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This Week in Enterprise Tech, Week 53

In this podcast episode of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess the biggest tech news for the CIO office:

  1. Salesforce Announces Agentforce 2dx
  2. Is Salesforce Going Into ITSM?
  3. ServiceNow Acquiring Moveworks for Agentic AI
  4. Manus, a General Agent for the Masses
  5. IPO-ready CoreWeave Acquires Weights & Biases
  6. Anthropic Raises 3.5 Billion 
  7. Anysphere Raises at $10 Billion Valuation to Push Cursor
  8. LlamaIndex Llaunches LLamaCloud for Unstructured Data Agents
  9. HPE Among First to Bear Trump Tariffs 
  10. No Doubt, IT Unemployment is Rising
  11. Ransomware’s New Target: IT Vendors
  12. Agentic Management is a Massive Emerging IT Challenge

Podcast Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2319034/episodes/16770817

For this video presentation of This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess the biggest tech issues for the CIO office:

  1. Salesforce Announces Agentforce 2dx
  2. Is Salesforce Going Into ITSM?
  3. ServiceNow Acquiring Moveworks for Agentic AI
  4. Manus, a General Agent for the Masses
  5. IPO-ready CoreWeave Acquires Weights & Biases
  6. Anthropic Raises 3.5 Billion 
  7. Anysphere Raises at $10 Billion Valuation to Push Cursor
  8. LlamaIndex Llaunches LLamaCloud for Unstructured Data Agents
  9. HPE Among First to Bear Trump Tariffs 
  10. No Doubt, IT Unemployment is Rising
  11. Ransomware’s New Target: IT Vendors
  12. Agentic Management is a Massive Emerging IT Challenge

Salesforce Announces Agentforce 2dx

At TrailblazerDX, Salesforce announced Agentforce 2dx, which includes agents that can work on background tasks and a variety of developer and administrator tools to help scale out Agentic usage. And Salesforce also launched AgentExchange, a marketplace for agents.  Charles and Hyoun discuss how this launch speaks to some of the more subtle, but necessary aspects of expanding Agentic usage in the enterprise. 

Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2025/03/05/agentforce-2dx-news/ 

CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3840122/salesforce-takes-on-hyperscalers-with-agentforce-2dx-updates.html 

Is Salesforce Going Into ITSM?

Is Salesforce going into ITSM? This intriguing article by Bob Evans caught a quick mention that Benioff made on Salesforce’s most recent earnings call. Hyoun and Charles discuss where they saw potential for Salesforce to enter the ITSM market and compare to ServiceNow’s recent entrance to CRM.

Cloudwars.com: https://cloudwars.com/business-apps/salesforce-vs-servicenow-benioff-jumps-into-itsm-as-mcdermott-targets-crm/ 

ServiceNow Acquiring Moveworks for Agentic AI

ServiceNow announced its intention to acquire Moveworks, an enterprise agentic vendor that has successfully gained market share in a crowded market. Charles and Hyoun discuss how this makes ServiceNow a stronger player in the agentic AI market. 


MSN.com: https://www.msn.com/en-ae/money/companies/servicenow-nears-deal-to-buy-ai-assistant-maker-moveworks/ar-AA1AzBEm 

Manus, a General Agent for the Masses

Manus is a Chinese general AI agent that takes on tasks autonomously without long rounds of iterative prompting. Charles and Hyoun discuss how this agent seems to deliver on the promise of Generative AI for everyday tasks. 

Forbes – https://www.forbes.com/sites/craigsmith/2025/03/08/chinas-autonomous-agent-manus-changes-everything/ 

Manus Website: https://manus.im

IPO-Ready CoreWeave Acquires Weights & Biases

While preparing for an IPO, CoreWeave announced that it was preparing to acquire Weights and Biases,, which has been a strong enabler for both models and AI-based applications. W&B has been an important part of the enterprise AI toolkit for years and this acquisition helps CoreWeave become a more strategic provider for AI compared to its current role as an AI hyperscaler and compute aggregator. 

