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Federal IT in 2026: Faster Rules and Faster Procurement
Federal IT teams are absorbing a lot of change at once this year. FedRAMP just replaced a decade-old compliance model with a faster, stricter one. Agencies are under pressure to move generative and agentic AI out of pilot mode and into production systems that actually carry mission weight. Procurement is accelerating through new acquisition vehicles designed to bring capability online faster. And all of it must run on infrastructure that, in many agencies, is still undergoing modernization.
Four Forces Currently Reshaping Healthcare IT – And What Health Systems Are Doing About It
Healthcare IT leaders walked into 2026 facing a familiar tension: the pressure to modernize faster than ever, against infrastructure and workflows that were never built for the pace being asked of them. Four forces are driving that tension right now: AI adoption in clinical workflows, interoperability, cybersecurity, and legacy modernization. And they’re deeply connected: solve one in isolation and the other three usually push back.
AI Is Exposing Which Organizations Actually Know How to Manage Change
Every enterprise AI rollout is, underneath the technology, a change management project wearing a different hat; and right now, most of them are failing that test. Recent industry research puts the number of organizations facing real adoption challenges with AI at 79%, even among companies investing heavily in the technology. More striking: over half of C-suite executives admit AI adoption is actively straining their organization, and three-quarters concede their AI strategy functions more as a talking point than a real plan for how work will actually change.
That gap isn’t a technology problem. Gallup’s latest workplace data show that AI-adopting organizations report real productivity gains: 65% of employees at these companies say AI has made them more productive. But only 8% strongly agree that AI has fundamentally changed how work gets done at the organizational level. Individual people are getting faster at individual tasks. The organization around them isn’t adapting. That’s the change management gap, and it’s a familiar one: it’s the same gap that has undermined ERP rollouts, cloud migrations, and reorganizations for decades. AI just makes it move faster and cost more when it’s ignored.
From Aria Automation to VCF Automation 9.1: Building the Programmable Private Cloud
Enterprise infrastructure automation is entering a new phase. With VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 now available, organizations that have invested in VMware Aria Automation can move beyond traditional infrastructure provisioning toward a more unified, API-driven, policy-controlled private cloud.
VCF 9.1 is an API-first private cloud platform with a more consistent interface for programmable infrastructure. The release builds on VCF 9.0 capabilities such as self-service infrastructure, reusable blueprints, and policy-as-code, while extending automation further across virtual machines, containers, and modern application environments.
Retail IT in 2026: Why the Systems Running Your Store Are the New Competitive Advantage
For a long time, retail technology was a back-office concern: the systems that kept the lights on while marketing and merchandising got the credit for competitive advantage. That’s no longer true. In 2026, the line between “the technology behind the store” and “the reason customers choose your store” has essentially disappeared.
Contact Centers Bet Big on AI in 2026, so Why Do 61% of Leaders Say Conversations Got Harder?
Contact centers have spent the last year moving past the AI pilot phase and into full deployment. Budgets have followed: data/IT infrastructure and AI/automation now top the list of contact center investment priorities for the year ahead, with personnel and staffing ranked dead last. The logic seems sound: automate more, staff less, resolve faster.
55% of HR Technology Projects Miss the Mark, And It’s Almost Never the Software’s Fault
Enterprises are pouring investment into HCM platforms like Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, and Oracle HCM in 2026, and CHROs have never been more focused on getting it right: a recent CHRO survey found 91% now rank AI and workplace digitization as their top concern, ahead of governance, engagement, and talent combined. And yet, according to Gartner research cited across the HCM implementation industry, 55% of major HR technology projects still run over budget, run over schedule, or fail to meet their primary goals.
Financial Firms Are Spending More on IT Than Ever. So Why Are Many Still Running on Legacy Systems?
Financial services IT budgets are climbing fast in 2026. Modernization has shifted from a nice-to-have innovation initiative to a risk-control mandate. And yet, many organizations still rely on outdated or on-premises systems and aren’t monitoring threats in real time. Spending is up. Exposure hasn’t gone down nearly as much as it should have.
That gap isn’t really a technology problem; it’s an execution problem.
Healthcare IT is Short-Staffed and Out of Time: What 2026’s Compliance Shift Means for Provider Organizations
Healthcare IT leaders are heading into the back half of 2026 facing a collision of pressures: a looming overhaul of HIPAA’s Security Rule, breach costs that keep setting records, and a workforce gap that most organizations openly admit they can’t close on their own.
The Office for Civil Rights is moving toward finalizing long-anticipated updates to the HIPAA Security Rule this year. The direction is clear: system-level, continuous risk analysis is becoming the baseline expectation, not a once-a-year checkbox exercise. Organizations that treat their last risk assessment as “done” are exactly where regulators are expected to look first.
America’s AI Action Plan Is Accelerating Government AI Adoption. Is Your Infrastructure Ready?
Artificial intelligence is quickly moving from experimentation to mission-critical operations across the federal government. America’s AI Action Plan calls for U.S. government agencies to rapidly expand AI adoption to improve mission outcomes, operational efficiency, cybersecurity, and public services. While AI offers tremendous potential, ClearBridge is seeing that many agencies face a common challenge: their infrastructure wasn’t designed to securely support enterprise AI.
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