Executive Summary

 

 

Top 10 Digital Transformation Tools in 2026

In 2025, 89% of companies report adopting or planning a digital-first strategy. Meanwhile, global spending on digital transformation is projected to reach USD 3.4 trillion by 2026. Additionally, 63% of respondents reported improved performance resulting from their digital transformation initiatives over the past 24 months.

Also read: Top 10 Digital Transformation Strategies [2026]

1. Data Analytics & AI Platforms

88% of respondents use AI in at least one business function.

 

 

Similarly, larger organizations with USD 1 billion or more in revenue are much more active in AI-related hiring than smaller firms, particularly for AI data scientists (30% vs 14%), data engineers (29% vs 19%), and machine-learning (ML) engineers (29% vs 14%).

 

 

For example, Databricks Data Intelligence Platform provides a unified foundation for all data, analytics, and AI with open governance, lakehouse architecture, natural-language assist, and operationalization of AI models.

Likewise, Sainsbury’s partnered with Microsoft to deploy AI-driven data insights for personalized online shopping and real-time in-store shelf replenishment. Moreover, Pecan AI built a no-code conversational predictive-AI system that claims an 8x faster time-to-model, 90% model accuracy, and 3x more data-team productivity while reducing costs by 70%.

Key Capabilities and Benefits:

  • Real-Time Insights: AI analytics deliver near-real-time insights, even from large, complex, and diverse data sources. For instance, Penske Truck Leasing collects 300 million data points daily and uses an AI-powered fleet-insight system to detect mechanical issues.
  • Analysis Automation: Data preparation takes over 40% of project time. However, 68% of organizational data remains unanalyzed. Million Dollar Baby partnered with Savant Labs to save 500+ hours of manual work per month, a 40% reduction in data infrastructure costs.
  • Better Decisions & Strategy: 57% of leaders have a formal enterprise-level strategy for using AI to augment decision-making. Over 70% of organizations will leverage real-time analytics powered by AI for decision-making by 2025. One industry example, Zoho Analytics, integrates over 500 live data sources, applies 250+ transforms via AI to improve data quality.

Leading Data Analytics Tools

  • Microsoft Power BI: A cloud-based business analytics service from Microsoft that lets users connect to a wide range of data sources, create interactive dashboards and reports, and leverage built-in AI capabilities.
  • Salesforce’s Tableau: A data visualization and analytics platform that enables business users to drag-and-drop to create dashboards, blend multiple data sources, and use AI-enhanced exploration to discover hidden patterns in large datasets.
  • IBM’s Watsonx.data: A data-science and AI platform that assists with data preparation, model training, deployment, and monitoring, plus automated insights via AI for both technical and business users.

Spotlighting an Innovator: Latentspace

UK-based startup Latentspace offers Menza, an AI-powered analytics platform that automates data analysis for consumer brands. It uses large language models (LLMs) to query existing business data, detect trends, and identify performance shifts across sales, marketing, and product functions in real time.

2. Process Automation & RPA

69% of organizations say inflation accelerates their automation investments, and 58% plan to dedicate a quarter of their IT budgets to automation.

 

Credit: Salesforce

 

Further, 52% of organizations have several manual processes and tasks. Also, among companies using automation, 99% of service professionals report time savings.

64% of organizations already using RPA tools plan to increase their RPA investments in the next 12 months. Also, 57% expect a moderate increase and 7% a significant one.

 

Credit: Gartner

 

One such example is that of Nividous’s smart-bot platform. A job requisition process alone was automated, which led to annual savings of more than USD 90 000, and overall a 40% reduction in total operating costs across those processes.

Key Capabilities & Benefits:

  • Operational Efficiency & Accuracy: Research into an end-to-end automation model that integrates generative AI and intelligent document processing (IDP) showed an 80% reduction in processing time for paper receipt-expense tasks, along with improved compliance and accuracy.
  • Process Agility & Scalability: 92% of businesses reported improved compliance through RPA implementation, and 74% of automation tools users said they complete tasks more quickly.
  • Intelligent Decision Enablement: A state agency implemented intelligent automation, handled more than 12 million transactions, saved approximately 300 000 employee hours, and saved USD 14.4 million.

Leading Process Automation & RPA Platforms

  • Microsoft Power Automate: A low-code intelligent RPA solution integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem that enables users to automate routine tasks, workflows, and RPA bots with drag-and-drop tools and extensive pre-built connectors
  • Automation Anywhere: A cloud-native agentic automation platform offering bots, cognitive automation, and analytics tools. It enables companies to automate processes across legacy and software as a service (SaaS) systems.
  • Blue Prism: Known for its enterprise-grade RPA and business process management capabilities, Blue Prism enables large organizations to build, deploy, and govern large digital-workforce fleets under different controls.

