November 10, 2026

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It’s Tuesday! It’s a short week due to Veterans Day. Automate what you can, and then take a well-deserved mid-week break.

In today’s edition:

🔮 Analyst crystal ball

🪎 Worth the risk

📆 Job shifts

—Brianna Monsanto, Eoin Higgins

CLOUD

Clouded judgement

Francis Scialabba

It’s the end of an era.

That’s the prediction Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst David Smith made about the cloud computing sector during an Oct. 21 panel at the 2026 Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando, Florida.

According to Smith, the days of the Big Three hyperscalers having a chokehold on the broader industry will soon be over.

“What we are starting to see is the end of cloud super-vendor supremacy,” Smith said. “We’ve always looked at the hyperscalers—the AWS, Microsoft, Google of the world—and they’re not going away by any means, but the era of them being the center of everything is going to change.”

Is this the end of the super vendor?—BM

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IT OPERATIONS

Risk factor

Getty Images

It’s a world dominated by AI risks, and we’re just living in it.

During the opening keynote at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando, Florida, Gartner Fellows Daryl Plummer and Kristin Moyer told the audience that AI risk is growing faster than AI value. (According to Gartner, 86% of CIOs are seeing AI risk outpace AI value in their organization, although the potential value is high.)

“In fact, it’s already compounding,” Moyer said. “Think of an interest-bearing account. With simple interest, the account grows linearly even if you do nothing. But with compound interest, money grows exponentially. Every AI risk compounds the risk that came before it.”

It’s all about balance. Plummer said CIOs need to align value with risk. Like drift car drivers, he added, companies need to balance maintaining the “right kind of momentum” with “avoiding the wrong kind of drag.”

Balancing AI risk with AI value.—BM

IT STRATEGY

Hallowed moves

Getty Images

A new IT hire? That’s the ticket.

Here’s who was moving into the tech C-suite in October.

Ticketmaster hires Jim Freeman as CTO

After a string of cyber incidents, ticket sale and distribution giant Ticketmaster brought on Jim Freeman as CTO.

According to his LinkedIn, Freeman started at the company in July, but his appointment was not announced until October 19.

Freeman’s move to Ticketmaster comes after over a decade in leadership roles with some of the biggest companies in the tech sector. Until July, Freeman spent the last four-plus years as a senior technical advisor with a number of firms, including Permira. He’s also been in executive roles at Zalando SE and Amazon.

Tech moves in October, explained.—EH

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patch notes

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top IT reads.

Stat: Over 3 million. That’s how many individuals were affected by the Frontline Education data breach. (SecurityWeek)

Quote: “Advances in AI can help defenders, but it will also accelerate the consequences of deferred investments in security and CISA must be well-positioned to help critical infrastructure owners and operators rapidly improve their cybersecurity posture.”—Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, on how Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives should help further CISA (CyberScoop)

Read: White House staffers’ potential use of a Windows app could expose the network to hackers via proxy services. (PCMag)

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Written by Brianna Monsanto and Eoin Higgins

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