Enterprises are facing two simultaneous challenges with AI: The risks associated with it are evolving faster than governance frameworks, while the business benefits are often difficult to measure.

This is one of the key findings of The Value of AI, a study commissioned by SAP from Oxford Economics. Now in its second year, the study surveyed 2,600 executives from 13 countries worldwide.

SEIDOR has launched the Report: SAP ERP Modernisation 2026, a study revealing that 94% of companies using SAP plan to modernise their ERP in the coming years.

However, only 15% aspire to a strategic transformation capable of redesigning processes around data and artificial intelligence.

The report is based on interviews with 360 CIOs from companies with more than 100 million euros in revenue across nine countries in Europe and the Americas.

It points to a significant gap between ambition and execution: many companies are modernising SAP in search of innovation, analytics, data and AI, but most projects are still focused on technology migration, operational continuity and platform change.

Javier Navarro, Global SAP Leader at SEIDOR, explained that most companies using SAP already understand that they need to modernise their ERP.

“The difference will lie in whether that modernisation remains a technology evolution or is used to simplify the system, organise information and redesign processes with AI,” said Navarro.

“The risk is not failing to migrate; the risk is migrating and continuing to operate in the same way.”

As enterprises race to deploy AI across business functions, many CIOs and CTOs are finding themselves responsible for systems they may not fully oversee, creating a new governance challenge for technology leaders.

A new IBM Institute for Business Value survey of 2,000 technology executives found that two-thirds of CIOs and CTOs are being held accountable for AI systems they do not fully control. The survey also found that 70% of respondents said technology is being deployed across the business faster than IT can track it, while 77% said AI adoption is already outpacing governance capabilities.

Surveyed executives expect the number of AI agents deployed within their organisations to increase by 38% by 2027, yet only 11% said they are fully prepared for the scale of AI-agent deployment they expect over the next year. According to IBM, 80% of respondents also reported CEO-driven mandates to accelerate AI transformation efforts.

“For CIOs and CTOs, the challenge now is scaling AI systems that operate continuously and autonomously, often within governance models and architectures designed for a far slower, more predictable environment,” Matt Lyteson, CIO at IBM, said in a statement accompanying the report.

Most businesses believe they are well-prepared to face cyberattacks, but the number of successful breaches in the last year alone paints a different picture.

Last week, NordLayer released a new report, called “Why Browser Security Can’t Wait: Web-based Threat Report 2026.” In it, the company states that while 73% of organisations claim to be prepared for web-based attacks and are confident in their solutions, 82% experienced some form of web-based attack.

The paper is based on an analysis of 504 “highest rated and most reviewed work applications”, an analysis of data stolen from various info-stealers, and a survey of 405 US cybersecurity and IT professionals.

NordLayer stresses that coverage is “modest and uneven”, with data loss prevention tools (DLP) leading at just 53%, followed by other security controls. Nearly all IT professionals reported that their organisations are concerned about web-based threats (98%), and most expect escalation. In fact, 81% expect greater sophistication and 73% believe there will be more incidents in the coming years.

“There’s a clear gap between recognising the threat and knowing how to address it,” says Buinovskis. “Concern is high, but awareness of which controls actually solve browser-specific risks is low. Much of the initial confidence most likely comes from having general security controls in place, yet they rarely adequately cover risks in the browser.”

The researchers also stressed that 100% of the tested applications were browser-accessible, and almost four in five (78.8%) were browser-only. At the same time, malware was able to harvest 1.8 million credentials and 68.8 billion cookies last year.

“Hackers don’t hack anymore, they just log in,” says Buinovskis. “Stolen cookies and credentials grant immediate access without raising alarm bells — a login looks legitimate. It’s low risk, high reward, and as reliance on web-based SaaS grows, so does the value of stolen data. Attackers will keep exploiting this until organisations secure the browser as a critical boundary.”

The Coalition for Fair Software Licensing has published research showing that US workers reckon Microsoft is using its productivity tools to lock their employers into the company’s AI services.

