
Salesforce is assembling data, security, agent orchestration and model choice into a common architecture designed to govern AI across multiple enterprise systems.
NextTech
Rapid News Brief
Massachusetts Makes Clean Power a Data Center Requirement
A new executive order links permits for large data centers to clean-energy supply, community agreements and protections against shifting costs to ratepayers.