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Steve Vachon, Senior Analyst
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Steve Vachon, Senior Analyst2026-08-24 13:17:542026-08-26 08:01:20Convergence Takes Center Stage as U.S. Telecom Operators Pursue the Next Phase of GrowthYou are here: Home1 / Competitive Insights – Analyst Perspectives – TBR2 / Competitive Insights and Analyses Blog
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Steve Vachon, Senior Analyst
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Steve Vachon, Senior Analyst2026-08-24 13:17:542026-08-26 08:01:20Convergence Takes Center Stage as U.S. Telecom Operators Pursue the Next Phase of Growth
A Winning Strategy in IT Services and Consulting
We have voluminous data at TBR, 30-plus years of data and analysis on the largest and leading companies across the technology stack, from McKinsey & Co. to Wipro, from Amazon Web Services to Verizon. Because we publish data and analysis quarterly, looking back one year and forward two to five years, we don’t often take the longitudinal view. Looking at our research since October 2021 (18 months after the start of the pandemic) to today, what can we say about the strategies, business models and investments that have separated leaders from laggards, particularly in the IT services and consulting space?

AI-wrapped IT Modernization Opportunities Will Serve as Both Marketing and Revenue-generating Engines as Infosys Builds Verticalized Use Cases Tied to Outcomes to Expand AI Revenue Share
Infosys’ opportunity is not simply to sell more AI tools but also to use AI as the reason clients modernize applications, clean data, rethink workflows and consolidate vendors. That positioning matters because buyers remain practical: They want productivity, measurable outcomes and lower operating complexity, not another layer of technology hype.

The Paradox of AI Infrastructure: Hyperscalers’ Ambition Collides With the Power Grid and What This Means for Telcos
The AI infrastructure supercycle is entering a new phase. The central question is no longer whether hyperscalers have the capital or appetite to build AI infrastructure but whether the power grid can support what they intend to build.
Canva ProHidden Costs of AI Market Intelligence
The enterprises that succeed will not be those that provide unrestricted AI access to every employee. The winners will build trusted intelligence architectures enabled with proprietary, non-public data and analysis that prevent organizations from paying thousands of times for the same expensive thought. The future of enterprise AI is not simply broader access. It is governed intelligence aligned to enterprise strategy, with CFO approved efficiency. And increasingly, that efficiency may prove more valuable than the AI models themselves.