The survey data of more than 1,000 workers – out a day before the release of Microsoft’s E7 AI bundle – found that three-quarters believed Microsoft was using its dominance in productivity software to push AI. More than half (57 percent) opposed their employer buying Microsoft’s E7 bundle.

Only a third of workers questioned said they preferred Microsoft as a vendor, while 78 percent reported they could do their jobs just as well with another vendor’s AI tool.

Perhaps that other tool is Google Gemini. Though the survey makes for difficult reading for Microsoft and Copilot enthusiasts, it also opens a new front in the war for productivity hearts and minds. Google has no official affiliation with the survey or the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing – but Microsoft, for one, has its suspicions.

In a 2024 blog entitled “Google’s shadow campaigns,” Rima Alaily, Microsoft’s general counsel for Infrastructure Legal Affairs, wrote, “We understand Google is a main funder of the US-based Coalition for Fair Software Licensing.”

The Coalition for Fair Software Licensing were asked about its ties with Google. A spokesperson said, “While the Coalition does not disclose our membership, our members span a cross-section of key industries, including healthcare companies, financial services businesses, as well as cloud and cybersecurity providers – each one has experienced or been exposed to anticompetitive and abusive software licensing practices in the cloud.”

Another source grumbled about Gemini, saying there is a risk that “Google is deploying the same playbook as when they were monopolising search.”

Google were asked for comment, but the company was unable to provide a statement before publication. Other than an acknowledgement of receipt, Microsoft has also not responded.

Ryan Triplette, executive director of the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing, said, “Microsoft’s decision to launch E7 on May Day is no coincidence. It should send a clear distress signal for any organisation already locked into the Microsoft ecosystem. For years, customers have borne the cost of that lock-in, paying a premium not for innovation, but simply for the ability to maintain flexibility. E7 is the latest extension of that model, and the reaction from workers underscores a growing reality: the cost is not justified.

“Despite Microsoft facing mounting regulatory scrutiny over its anticompetitive behaviour, we fully expect the company to deploy every tool in its playbook to force existing customers into this new bundle. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic should be watching closely and be poised to act quickly to protect customers.”

Microsoft is dominant in the office productivity space. Google Workspace has claimed a few high-profile scalps over the years, but some, such as European aerospace megcorp Airbus, have found the Microsoft habit a hard one to kick.

It is unsurprising, then, that critics have rung alarm bells over Microsoft pushing AI technology into enterprises that have already bought into its productivity ecosystem. Copilot has yet to deliver the productivity gains promised by evangelists, but Microsoft is heavily invested in the tech and determined it will be a success.

The survey data reflects wider unease among workers over AI tools being promoted through subscriptions like E7, and anxiety, perhaps, about an agentic future and what it means for their jobs. What it does not capture, however, is the thinking of those who will actually make the decisions: whether Microsoft holds its grip on office productivity into the AI age, or loses its crown to a rival.

Software companies are leaving money on the table because their core financial systems haven’t kept pace with the way they sell pay-per-use services, which often now incorporate AI capabilities.

According to a survey of 350 execs who work for software vendors, conducted by PwC UK and billing infrastructure biz m3ter, 44 percent of UK business leaders say they have trouble measuring the consumption of usage-based software.

PwC and m3ter claim this measurement blind spot leads to revenue leakage – the gap between the value of what the company sells and the amount actually billed.

This can take the form of failure to capture usage data, like a subscription overage fee that isn’t tracked. Or it might reflect out-of-date pricing information, or billing calculation errors.

M3ter claims that between 4 and 7 percent of annual recurring revenue is potentially at risk from unsophisticated bookkeeping.

AI services can compound the problem, with the pricing of AI software and services often opaque and difficult to predict.

With regard to the way that AI complicates billing for companies that use it in their products, the research points to PwC’s 2026 CEO survey that found “only 30 percent of companies surveyed reported increased revenue from AI in the last 12 months.”

