Salesforce launches Headless 360 to support agent-first enterprise workflows The new platform packages Salesforce’s AI and developer tools into a headless, API‑driven layer designed for software agents to execute business processes without human interfaces.

Salesforce launches Headless 360 to support agent-first enterprise workflows

www.cio.com/article/4159...

I shared my thoughts with @cio.com this week about the major new AI platform news from $SFDC.

When it comes to AI spend management, CIOs are not alone FinOps teams are tackling the difficult nature of AI spend to help tech chiefs get costs under control, analysts said during Flexera’s FinOps Forward 2026 event.

When it comes to AI spend management, CIOs are not alone

www.ciodive.com/news/ai-spen...

My take: Getting control of token spend and all the other associated AI costs has become a first-order issue. FinOps is helping but not yet enough.

Seeing a quite a few enterprise agentic AI solutions suddenly shifting their go-to-market to reflect the (very) rapidly evolving new build and operating surfaces that OpenClaw, Claude Code, Hermes, and Perplexity Computer have brought to market.

An update + overview soon…

CIOs reimagine business processes to reap AI benefits As organizations use AI to automate more work, CIOs have a central role in rethinking and re-engineering the processes themselves — and thus how business gets done.

CIOs reimagine business processes to reap AI benefits

www.cio.com/article/4157...

Many IT leaders have suddenly found themselves in a central role to rethink how business gets done. This is broadly opening the door to business leadership for the CIO.

Tech’s acceleration paves CIOs’ path to the corner office Holistic views of enterprises afford IT leaders a unique advantage should they decide they want to become CEOs, say CIOs who have done just that.

Tech’s acceleration paves CIOs’ path to the corner office

www.cio.com/article/4154...

AI especially is paving the path from CIO -> CEO as the next wave of business transformation is fundamentally tech-driven.

Most enterprises lack a clear AI strategy but push to forge ahead Tech leaders are caught in 'the AI moment' and feel an onus to deploy AI before the right guardrails are in place, an Altimetrik report found.

Most orgs lack clear AI strategy but push to forge ahead

www.ciodive.com/news/enterpr...

More put their AI strategy w/ CIO or CTO + end up with limited goals focusing on $-cutting.

My take: Tech leaders still concerned with AI tech maturity, but business leaders want transformation.

Lagging cloud maturity threatens enterprise AI plans Fewer than half of companies are satisfied with the role cloud plays in innovation, according to an NTT Data report.

Lagging cloud maturity threatens enterprise AI plans

www.ciodive.com/news/ntt-dat...

My take: And data management maturity. Orgs that skimped on strategic tech change are paying the price in the AI era. 3/4 of orgs plan on increasing large cloud spend increases amid AI talent shortage.

I’m in the midst of a major refresh of my Agentic AI Signal for the Enterprise🚨

New vendors arriving.
Major new capabilities emerging.
Entirely updated platform rankings.

Still the most comprehensive assessment of enterprise agentic AI platforms + the landscape just changed.🤖

CIOs reimagine software’s future as AI agents advance SaaS isn’t dying any more than on-premises software, but IT leaders face huge challenges managing all manner of AI as it seeps deeper into the systems that fuel business operations.

CIOs reimagine software’s future as AI agents advance

www.cio.com/article/4148...

While SaaS may not be imminently threatened yet, here are how some top CIOs are using agents today. And what the issues are.

Use of AI Triples for Product and Enterprise Innovation in 2026

futurumgroup.com/press-releas...

From my latest global CIO survey. The use of AI gets far more strategic this year.

Why CIOs need to focus on AI guardrails to boost adoption As companies expand agentic AI use, IT chiefs know the real challenge will not be deploying the technology but managing it safely.

Why CIOs need to focus on AI guardrails to boost adoption

www.ciodive.com/news/ai-guar...

My take: This is vital to get right in order to move fast with AI with confidence. Guardrails must be pervasive + well-thought out. And put in place quickly so AI adoption accelerates.

From apps to agents: Rearchitecting enterprise work around intent - Microsoft Power Platform Blog Explore how enterprises are shifting from apps to agents—rearchitecting work around intent and scalable agentic AI operating models.

From apps to agents: Rearchitecting enterprise work around intent

www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-...

Good build on top of the great convo I had recently about AI agents with Microsoft’s Richard Riley…

The inside track on how boards evaluate their CIOs Corporate directors increasingly need their CIOs to translate complex technology into strategic opportunities. Doing so requires a mix of skills and abilities.

The inside track on how boards evaluate their CIOs

www.cio.com/article/4149...

Also: The vast majority of CIOs are now expected to be board-ready.

So, it’s now pretty clear that compute itself is rapidly becoming the next currency.