The Race for Digital Sovereignty: How 4 IT Services Leaders Are Positioned
TBR Fourcast is a quarterly blog series examining and comparing the performance, strategies and industry standing of four IT services companies. The series also highlights standouts and laggards according to TBR’s quarterly revenue projections as well as its geographic and segment estimates. With discussions about sovereignty in Europe only becoming louder, TBR thinks it is worthwhile to examine Atos Group, CGI, Fujitsu and Kyndryl. Our intent is to shine light on these similarly sized companies that have a strong presence in Europe and/or a strong presence in ITO and consulting and to discuss where each company’s opportunity lies.
Getty Images via Canva ProTelecom Infrastructure Services Market Expected to Become More Dependent on Hyperscalers and Fiber Technology Deployments
TBR research shows hyperscaler investment across multiple network domains will intensify through the forecast period, both to support cloud and AI as well as for general connectivity, driving TIS spend growth for this customer segment
Aflo Images via Canva ProIn the Agentic Era, Teradata’s Hybrid Strategy Will Drive Its Success
As enterprises look to operationalize AI across distributed environments, scale becomes less about where the infrastructure sits and more about how effectively the underlying data can be governed, accessed and turned into value. Teradata’s ability to deliver AI to where customers’ data already lives — without the need to modernize their infrastructure — will become more relevant.
Getty Images, via Canva ProWill C&SI Revenue Growth Accelerate Significantly Due to AI Adoption at Scale?
Nearly all IT services companies and consultancies have adopted a customer-zero approach to emerging technologies. With enough experience and scale, they should move into the latter half of the 2020s with compelling use cases for clients and opportunities to benefit from their internal AI adoption.
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AI Adoption Predictions: What Will Determine Vendor Success and Who Is Positioned to Win
/by Jen GasperThe shift toward outcome- and platform-based delivery will accelerate vendor consolidation, concentrating market share among providers that can demonstrate measurable ROI and scalable IP-led offerings. These dynamics will be amplified by industry-specific demand, especially in the manufacturing, energy and public sector verticals, where transformation investment and regulatory pressures will outpace market growth and benefit vendors with deep domain expertise and digital engineering capabilities.
Can the Big 4 Leverage AI to Capture Midmarket Opportunity?
/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystWith AI more difficult to adopt than expected and change management the bugaboo that never fades, a third element still exists in keeping the Big Four from significantly expanding in the midmarket: the competition.
Who Will Win the AI Services Race in the Next Wave of AI?
/by Jill Cookinham, Research AnalystThis quarter, TBR FourCast looks at Accenture, Capgemini, HCLTech and IBM Consulting, comparing how their underlying data strategies, especially related to engineering and integration, prepares them for advanced AI adoption.
Anthropic, OpenAI and Palantir: Who Gains and Who Loses in the Federal Fallout
/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystInsights into how important the recent developments between Anthropic, OpenAI and Palantir are considering the implications for the largest agency (DOD), within the single largest buyer of IT in the world (U.S. Federal Government), relating to the single largest technology priority (AI).
Salesforce Highlights Strengths in Innovation and Relationships at Agentforce World Tour
/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystWith the recent hype around the “death of SaaS” and other pressures on the business models of technology companies, Salesforce’s growing presence, success, and apparent disruption of competitors and alliance partners alike underscore Salesforce’s strengths in creating stickier client relationships and continually innovating, two qualities essential in the agentic AI age.
Federal IT Spending Trends: Why Growth Is Contracting and Where It Is Shifting
/by TBRThe Trump administration has proposed a double-digit increase in defense spending, which will flow through to IT budgets in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, particularly in areas of national security, which will receive top priority. Federal IT acquisition is also slowly pivoting to embrace outcome-based contracting, while the DOD looks to accelerate IT purchasing by adopting new and innovative IT procurement approaches.
Governance Becomes a Prerequisite for Success with AIÂ
/by Chris Antlitz, Principal AnalystGovernance was a recurring theme across content sessions and executive meetings at Mobile World Congress 2026. As telecom operators move from experimentation to operational in AI, creating a corporatewide, centralized framework for data management, model oversight and regulatory compliance is becoming essential. Without clear governance, AI initiatives often remain fragmented across business units, leading to inconsistent outcomes, duplicated efforts and limited enterprise impact.
New Growth in Consulting Is Emerging from an Unexpected Place: Managed Services
/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystA scaled managed services practice trained in spotting consulting opportunities and armed with AI-enabled solutions will unquestionably win some management consulting market share. More significantly, from TBR’s objective view, is whether the Big Four firms can manage their staffing, brand promise and technology alliances to take advantage of the managed services practices they’ve already built and use those opportunities to return to robust management consulting growth. Maybe, but probably not all four. The next two years will be telling, and TBR expects the existing differences between the Big Four will become even more pronounced.
Skills Shortage Will Challenge the Scaling of Sovereign AI in 2026
/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystAI-related skills will remain scarce across both buyers and ecosystem partners as the rapid pace of innovation and the technical complexity required to enable sovereign AI continue to hinder adoption. These challenges, combined with a lack of clearly defined and compliant use cases among sovereign customers, gaps in sovereign cloud infrastructure availability and steep AI learning curve faced by ecosystem partners, will constrain meaningful investment and implementation of sovereign AI throughout 2026.
PaaS Revenue Will Outpace SaaS Revenue for Cloud Software Vendors
/by Alex Demeule, Senior AnalystEnterprise customers are prioritizing the modernization of their existing SaaS estates rather than adding new applications, driven by market saturation, accumulated technical debt, and a growing imperative to become AI-ready. As IT buyers shift their focus toward modern platforms, traditional SaaS leaders should expect their PaaS segments to continue significantly outperforming their core SaaS businesses in revenue growth.