306 | Breaking Analysis | Cloud earnings bring capex clarity, concern and confusion
This winter’s 2026 hyperscale earnings prints from Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon made it quite clear that CapEx is accelerating. Combined these four firms will spend more than $615B in CapEX this year, an increase of approximately 70% over what was already considered an inflated 2025. Despite strong fundamental AI and general purpose computing demand, this news caused significant concern for market watchers because the aggressive spending has murky payoffs. Coupled with the Anthropic-infused SaaS attack, investors took stocks down for most of the week, including Nvidia. Confusingly, much of the CapEx spend is going to Nvidia – perhaps as much as 60% of the AI portion of the CapEX will go to that company – a point investors seemed to overlook. Notably, the market is bouncing back today (Friday) after this week’s earlier rout.
Extreme Networks at NRF 2026: Elevating the Network from Infrastructure to Strategic Retail Platform
At NRF 2026, Extreme Networks outlined how retail organizations increasingly view the network not as basic infrastructure but as a strategic platform for operational efficiency, customer experience innovation, and data-driven decision-making. In a discussion with John Brams, SVP of Americas Sales, Extreme Networks, the focus centered on how modern wireless, fabric-based architectures, and AI-driven analytics […]
Trust, Infrastructure, and the Real Work of Scaling Agentic AI
Cisco AI Summit highlights why trust, infrastructure readiness, and governance now define the path from AI pilots to ROI.
Cisco AI Summit 2026: From AI Possibility to AI Reality
I had the good fortune to attend the Cisco AI Summit 2026 in San Francisco this week. The event brought together policymakers, technologists, investors, and enterprise leaders to examine how artificial intelligence is moving from experimentation to large-scale operational impact. Unlike many AI-focused events centered on model performance or speculative futures, this summit emphasized execution, […]
Feature Management Becomes a Control Plane for Modern Software Delivery
Feature flags are evolving into a delivery control plane as observability connects release decisions to production behavior and business outcomes.
Cisco AI Summit 2026: Making agentic systems real, breaking physical barriers and operationalizing AI
The Cisco AI Summit 2026 was a gift to the industry. There was no registration page, no product announcements, only very subtle Cisco marketing and some really excellent and unscripted conversations. All open. All free. A huge shoutout to Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s President & Chief Product Officer, CEO Chuck Robbins and the Cisco team behind them. Jeetu in particular did an outstanding job moderating the AI Summit 2026 and grinding through the day. Jeetu and Chuck Robbins elevated the entire event with their preparation, sharp insights and ability to draw out candid perspectives from an all-star lineup.
304 | Breaking Analysis | Microsoft Q2 ’26 – Investors Fret as CAPEX & Azure Growth Decouple
Microsoft just delivered what looks on paper like a great quarter, with a beat of 1% and 5% on revenue and operating operating profit respectively. But the two day reaction from investors tells a different story with the stock off double digits from its pre-earnings price . Last quarter, increased capital spending was interpreted as a signal for enthusiasm and confidence. But AI ambition has turned into AI skepticism. Specifically, Microsoft’s CapEx came in higher than expected but Azure growth didn’t. Without a clean bridge from capital spend to clear cloud ROI, Azure growth, despite an impressive performance, has become a sticking point.
How To Build Decision-grade AI Agents You Can Trust and Audit
Enterprises are pushing agentic AI beyond copilots into diagnosis, problem-solving, and decision-making—but trust is now the ROI limiter. In this episode of Next Frontiers of AI, Scott Hebner and George Gilbert explain why LLM-only architectures are reliability traps and outline a practical, three-layer blueprint—LLM+CoT, semantic layers (knowledge graphs), and causal reasoning—to deliver decisions you can verify, defend, and audit.
AI in DevOps Shifts From Faster Delivery to Smarter Decisions
How AI is reshaping DevOps from faster delivery to smarter decisions, improving flow, trust, and technical debt management.