What’s just as interesting, as I look at some of the most innovative and useful token routers, is that they will take other tokens (stable coins, etc) as payment.

Paying for tokens with tokens.

Autonomous AI adoption is on the rise, but it’s risky Autonomous agentic AI can bring new efficiencies, but concerns about security and consistent outputs aren’t yet resolved.

CIOs are suddenly seeing a notable uptick in autonomous AI, spurred by the success of OpenClaw and enterprise-grade equivalents like Claude Cowork

www.cio.com/article/4146...

My take: It’ll all come down to how good the guardrails and oversight are.

🚨The U.S. just dropped a major AI policy. It’s all about speed vs. safety.

The new national AI framework pushes federal preemption + light-touch rules to speed innovation, avoid patchwork of state laws.

Big implications for CIOs/vendors. Analysis soon!

www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

The zeitgeist: The modern AI-fluent employee will need to burn the equivalent of half their annual salary in tokens per year to be considered high performing.

Databricks launches Genie Code to automate data science and engineering tasks The launch of Genie Code, analysts say, signals Databricks’ growing ambition to turn its lakehouse platform into the environment where enterprise AI systems build, run, and manage data workflows.

I shared my thoughts with Infoworld on the new Genie Code from Databricks

www.infoworld.com/article/4144...

The goal is to highly automate data science and engineering tasks.

Banks struggle to scale AI as legacy tech devours IT budgets With AI initiatives stuck in the pilot phase, more than 80% of executives are failing to see anticipated gains from investments, a Capgemini report found.

Banks struggle to scale AI as legacy tech devours IT budgets

www.ciodive.com/news/banks-s...

My take: The push of the last few years has left tech debt + data sprawl everywhere. Plus most of CIO budget is to run existing tech, leaving little for a big, sustained AI effort.

6/ Here’s the strategic insight:

They’re trying to normalize measurement across wildly different agent designs.

Different models
Different architectures
Different token usage profiles

➡️ Same unit of “work”

This is an attempt to compare apples to oranges. 🍎🍊

5/ Key nuance (this matters):

An AWU can be:
• Fully deterministic (workflow only)
• Fully probabilistic (LLM-driven)
• Hybrid (both)

Meaning: One KPI across all agent architectures.

That’s intentional.

Yes, you get the point. AWU is trying to measure whether actual, useful work gone done. That’s what important. Not (just) how many tokens you spent.

4/ Salesforce’s (correct) take on agentic outcomes:

Tokens in/out ≠ value
Work actually done = value

So they defined the AWU:

It’s a unit that tracks when an agent actually carries out work. This means workflows, prompts, actions, regardless of how it got there.

3/ Right now, most of the industry is obsessed with the details of tokenomics.

“How many tokens did we use?”

That’s basically just like measuring how much gas you put in the car… ⛽

Not whether you actually got anywhere.

2/ I just got an overview on AWUs from Salesforce directly about this new metric.

The core idea:

Stop measuring AI inputs (tokens)
Start measuring AI work (actions taken)

That’s a fundamental improvement in how CIOs can run + measure AI programs.

1/ A fascinating advance just happened in agentic work:

We finally have the beginnings of real AI KPIs.

Salesforce just introduced the “Agentic Work Unit” (AWU).

My take: This is bigger than it looks at first. 🤖📊

Workday integrates Sana to turn its enterprise apps into agentic execution engines The integration reflects a growing dilemma for CIOs: should control of AI sit with broad, cross-application assistants or within the enterprise systems that actually execute business processes?

Announcing Sana to turn its enterprise apps into execution engines, Workday gets serious about agentic AI

www.cio.com/article/4146...

I shared my thoughts with @cio.com about a major new entry in vertical AI agents.

CIOs cut IT corners to manufacture budget for AI Trading short-term stability for long-term capabilities, IT leaders are delaying infrastructure improvements and non-AI projects, renegotiating contracts, and cutting legacy software and staff to fund...

CIOs cut IT corners to manufacture budget for AI

www.cio.com/article/4137...

IT leaders report “near daily” requests for potent new AI tools, far outstripping legacy procurement + adoption processes + insufficient $ to pay for them.

My take: CIOs need a rethought ‘AI metabolism’.

Prediction: Business software firms that don’t build agents capable of doing everything their platforms do will be rapidly disintermediated by agent layers built by others.

It flips the traditional advantage of APIs upside down.

In other words, the agent layer is the new API.

Fascinating chart from the new labor market AI impact report from Anthropic.

Some very large fields will be dramatically impacted.

Note: This does not include humanoid robotics, which would include many more labor fields.

Gap between red/blue is adoption, penetration.