Weights and Biases: https://wandb.ai/wandb/wb-announcements/reports/W-B-being-acquired-by-CoreWeave–VmlldzoxMTY0MDI1MQ 

Anthropic Raises 3.5 Billion 

In the battle of the titans that is the foundational AI model space, Anthropic announces another $3.5 billion in funding. Hyoun and Charles discuss the relative focus Anthropic has shown compared to OpenAI’s grandiose plans for a global data center footprint, as well as the more tactical successes that Anthropic has had of late, including Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Claude Code.  

Anthropic: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/03/anthropic-raises-3-5b-to-fuel-its-ai-ambitions/ 

Anysphere Raises at $10 Billion Valuation to Push Cursor

The coding assistant space is hot and Anysphere Cursor is considered the market leader in this space. In response to Codeium’s recent funding, which we also covered, Anysphere is also raising money at an estimated 70X earnings. Charles and Hyoun discuss this bubble. 

TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/07/cursor-in-talks-to-raise-at-a-10b-valuation-as-ai-coding-sector-booms/ 

Prior coverage of Codeium: https://amalgaminsights.com/2025/02/25/this-week-in-enterprise-tech-week-51/ 

LlamaIndex Llaunches LLamaCloud for Unstructured Data Agents

Along with its recent funding, LlamaIndex launched its LLamaCloud offering for structured data agents. Hyoun and Charles discuss how quickly the agentic AI market is evolving, and how structured data is increasingly important from a work and process perspective.

TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/04/llamaindex-launches-a-cloud-service-for-building-unstructed-data-agents/ 

HPE Among First to Bear Trump Tariffs 

HPE is among the first companies in tech to fall victim to the Trump tariffs as it provided muted guidance based on future facing revenue and the increased costs of doing business and then faced a 20% drop in stock price. Charles and Hyoun discuss the reality that every US based hardware company likely has some relationship with either Canada or Mexico to build its equipment. 

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/07/hpe_q1_2025/ 

No Doubt, IT Unemployment is Rising

Based on a recent CIO Dive article that shows that IT unemployment rose in February, Charles and Hyoun discuss repercussions for the CIO office in both training and hiring staff.

CIODive: https://www.ciodive.com/news/IT-unemployment-february-compTIA-2025/741954/ 

CompTIA: https://www.comptia.org/newsroom/press-releases/tech-employment-across-labor-market-increases-while-other-indicators-retreat-according-to-comptia-reporting 

Ransomware’s New Target: IT Vendors

Global ransomware pirates have a new target: IT vendors. Although Charles and Hyoun recently celebrated that ransomware demands were lower last year, this does not mean that they went away. We provide some advice on vendor selection and contractual reviews.

CIODive: https://www.ciodive.com/news/vendor-driven-cyberattacks-losses/741686/  

Prior Coverage of Ransomware Down 35% https://youtu.be/KsVicmSzORo?si=LlWZMCI2cE3IkO8r 

Agentic Management is a Massive Emerging IT Challenge

The CIO piece by Paula Rooney highlights concerns for agentic management from a variety of executives and vendor representatives. Hyoun and Charles note how there are many conflicting and varied concerns associated with the technical and organizational management of agents.

CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3836084/it-leaders-brace-for-the-ai-agent-management-challenge.html 

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TWIET 49 – Feb. 12, 2025

This Week in Enterprise Technology, Episode 49, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess the biggest tech news for the CIO Office:

  1. Good News:  Ransomware Down 35%!
  2. AWS S3 Bucket Registrations: A Sneaky Backdoor Threat
  3. Zoho Day and the Race to Agentic AI
  4. Fei Fei Li: “It Takes 50 Dollars to Distill A Reasoning Model”
  5. Will Semiconductor Tariffs Force CIOs to Close the Deal?
  6. Is the CIO a Policy Strategist or Rubber Stamp?
  7. Will the Windows 10 Sunset Force AI PCs into the Workplace?
  8. CIOs Bullish on AI, IT Employees Not So Much
  9. Where Salesforce AI’s Super Bowl Ad Missed the Mark

Good News: Ransomware Down 35%!