Spotlighting an Innovator: Diva

Indonesian startup Diva offers an AI-driven automation platform that deploys virtual workforces to manage repetitive business operations across communication, commerce, and social channels. It functions through LLMs to validate leads, handle buyer inquiries, and engage customers in real time across multiple languages.

3. Customer Relationship Management Systems

The return on CRM investment is about USD 3.10 for every USD 1 spent. Moreover, about 72% of small business owners say their CRM is very or moderately effective in aiding them to achieve business goals.

Likewise, 73% of businesses used CRM software in 2024, with 94% of tech firms and 71% of small businesses.

 

Credit: Freshworks

 

87% of salespeople increased their use of CRM tools once AI integrations are in place.

 

Credit: HubSpot

 

For instance, Zoho offers Zia assistant within Zoho CRM, which analyzes email tone, detects anomalies in sales patterns, enriches lead data automatically, and integrates with OpenAI-powered generative models.

Key Capabilities & Benefits:

  • 360° View of Customers: Data-management platform Profisee states that 360° increases retention and clarifies customer profitability to enable segmentation based on real behavior. For example, Salesforce’s Customer 360 ingests data from commerce, service, and marketing into a single profile. It reported up to 20% success from lead to order.
  • Sales & Marketing Automation: Most businesses using CRM see sales revenue rise by 21-30%, with many reporting 5-10 hours saved per employee each week.
  • Personalized Engagement: Customer retention rates increase by 27% after implementing CRM, and 74% of businesses report better relationships with customers.

Leading CRM Tools

  • Salesforce CRM: A cloud-based CRM that unifies sales, marketing, and service data with AI-driven insights through Einstein GPT to personalize engagement and forecast performance.
  • HubSpot CRM: An all-in-one, user-friendly CRM for small to mid-sized businesses that integrates marketing automation, customer support, and analytics on a single platform.
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365: A combined CRM and ERP suite that connects customer data across functions, while enabling predictive analytics and Microsoft ecosystem integration.

Spotlighting an Innovator: Clientdesk

Portuguese startup Clientdesk builds a CRM platform to organize, track, and optimize customer interactions across the sales and marketing cycle. It centralizes customer data in a single interface to monitor marketing results, automatically capture leads, and connect advertising efforts directly to the sales funnel.

4. Enterprise Resource Planning Software

Approximately 53% of businesses regard ERP systems as a priority investment, particularly in manufacturing and distribution sectors.

Around 65% of companies choosing a new ERP opted for cloud-based solutions rather than on-premises in 2023. Also, over 65% of organizations consider AI integration essential to their ERP strategy.

For instance, SAP S/4HANA uses its in-memory HANA database to deliver real-time analytics and a universal journal that consolidates financial and management data into one source of truth.

Similarly, TechnologyOne introduced a SaaS + ERP offering that uses AI and R&D-driven modular architecture for faster deployment.

Key Capabilities & Benefits:

  • Integrated Data Visibility: Around 78% of organizations see productivity improvements after ERP implementation, and 62% report measurable cost reductions.
  • Process Coordination: 66% of organizations report improved operational efficiency after ERP implementation, while 91% of companies report optimized inventory levels.
  • Cloud Scalability: 55% of SMEs chose cloud ERP systems due to convenience (29%) and scalability (27%).

Leading ERP Platform

  • SAP S/4HANA: An intelligent, in-memory ERP that integrates finance, supply chain, and operations with AI-powered analytics for real-time business decisions.
  • Oracle ERP Cloud: A comprehensive ERP suite offering automation in finance, procurement, and risk management with built-in AI forecasting.
  • Workday: Cloud-native ERP focused on financial and workforce management that leverages AI to optimize planning and performance.

Spotlighting an Innovator: LeapGreat

US-based startup LeapGreat develops LeapGreat Factory, an automation-driven software as a service (SaaS) platform that accelerates SAP ERP implementations. It automates system configuration, data integration, and refinement from initial setup through go-live.

5. Collaboration & Communication Tools

Collaboration tool usage rose from 55% of organizations in 2019 to 79% by 2021.

Microsoft Teams recorded 320 million monthly active users in 2024, up from 300 million in 2022, and over one million organizations adopted it as their default messaging platform. Further, 64% of employees said chat was the most preferred collaboration method in 2024.

From a remote usage perspective, 85% companies use Slack as their primary communication tool, and another 67% use Google Workspace daily for real-time document collaboration.

Reflecting this trend, Slack generated approximately USD 1.7 billion in revenue in 2023, a 17% increase over the previous year, with about 42 million daily active users globally.

Likewise, Microsoft Teams supports more than 1400 third-party applications, and reported a 76% increase in file-sharing actions in a year.

Key Capabilities & Benefits:

  • Instant Communication: 65% of teleworkers view video conferencing and instant messaging as effective substitutes for in-person interactions. Also, knowledge workers handle 117 emails and 153 chat messages daily on average.

