What It Means: A Forrester Podcast
Each week, the What It Means podcast invites Forrester analysts to discuss the latest trends and challenges to help business and technology leaders make bold decisions and become truly customer-obsessed. Topics range from tech-driven innovation and CX design to B2B buying trends and marketing planning. Listen now and subscribe to get a new episode each week. Got a comment or question? Email our team at podcast@forrester.com.
Latest Episodes
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AWS Outage, Safety On Meta, ChatGPT’s AI-First Browser
Recently, a very bad day for AWS became everyone else’s very annoying day. And while the disruption was fairly short-lived, there are longer-term lessons to be learned. In this episode, we look at the lessons from the recent AWS outage as well as an overdue step by a social media giant and a reimagining of how we access information on the web.
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California’s New AI Law, Anthropic’s Latest Model, B2C Advertising Options
Principal Analyst Alla Valente breaks down California’s new AI law, VP and Research Director Chris Gardner discusses the impact of AI models on software development roles, and Principal Analyst Nikhil Lai reviews Best Buy’s “in-store takeover” advertising offering.
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H-1B Visa Changes, Agentic Commerce, Optimizing Customer Reviews
Heading into the fourth quarter, there are no signs of a slowdown in developments that will keep business and technology leaders on their toes. This episode dives into the latest impacts of geopolitics on the tech industry and AI’s impact on commerce and buying networks.
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Defining AGI, Measuring AI Search, Agency Swirl Continues
Are you wondering about the emerging technologies and shifting market dynamics that might shape your strategy for 2026 and beyond? Then this episode is for you. Get a detailed look at how three big shifts could dramatically impact plans and strategies for the year ahead (and get a preview for one of our upcoming 2026 Predictions reports, to boot).
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Olympic Sports Sponsorships, AI Agents In Customer Success And Manufacturing
As we move into September, we dig into new sponsorship options for brands and find out how AI agents are impacting the customer success function as well as the industrial manufacturing and supply chain industries.
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Anthropic Lawsuit, AI And Energy, CMO Trends
As we hurtle toward the end of August, it’s time to look toward the future. More specifically, the future of Anthropic (and other AI firms), the future of AI as a technology, and the future of the CMO role.
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AI Pricing, Outcome-Based Pricing, Developer Productivity
As the annual budgeting and planning season comes into full swing, we drill down into two unique pricing trends. We then take a detailed look at how to measure developer productivity.
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AI Regulation In The US, Vibe Coding, Click To Cancel Hits Home
July heats up with a look at the impact of some regulatory moves in the US and a deep dive into a new AI trend for developers that may be more useful than you think.
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Fear In B2B Buying, Future Of Experiences, Cisco Live Recap
In this episode of What It Means, we dig into fear as a motivator in the B2B buying process, the human-centric future of digital experiences, and what CISOs need to know coming out of Cisco Live.
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TV Options For B2C, GenAI For CRM, Data Centers Go Nuclear
From pickleball to nuclear energy, this week’s episode covers a lot of ground. Listen in as Forrester analysts put three recent business headlines into context for sales, marketing, and technology leaders.
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Perplexity’s Strategy, B2B Influencers, Salesforce Buys Informatica
If there’s one constant in business today, it’s change. New partnerships, new strategies, and new risks are popping up in all areas. In this episode, we look at three major changes taking place in the B2C, B2B, and enterprise application spaces and tap our analysts for their guidance on how to manage these changes.
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New AI Lessons In Coding, Marketing, And Product Design
In this episode, we look at how to avoid the risks of AI-enabled tools in three common business use cases: coding, marketing, and product design. The key takeaway from all three areas: There’s still a strong need to have a human in the loop to review your AI outputs.
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Temu On Tariffs, RSAC Review, SaaS Pricing Trends
In this episode, we look at how one online retailer is working to minimize the impact of tariffs on its business, provide a review of a major cybersecurity conference, and highlight a new trend in software-as-a-service (SaaS) pricing.
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Google’s Monopolies, Microsoft’s AI Agents, Intel’s Latest Deal
In this episode, we look at a major legal ruling that could shake up the adtech market, some new capabilities to make AI agents even smarter, and a tech industry deal that could breathe new life into a struggling giant.
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Oracle’s Data Breach Silence, Tariff Impacts, Homegrown Social Influencers
In this episode, we look at the ongoing fallout from two healthcare data breaches involving Oracle servers and what the on-again, off-again tariffs could mean for CIOs. Then we discuss the rising prominence of social media influencers in the B2B space — and why tapping your own employees could be a smart move.
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Coming Next Week: What It Means, 2.0
There are some exciting changes coming to Forrester’s What It Means podcast. Get a sneak preview this week and tune in next week to hear a full episode.
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Put Employees At The Center Of Your AI Strategy
What does it take to make the most of AI in the enterprise? Hint: It’s not the tools. VP and Principal Analyst J. P. Gownder shares insights on the value of putting humans at the center of your AI strategy.
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Encore Presentation: Get Your AI Aligned
The big challenge with AI for business is risk. How can an organization minimize the risk while maximizing the benefit of AI? In this episode, Vice President and Principal Analyst Brandon Purcell proposes a solution to this challenge — AI alignment — and outlines how an “align by design” approach can help.
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Finally, An Alternative To 3LOD: Meet Continuous Risk Management
For more than a decade, risk managers have been trying to use the three lines of defense (3LOD) framework for enterprise risk management. But it was never meant for that. In this episode, Senior Analysts Alla Valente and Cody Scott walk through the new Forrester Continuous Risk Management Model, a more holistic and business-centric risk management approach.
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Taming B2B Buying Mayhem
Changing buying dynamics and generative AI are bringing already strained B2B buying processes to a breaking point. This week on What It Means, VP and Research Director Steven Casey and VP and Principal Analyst Barry Vasudevan discuss these forces and introduce the concept of buying networks as they preview new research debuting at Forrester’s B2B Summit North America.