This post first appeared in Signals, IronSpark’s bi-weekly newsletter for marketers on marketing and data infrastructure trends. Get insights from our CEO, Lisa Damast, including marketing takeaways from her analysis of our Chief Analyst, Salvatore Salamone’s ABR Intelligence Report. Subscribe to Signals
What do marketers need to know in 2026? I think it’s safe to say we’ve all read our fair share of predictions. Probably also the tech predictions in our companies’ respective areas. Probably not so many though that take tech trends and break down what marketers need to know about them. Signals, from IronSpark Analysis, is a new newsletter for marketers in the data infrastructure space that shares insights on some of the main trends and news and how marketers are responding to or should respond to them.
IronSpark Analysis Chief Analyst Salvatore Salamone recently published insights on 2026 trends in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Business Intelligence (BI), and Real-time Intelligence in his weekly newsletter for data leaders (ABR Intelligence Report). Below, I break down what those trends mean for marketers in this space.
In particular, the part about the growing use of voice-enabled AI copilots and agent-driven automation becoming the baseline caught my eye. Not because it’s surprising, but because it’s a reminder about how quickly everything is moving when it comes to the product roadmap and content strategy that companies of all sizes need to have and execute on to keep up.
Here’s Salvatore’s analysis, along with my insights in orange blocks on what it means for marketing teams.
In this analysis:
- Voice-Enabled AI Copilots and Conversational BI
- Automating Insights-Based Actions
- Real-Time Analytics Market Growth
Tl;dr: It’s never been more important for marketers to differentiate their products with branding and deep content.
ABR Intelligence Report
Weekly brief on Artificial, Business, and Real-time Intelligence
By Salvatore Salamone, Chief Analyst at IronSpark Analysis
December 31, 2025
The Convergence is Accelerating
Moving into the new year, the blending of artificial, business, and real-time intelligence is front and center.
One benefit to expect from this melding of the different technologies is easier to use business intelligence tools. In particular, most modern BI tools now include built-in AI copilots. The copilots allow users to type in questions to extract insights from enterprise data.
The biggest change in 2026 will be the growing use of voice-enabled AI copilots that front-end BI tools. So, rather than typing questions, the interface becomes conversational.
Strategic Implications for Marketers: If you’re in the BI tool space, buyers are increasingly comparing BI tools to AI platforms, not just to other BI tools. Whether or not your company has implemented AI capabilities, how will you differentiate yourself in cross-category evaluations? What makes your technical approach uniquely suited to specific use cases?
A second expected change will bring AI into the mainstream BI fold. For years, enterprises have relied on real-time BI dashboards that combined traditional BI tools with real-time data. The change in 2026 will be the use of AI, and specifically AI agents, to enable BI that not only reports, but acts on information and changes. In that way, when some condition is identified in the BI tool, an AI agent kicks in and performs a task such as sending an email alert, opening a trouble ticket, or shutting down a transaction.
Strategic Implications for Marketers: The market around AI agents is still relatively new and there’s still much market education that’s needed. The opportunity is for you to become the source of education and insights, not just by explaining your features, but by attracting and shaping the evaluation criteria of buyers actively searching for information, answers, frameworks. How are you building trust and mindshare with buyers who aren’t in-market now but will be in 12 months?
Automating Insights-based Actions
The global predictive analytics market was valued at $18.02 billion in 2024. The market is projected to reach $91.92 billion by 2032, exhibiting a CAGR of 22.5% during the forecast period, according to Fortune Business Insights. That is important because 2026 will see more organizations combining predictive and prescriptive real-time insights with actions aided by AI agents.
The blending of the different technologies is occurring on several levels. Predictive analytics outcomes, which include some degree of uncertainty, are increasingly using AI to improve accuracy and efficiency in handling massive data sets. And AI agents can carry out prescriptive analytics action recommendations.
Strategic Implications for Marketers: If your product actually implements this convergence well, it becomes your technical depth differentiator. It becomes not “we have features,” but “Here are real world examples of how we successfully helped companies like yours overcome the uncertainty of predictive models to successfully act on recommendations using AI agents.” Your North Star should be showing how your product helps your customers.
Real-time Analytics Poised for Rapid Growth
The ABR Intelligence report is all about the convergence of artificial, business, and real-time intelligence. One indicator of the future of this trend is found in a recent Real-Time Analytics Market report by the market research company S&S Insider.
The report found that the market was valued at $25 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $193.71 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 25.60% throughout that time period. It attributed the predicted rapid growth due to the increasing adoption of AI, IoT, and big data technologies.
Strategic Implications for Marketers: AI, IoT, and big data technologies are large, mature markets. Be prepared for more competition and market fragmentation. Think about how you want to be categorized and what that means for your relationships with analysts and the messaging and positioning you share with them. The opportunity to influence category definition is narrow.
What are you seeing?
Is this in line with what you’re seeing in your organization or in the market? How do you keep up your content strategy amid short timelines?
AI disclosure: AI was used during editing this analysis, including to sharpen ideas and refine the title. AI was not used on Salvatore’s part of it and it is exactly as it appears in his newsletter.