The thirtieth episode of the podcast that you know and love as "We Love Ugly Data!" is out; available in audio form everywhere you get your podcasts from and additionally in video form via YouTube (which we've embedded below). As usual, it’s three topics in (just a touch over) 30 minutes, and the show notes are included just below the embedded video. Alan is on with Matt this month, another batch of Vendor Analysis Reports, the big news coming out of OpenText, and our latest musings on what AI agents mean to the future of operating an organization. In this month’s episode:
Topic 1: Vendor Research Updates

First up this month, Alan and Matt discuss 3 more of the latest Vendor Analysis Reports that were recently published for subscribers. Alan talks about the new report on Hyland (via his featured South Philly grown tomato crop), while Matt talks through the debut reports on LatticeFlow and Fisent.

Topic 2: Changes at OpenText On the 11th of August, OpenText announced some significant changes in its leadership; here Alan and Matt discuss the announcement itself, Alan's initial blog on the subject, and what we think are the likely outcomes for the company and its products. We do get close to saying "only time will tell" (which we've banned previously), but there are also some insights that you might find useful if you want to get deeper into the product. Dan's also added his opinion from an IDP perspective, too.

Topic 3: Pragmatism and Solutionism? For the last topic this month, Alan and Matt discuss a couple of recent blog posts that they've written. Firstly, Matt's written "Agents, Autonomy and Automation", which discusses how maybe autonomy isn't exactly what enterprises need from agents, but instead something that can work, like a typical worker, within traditional boundaries or role and responsibilities. Alan's written one of his own, "The Seductive Danger of Solutionistic Narratives in AI," and the pair discuss how the agent thing is playing out right now in practical terms and where the transformation might be unfolding.

Related Links for Series 4 Episode 8. Here are the latest updated vendor profiles (or VVs as we still call them internally). ...and here's the link to the whole catalog on those profiles (that you have access to read if you're a subscriber). Alan's thoughts just after the OpenText leadership announcement ...and here's Dan IDP specific thoughts on the OpenText situation too. Matt's "Agents, Autonomy and Automation" blog post talks about the division of agents into generalized and focused groups. Alan's blog post "The Seductive Danger of Solutionistic Narratives in AI".

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The twenty-ninth episode of the podcast that you know and love as "We Love Ugly Data!" is out; available in audio form everywhere you get your podcasts from and additionally in video form via YouTube (which we've embedded below). As usual, it’s three topics in (just a touch over) 30 minutes, and the show notes are included just below the embedded video. Alan is back on with Matt this month, discussing the remainder of the latest Vendor Analysis Reports, our latest AI Agent research (focusing on scaling agents to execute,) and what a year's worth of MMI reports can tell us about AI adoption across the market.

In this month’s episode:

Topic 1: Vendor Research Updates

First up this month, Alan and Matt discuss 3 more of the latest Vendor Analysis Reports that were recently published for subscribers. Alan talks about the new reports on Egnyte and SER, while Matt talks through the debut report on Bardeen.

Topic 2: AI Agents Pt 2

We've recently published the (free to download) addendum to our popular AI Agent understander, in the form of "AI Agents Part 2: The Evolution from Single Systems to Complex Process Orchestration" and here Matt tries to outline what this second reports adds to the first and in the process reveals that he still can't say the work "specificity" reliably. To make up for that fail, the pair go on to talk about Matt's explainer blog post "Friendship is Agentic" on the needs that agents have to make them truly useful and Alan's blog post on what his most recent trip to Silicon Valley taught him about the state of Agentic.

Topic 3: AI Adoption Index?

Via what is definitely the first and probably the last mention of the MTV series "The Real World" (which to be honest, Matt had though had died in the 1990s, not realizing that it's still very much a thing) the pair go on to talk about the 12 months combined data collected and analysed for our MMI (Market Momentum Index) reports and what it can tell us about AI adoption across the markets that Deep Analysis looks at. Here, they talk about the dangers of extracting meaning from aggregated data (via the medium of hair length) and what the different corpora of data collected in the last 12 months indicate about the health of the business AI market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm0_wooqPzc

Related Links for Series 4 Episode 7
Here's those latest updated vendor profiles (or VVs as we still call them internally).
...and here's the link to the whole catalog on those profiles (that you have access to read if you're a subscriber).
Download the new report "AI Agents Part 2: The Evolution from Single Systems to Complex Process Orchestration" in full.
The post "Friendship is Agentic" that Matt wrote to accompany the release of the report.
Alan's post about the state of the industry around Agenti

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The twenty-eighth episode of the podcast that you know and love as "We Love Ugly Data!" is out; available in audio form everywhere you get your podcasts from and additionally in video form via YouTube (which we've embedded below). As usual it’s three topics in (just a touch over) 30 minutes, and the show notes are included just below the embedded video. Dan is back on with Matt this month, discussing a first selection of the latest Vendor Analysis Reports, a sneap peak into the latest IDP research - this time a largescale survey of IDP use - and Dan's selections for the Banned Words List.

In this month’s episode:

Topic 1: Vendor Research Updates

First up this month, Dan and Matt discuss 3 of the latest Vendor Analysis Reports that were recently published for subscribers. Dan talks about the updated report on Infrrd and a new report on Cambrion, while Matt talks through some of the highlights of the latest report on EvoluteIQ.

Topic 2: New IDP Research

Ahead of the publication of (probably) the largest-scale IDP use survey that's been conducted, Dan talks through some of the early findings that you'll be able to read once the survey proper is released next month. This involves discussion about AI adoption, the need for process analysis, and [gasp] the growing amount of paper that's still driving business processes in 2025. And faxes, lots of faxes.

Topic 3: Banned Word List (Pt II)

After Matt and Alan got to have a go back in April, this time it's Dan's turn to choose a word (or phrase) he never want to see or hear every again about technology and in return they nominate a cliché of their own they they like to use, but will give up in return. So this time, let’s wave goodbye to “at the end of the day” and “game changer”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZHuG4MH4xw

Related Links for Series 4 Episode 6
Here's those latest updated vendor profiles (or VVs as we still call them internally).
...and here's the link to the whole catalog on those profiles (that you have access to read if you're a subscriber).
Last year's Deep Analysis AIIM "Market Momentum Index: AI and Unstructured Data Management" which Matt mentions, which has some other paper related statistics.

Support the show