Some good news from 2024: Ransomware payments were down 35% last year, as no new large cartels got into the business and law enforcement was better at tracing down threats. Are we safe now, or is this the calm before the storm? Charles and Hyoun put on their strategy hats and explore the future of Ransomware. 

Chainalysis: https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/crypto-crime-ransomware-victim-extortion-2025/ 

AWS S3 Bucket Registrations: a Sneaky Backdoor Threat

Watchtowr Labs found a lot of examples of software update and binary requests associated with abandoned S3 buckets that could have been replaced with malware or backdoor access. Hyoun and Charles discuss how challenging it has become to manage cloud infrastructure.  

Watchtowr: https://labs.watchtowr.com/8-million-requests-later-we-made-the-solarwinds-supply-chain-attack-look-amateur/ 

Zoho Day and the Race to Agentic AI

Zoho has introduced Zia AI Agents to automate tasks across its products, while Sridhar Vembu has stepped down as CEO. As long-time observers, Hyoun and Charles discuss what this makes for Zoho’s 900,000 global customers. 


CX Today: https://www.cxtoday.com/crm/zoho-previews-ai-agents-commits-to-low-pricing-shares-more-on-its-ceo-transition/ 

Fei-Fei Li: “It Takes 50 Dollars to Distill A Reasoning Model”

Researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington developed an AI reasoning model for under $50, training the s1 model with Gemini and Alibaba Qwen 2.5. Charles and Hyoun raise questions about the future of AI innovation, as smaller teams can cheaply replicate advanced models. 

TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/05/researchers-created-an-open-rival-to-openais-o1-reasoning-model-for-under-50/ 

Will Semiconductor Tariffs Force CIOs to Close the Deal?

Tariffs are now a strategic concern for the CIO. Get your timing wrong and your data center costs could spike unexpectedly. With potential tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductor chips on the horizon, Charles and Hyoun debate the strategy and timing for purchasing new compute or just outsourcing to the cloud.

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/04/nvidia_trump_tariffs/ 

Is the CIO a Policy Strategist or a Rubber Stamp?

The Trump administration wants to change the CIO position from a “career-reserved” or merit-based position to a political appointment with the logic that the CIO ends up defining how policy is deployed. Charles and Hyoun consider how important the CIO should be considered as a strategic executive for deploying policy, or if the CIO should be considered a rubber stamp for the CEO’s work.

CHCOC.gov: https://tinyurl.com/OPMCIOMemo  

Will the Windows 10 Sunset Force AI PCs into the Workplace?

Now that Microsoft has announced a sunset date for Windows 10, CIOs need to figure out their next PC refresh. Of course Microsoft will push for AI-ready Windows 11 devices, with room for small or distilled models in the OS. Charles and Hyoun discuss the Microsoft AI PC strategy for the enterprise.

Paula Rooney on CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3812887/will-the-end-of-windows-10-accelerate-cio-interest-in-ai-pcs.html 

CIOs Bullish on AI, IT Employees Not So Much

IT employees are not excited about AI, but CIOs and CTOs believe they will soon be essential in businesses. However, many IT professionals are skeptical due to concerns about deployment challenges and past AI project failures. Charles and Hyoun debate the real time frames for realistic AI success. 

Grant Gross on CIO.com: https://www.cio.com/article/3815935/cios-are-bullish-on-ai-agents-it-employees-not-so-much.html  

Where Salesforce AI’s Super Bowl Ad Missed the Mark

Salesforce’s ad featuring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson highlights the confusing role of AI in everyday life. Instead of solving real problems, the ad portrays a bizarre scenario where AI is needed for basic tasks like dining and making reservations. Hyoun and Charles ponder why AI ads are spending so much just to miss the mark. 

