EMA Research Blog: Navigating IT and Security Horizons

In early 2026, the world of IT fleet management is undergoing its most radical transformation since the 2020 remote work pivot. The original intent of device management solutions was to make managing multiple computers that required the same configuration easier. Today, it has become the frontline of corporate survival.

Late last night, Mr. William Chalmers from Lloyds Banking Group in the United Kingdom sent me quite an unusual email. With the subject “Mutual Investment,” I absolutely expected yet another boring investment scam email which would promptly go into the spam bin. However, upon opening this email I was pleasantly surprised to see that this scammer had not sent me an “investment opportunity” (read that as investment scam) but accidentally emailed me his source code. Oops. I won’t include the full code here, but I will include some interesting snippets.

If 2025 was the year the industry aggressively deployed agentic AI to automate everything from code deployment to customer service, 2026 is shaping up to be the year we pay the security debt for that speed. We have effectively built an "AI-native" enterprise ecosystem, but in doing so, we have introduced a new class of insider threat that doesn't sleep, doesn't take breaks, and crucially doesn't think like a human.

EMA turns 30 this year. We're not the largest analyst firm, and we’re not the loudest. What we have always strived to be is honest, independent, and reliable.

The network infrastructure and operations industry is on fire. How do I know? Just look at how busy the Network Infrastructure and Operations practice at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) was in 2025.

As I sit here watching the very soggy Rose Parade, my thoughts drift to the cybersecurity topics and trends we will talk about in 2026 (yes, that is how much of a nerd I actually am).

Well, 2025 has been an extremely interesting year with what can only be described as a massive  explosion of agentic AI. And while agentic might hold a large amount of potential to address deficiencies the industry has struggled with for years, with great power comes great responsibility.

IT professionals don’t need to be convinced that silos are a problem. Most of us have lived that reality: the service desk doesn’t have visibility into operations, operations teams aren’t looped in on service priorities, and tickets, alerts, and metrics are disconnected and delayed. Everyone works hard, often heroically, but coordination is reactive, and the gaps show up in ways that users and the business always notice.

A growing number of network engineering teams are adopting network source of truth tools. What are they? And how should you go about setting one up? Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) has published new research on this subject that answers these questions. For this research, EMA analysts conducted long-form interviews with 17 network engineers about their approaches to establishing and maintaining a network source of truth.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!