Breaking Analysis with Dave Vellante

Geopolitical dislocations are ripping through the stock market and are filtering down to IT budgets in the form of increased uncertainty. It seems that every quarter of budget optimism is followed with some external event that causes organizations to tighten their belts. Specifically, we’ve seen the increased momentum in January CIO sentiment on spending, pull back as war, oil prices, the threat of inflation and even the prospect of Fed tightening now loom larger. While big tech players continue to spend massively on CAPEX, and the genuine enthusiasm from this month’s Nvidia GTC and RSAC events is still being felt, mainstream enterprises are once again expressing caution in their spending intentions. In addition to economic and world affairs, AI success still eludes most mainstream organizations. Our observation is the tech industry is in the third inning of the AI wave, which started in earnest mid last decade with Deep Mind and other significant research milestones that led to the ChatGPT and subsequent moments like Claude Code and OpenClaw. Yet organizations are still in the first inning. The data suggests that while virtually all firms are leaning into AI, those realizing ROI at scale remain the minority. While leading thinkers like Jensen Huang advise not focusing on ROI and letting innovation flourish irrespective of hard dollar returns, the reality is in the land of enterprise customers, tangible returns and risk management remain key governors of spending. 

We know that RSAC 2026 will be an AI-heavy show. While we are going to hear the “AI will change everything” narrative, our premise is that security leaders are being asked to operationalize AI in an environment where complexity is rising faster than control. Organizations are still struggling to consolidate the sprawl of tools in their security stacks, and at the same time apply zero trust principles. To avoid AI becoming yet another layer, organizations must tie AI to clear outcomes and integrate intelligence into operating processes.

Dave Vellante is joined by John Furrier from theCUBE's set at MWC 26 Barcelonain Barcelona, Spain for this weeks Breaking Analysis

George Gilbert, technology industry analyst known for research-driven strategic takes. He breaks down why AI agents could displace Office as the primary work surface. They discuss Anthropic CoWork’s market shock and how agents treat files as components. They explore Microsoft’s Copilot Pages response, governance and pricing tensions, and implications for enterprise software transitions.

Hello and welcome to this Breaking Analysis where top analysts of theCUBE Research team including myself, Paul Nashawaty, Bob Laliberte, Sam Weston, Scott Hebner and Christophe Bertrand share our predictions for 2026 and beyond. 

In this Breaking Analysis we squint through the statements made by company managements on this week's earnings calls, including what we see as some assumptions that conflict with our scenario for how the AI buildout will evolve. In particular, while operators are understandably focused on Nvidia’s gross margins, we believe observers are underestimating the cost advantages that Nvidia will have relative to GPU alternatives, including those from AMD, Intel and hyperscalers. 

In this Breaking Analysis we unpack nuggets from Microsoft’s Q2 2026 earningsprint and explain why in our view, the street’s negative reaction misses thebigger picture.

The predictions in this episode are the result of a collaboration between theCUBE Research and Enterprise Technology Research (ETR). We base our predictions on market insights from theCUBE Research and the proprietary market intelligence from ETR’s Technology Spending Intentions Survey (TSIS) and its macro drilldown data, derived from surveys of more than 1,700 business technology leaders each quarter. 

Join industry experts Sanjeev Mohan, Tony Baer, Dave Menninger, Kevin Petrie, and Andrew Brust as they tackle the future of AI in the data landscape. They're diving deep into the challenges of scaling AI agents, discussing the critical role of context graphs. Predictions include a shift toward integrated autonomous agents and semantic layers, while governance and integration complexities emerge as potential roadblocks. With insights on model wars and enterprise opportunities, this conversation is a must-listen for tech enthusiasts!

At CES 2026, Jensen Huang once again reset the economics of AI factories. In particular, despite recent industry narratives that Nvidia’s moat is eroding, our assessment is the company has further solidified its position as the hardware and software standard for the next generation of computing. In the same way Intel and Microsoft dominated the Moore’s Law era, we believe Nvidia will be the mainspring of tech innovation for the foreseeable future. Importantly, the previous era saw a doubling of performance every two years. Today Nvidia is driving annual performance improvements of 5X, throughput of 10X…driving token demand of 15X via Jevons Paradox.