Defector: https://defector.com/salesforce-is-using-a-hallucination-to-sell-ai 

Salesforce AI Super Bowl Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4JNLL7U8H8

Google Gemini Super Bowl Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7e6g11BJc0

ServiceNow AI Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IqR735mAo4

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TWIET 48 – Feb. 5, 2025

This Week in Enterprise Technology, Episode 48, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess the biggest tech news for the CIO Office:

  1. Earnings: IBM, SAP, ServiceNow
  2. ServiceNow’s AI Orchestrator Automates Complex Workflows
  3. IT Service Automator Atomicwork Secures $25M
  4. EU AI Act In Effect: Now What?
  5. Musk’s Government Actions Stoke CIO Concerns
  6. DeepSeek’s Disruption: Lower AI Costs, More Efficient Models
  7. New US CIO Barbachi’s Background Brings Up Big Questions

Earnings: IBM, SAP, ServiceNow

Hyoun and Charles examined last week’s earnings announcements from IBM, SAP, and ServiceNow. IBM is embracing AI and cloud consulting under CEO Arvind Krishna, while SAP is shifting towards cloud adoption despite its legacy challenges. ServiceNow impressed with growth and CRM expansion, despite stock market reactions.

CNBC on IBM: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/30/ibm-rallies-heads-for-best-day-ever-on-strong-earnings.html

SAP: https://news.sap.com/2025/01/sap-announces-q4-and-fy-2024-results/ 

ServiceNow: https://www.servicenow.com/company/media/press-room/fourth-quarter-full-year-2024-financial-results.html 

ServiceNow’s AI Orchestrator Automates Complex Workflows

ServiceNow is making bold moves into CRM and agentic AI, positioning itself directly against Salesforce. Despite strong announcements, Charles feels ServiceNow’s pitch seems forced, signaling their desire to catch up. The challenge lies in entering an established CRM space while aiming to improve sales-service automation through AI.

VentureBeat: https://venturebeat.com/ai/agentic-ai-needs-orchestration-how-servicenows-ai-orchestrator-automates-complex-enterprise-workflows/ 

IT Service Automator Atomicwork Secures $25M

Atomicwork raises $25 million in Series A funding, surprising many due to their strong market presence despite limited initial capital. Focusing on IT service automation, they join other companies like Symphony in revolutionizing processes. Charles and Hyoun highlight the advancements in employee support technology.


Atomicwork: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/01/28/3016541/0/en/Atomicwork-Secures-25M-in-Series-A-Funding-to-Transform-Enterprise-IT-with-Agentic-AI.html

EU AI Act In Effect: Now What?

The EU AI Act came into effect February 2, imposing strict regulations on AI systems, especially those interacting with European customers. CIOs must be mindful of potential risks and ensure compliance, as penalties could reach up to 7% of revenue. With guardrails in place to protect data, there’s also the risk of overprotection that could hinder legitimate business. The evolving regulatory landscape demands careful attention from tech leaders, say Charles and Hyoun.

Official EU AI Act Website: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/high-level-summary/ 

Littler: https://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/first-requirements-eu-ai-act-come-force-february-2025

NCC Group: https://www.nccgroup.com/us/the-eu-ai-act-pioneering-the-future-of-ai-regulation/?utm_source=perplexity

Musk’s Government Actions Stoke CIO Concerns

Elon Musk’s self-insertion into the U.S. government’s treasury and Social Security data has raised alarms, particularly regarding security clearances and potential compliance risks. Hyoun and Charles agree that CIOs must consider the resulting uncertainty and volatility, as well as the need for a more deliberate strategy in handling government data.

Fortune: https://fortune.com/2025/02/02/musk-doge-treasury-payments-system-halt-us-govenment-contractors-lutheran-charity/

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/01/elon-musk-treasury-payments-system/

MSNBC: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rcna190222

DeepSeek’s Disruption: Lower AI Costs, More Efficient Models

While the costs of model development and inference are expected to continue dropping, the big takeaway for CIOs from DeepSeek is the increasing feasibility of AI integration into systems without relying on massive compute power. Charles and Hyoun discuss how AI development can become more efficient, with advancements in model distillation and using lower-level languages like PTX. The shift toward model independence creates opportunities for more tailored solutions.

