#097 - Enterprise AI - The Bubble & The Balance Sheet with Forrester's Stephanie Balaouras

This week on GAEA Talks, Graeme Scott sits down with Stephanie Balaouras, who oversees technology research at Forrester. This is the first in a new series of one-to-one conversations with Forrester's experts, ahead of the Forrester Technology and Innovation Forums in Austin, London and New York, where GAEA Talks will be recording live and in person.Stephanie has been at Forrester for twenty years, starting as an analyst covering data storage, backup and disaster recovery, moving into business continuity, cybersecurity and risk, and now overseeing Forrester's technology research agenda.Filmed in our new London studio, this conversation is about separating the reality of enterprise AI from the noise. Stephanie walks through Forrester's analysis on whether there is genuinely an AI bubble forming, why technology leaders should care regardless of the market, and why the demand is not there yet to absorb the supply being built. She then bursts several other bubbles. Nobody is actually firing developers because of AI. There is no SaaS apocalypse coming. Productivity is the wrong use case to lead with.Topics covered:Whether there is an AI bubble, and why CIOs should careOne trillion dollars of capital investment expected in 2027 aloneForrester's "AI voyage" research on what successful companies actually do differentlyWhy nobody is firing developers because of AIThe technical debt problem and why 20% of IT budget should pay it downAEGIS - Forrester's framework for securing agentic AIWhy the CIO's job is shifting from uptime to trust and assurance"Minimum viable sovereignty" for multinationalsAI resilience - the research originally titled "When AI Fails"Forrester Technology and Innovation Forums: Austin 14-15 October, London 29 September to 1 October, New York first week of November.