“The monetisation opportunity exists, but it is clear that converting AI capability into sustainable, auditable revenue remains a challenge,” the PwC/m3ter report states.

“A useful comparison is with the cloud infrastructure sector,” Griffin Parry, CEO and co-founder of m3ter, said in an email. “They had similar challenges and over time they developed greater transparency, via both better pricing design and better accessibility of usage and spend data.”

But the survey results aren’t solely reflective of black-box AI billing – sometimes it’s just inefficient business processes like tracking multiple product lines that combine seat-based and usage-based billing in a spreadsheet.

The PwC/m3ter survey found that 87 percent of respondents reported that their billing systems and their ERP or general ledger systems were not integrated. And 48 percent said there was no integration between billing and CRM systems.

Parry argues that transparency is a key theme for corporate customers, in terms of pricing design and the accessibility of usage and billing data.

“Good usage pricing should be easy for customers to understand, easy for them to predict (i.e. they can estimate how much they’d pay in real world scenarios), and with the variable element attached to a good proxy for value (i.e., so that if they use more of your service, they’ll associate that with being successful),” said Parry. “That’s one way of interpreting transparency, the opposite of opaque.”

Parry went on to say that customers won’t be satisfied with one monthly invoice that summarises usage-based spending.

“Instead, they’ll want to be able to access information about their usage and spend on a near-real-time basis, and for this data to be detailed – i.e., they want access to a usage and billing dashboard, as, say, AWS customers do,” he explained. “That’s the other way of interpreting transparency, access to the data that drives bills.”

Half of VMware users plan to reduce their use of the virtualisation pioneer’s products by 2028, according to a survey by independent analyst firm Virtified.

Virtified principal Michael Warrilow, a former Gartner analyst specialising in cloud and virtualisation, said VMware users are uncomfortable with Broadcom’s strategy of only selling a complete private cloud bundle – Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF 9).

Some users feel the cost of VCF 9 is beyond their means, Warrilow said. Others don’t want all the tools in Cloud Foundation, or the complexity of operating them. Users with those issues will therefore assess their virtual machine fleet and move some to another platform.

The analyst said many migrations are already under way, but believes not all will result in smaller Broadcom bills. Warrilow said he’s heard that when Broadcom gets a whiff of customers down-sizing their VMware estates, it offers less generous discounts – or no discount at all.

Bills may also stay high because migrating away from VMware before the October 2027 end-of-support date for its version 8.x products will be hard to achieve. Warrilow expects many users will therefore find themselves needing to reluctantly acquire VCF 9 to stay compliant.

Others will wait it out past that date, to align a move to a different virtualisation platform with a hardware refresh. Those who choose to continue with unsupported software will likely face a license audit that, if it shows a user will need more entitlements, sees Broadcom offer software at list price or minimal discount.

“Broadcom is hoping this all goes in the too hard basket and you do the upgrade,” he said.

Warrilow said those who don’t plan to reduce their VMware estate may have reached that decision due to various factors that prevent an easy or economical migration. He said lack of suitable VMware alternatives, an inability to move to the cloud, and low risk appetite are among the reasons that some users decide to stay put.

He also thinks those who stick with VMware may well enjoy the experience.

“There is the chance to get greater density and lower license costs,” he said. “And it is possible the engineering of the product will get better. There’s a lot less bickering in the Broadcom era, and potential for a more unified product.”

“But right now VCF 9 includes stuff that people didn’t want unified.”

Warrilow’s findings are drawn from a survey he conducted – using the same market research company he used while at Gartner – that surveyed 450 VMware users across 14 countries. Respondents came from the ranks of operations, infrastructure, architecture, and procurement teams, at companies with over 500 employees. The analyst has also prepared documents he calls “Loops,” that assess the main VMware alternatives.

Like other analysts, he rates VMware as the market leader, but feels Nutanix, Microsoft, and Red Hat are closing the gap.