Ben Thompson’s DeepSeek FAQ at Stratechery: https://stratechery.com/2025/deepseek-faq/ 

Dario Amodei on DeepSeek: https://darioamodei.com/on-deepseek-and-export-controls 

VentureBeat: https://venturebeat.com/ai/deepseek-r1s-bold-bet-on-reinforcement-learning-how-it-outpaced-openai-at-3-of-the-cost/

Prateek Kathpal on DeepSeek: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/deepseeks-bold-ai-move-ditching-cuda-ptx-high-stakes-play-kathpal-b1yyc/ 

New US CIO Barbachi’s Background Brings Up Big Questions

The United States has a new CIO. And his background seems pretty solid from a security perspective, but he doesn’t seem to have much experience actually managing IT departments. Will that matter? Hyoun and Charles discuss the expectations for Greg Barbachi.

The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/28/the_us_governments_new_cio/

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TWIET 46 – Jan. 21, 2025

This Week in Enterprise Technology, Hyoun Park and Charles Araujo critically assess the biggest tech news for the CIO Office:

  1. DOGE is Not a Department. It’s a Service. 
  2. Can OpenAI Influence America’s AI Policy?
  3. Google Gemini Wants 500 Million Users
  4. Microsoft Restructures to Support Agents
  5. ServiceNow Acquires CueIn for Conversation Analysis
  6. ContextualAI Launches for Custom RAG

DOGE is Not a Department. It’s a Service. 

For months, we have heard about DOGE, an effort to reduce government spending. But the current version of DOGE is a rebranding of the United States Digital Service, an existing organization focused on data audit and software modernization. Is this an effort to get closer to the data or a gentle offloading of Elon Musk from the campaign?

The White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/establishing-and-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency/ 

OpenAI Influence America’s AI Policy?

OpenAI is seeking to influence U.S. A.I. policy with an “AI in America” blueprint to encourage investment and minimize regulations. CEO Sam Altman recently donated to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund to gain favor with the new administration. Can OpenAI push the US to accept more Middle Eastern investments for A.I. technology?

New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/technology/openai-economic-blueprint.html

Google Gemini Wants 500 Million Users

Google CEO Sundar Pichai wants 500 million users on Gemini before the end of the year. Remember the good old days when it was remarkable to have 100 million users? Hyoun and Charles discuss if the race to gain users is coming at the expense of actually building products that people might want to use. 


Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/google-gemini-2025-chatgpt-openai-b6eb595d  

Microsoft Restructures to Emphasize Agents

Microsoft is restructuring to support its agentic approach. This may be a sign that CIOs may need to start potentially transforming the IT department to also take a more agentic approach. 

Microsoft also seeks to increase the uptake of Copilot. Microsoft has relaunched its free AI chat tool, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, to encourage businesses to adopt AI in the workplace. Microsoft hopes that by using Copilot Chat, businesses will see its value and be tempted to subscribe to the full Microsoft 365 Copilot service for $30 per month. But the value proposition still seems confusing as Charles and Hyoun discuss. 

Microsoft: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2025/01/13/introducing-core-ai-platform-and-tools/ 

The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/15/24344214/microsoft-365-copilot-chat-agents-pricing-availability 

ServiceNow Acquires CueIn for Conversation Analysis

ServiceNow accelerates its agentic AI roadmap with acquisition of conversation analysis platform Cuein. Charles and Hyoun are interested in seeing how this signals a bigger step for ServiceNow into customer-facing use cases and speculate how this is the start of a broader goal of developing a set of intelligent, integrated customer facing systems and expanding beyond the internal workflow. 

ServiceNow: https://www.servicenow.com/company/media/press-room/servicenow-to-acquire-cuein.html?ref=runtime.news 

ContextualAI Launches for Custom RAG 

Contextual AI launches its custom Retrieval Augmented Generation capabilities for general availability. This is interesting because it speaks to the evolution of agentic AI and the need for enterprises to support RAG at scale to manage true enterprise-grade agentic AI.

Contextual.ai: https://contextual.ai/blog/contextual-ai-platform-generally-available/