 

Credit: Microsoft

 

  • Remote Collaboration: About 86% respondents have more online or hybrid meetings than in-person (83%).
  • Project Transparency: For example, Asana offers visual project boards, automated reminders, and integrations with communication tools to ensure tasks are visible across teams.

Leading Collaboration & Communication Tools

  • Microsoft Teams: A unified communication and collaboration hub that brings together chat, meetings, file sharing, and workflow automation. It supports hybrid work environments through real-time co-authoring and AI-powered meeting summaries.
  • Slack: A messaging and workflow platform that integrates with business apps to allow teams to centralize communication, automate tasks, and collaborate through organized channels.
  • Zoom: A platform for video conferencing, webinars, and virtual collaboration. Its AI companion tools support real-time transcription, meeting summaries, and smart recording.

Spotlighting an Innovator: spacetalk

Swiss startup spacetalk offers a neutral space traffic coordination platform that enables global collaboration among space actors through secure data exchange and communication. It facilitates the sharing of high-quality orbital and situational awareness data between government agencies, private operators, and research institutions without collision analysis.

 

 

6. Knowledge Management & Content Management Systems

45% of large-sized companies’ employees are using knowledge management systems, and it is expected to rise to 55% within two years.

Further, 36% of organizations use 3 or more different knowledge management tools, while another 12% use 2-3 tools, and 31% don’t even know how many tools they have.

One startup, Bloomfire, reported that 93% of its customers improved their onboarding time through its knowledge-sharing platform, which combines searchable libraries, video, and community Q&A into one interface.

 

Credit: Storyblok

 

Likewise, 61% of teams used more than one CMS for managing content. However, single-CMS adoption grew by 20% as companies sought simpler, more efficient workflows in 2025. While 61% of organizations use multiple CMSs to reduce delivery risks, 50% are simultaneously experimenting with new platforms as proof-of-concept initiatives.

Key Capabilities & Benefits:

  • Centralized Knowledge Repositories: 47% of professionals spend up to 1-5 hours per day searching for specific information. Additionally, a structured knowledge base enhanced by AI-driven search and insights increases first contact resolution (FCR) rates by as much as 25%.

 

Credit: CAKE.com

 

  • Training & Learning Support: Organizations with structured knowledge management (KM) practices save employees 3.9 hours per week. This translates to a workforce capacity boost of around 10%.
  • Controlled Access: 16% of CMS users cite security as a major pain point.

 

 

  • Thus, within a corporate innovation framework, controlled access supports compliance, protects sensitive innovation pipelines, and secures knowledge sharing.

Leading Knowledge Management & CMS Tools

  • Microsoft’s SharePoint: An enterprise-grade platform for document management, intranet collaboration, and workflow automation. It securely stores, organizes, and shares files while integrating with Microsoft 365 tools like Teams and OneDrive.
  • Atlassian’s Confluence: A collaborative knowledge base for creating, organizing, and sharing company documentation. It centralizes project pages, meeting notes, and team wikis to improve transparency and cross-team knowledge sharing.
  • Notion: A workspace that combines notes, tasks, wikis, and databases to build customized knowledge hubs for projects, documentation, and internal collaboration.

Spotlighting an Innovator: FluentCMS

Canadian startup FluentCMS builds an open-source, AI-powered headless CMS built on .NET and Blazor to modernize how organizations create, manage, and deliver digital content. The platform’s headless architecture separates front-end and back-end systems for developers to integrate applications with modern web frameworks and third-party tools.

7. Human Resources & Employee Experience Tools

More than 90% of employers use a technology platform to manage at least one HR or benefits function, up from roughly 70% five years ago.

 

 

Further, adoption of AI in HR functions stands at 38% among organizations with over 5000 employees, compared with about 22% in smaller firms.

 

Credit: SHRM

 

Key Capabilities & Benefits:

  • Digital HR Operations: About 44% of HR leaders plan to adopt semi-autonomous AI agents within the next year, while only 2% anticipate implementing fully autonomous, unsupervised agents to replace human HR roles. Meanwhile, 85% of employers who utilize HR automation or AI say it saves them time and increases efficiency.
  • Talent Acquisition & ATS: Around 70% of large firms, 20% of SMEs, and 75% of recruiters use ATS, with 94% reporting positive hiring impact, 62% finding better candidates, and 70% linking automation to higher productivity.

 

 

  • Employee Analytics: 76% of organizations have HR analytics tools in place, yet only 6% reach predictive maturity. Those advanced adopters generate a 5.4-8.7x ROI on their programs. In terms of metric coverage, 94% of organizations track turnover rate, and 89% monitor time-to-fill for hires.

 

 

Leading HR & Employee Experience Tools

  • Workday HCM: A cloud-based HR suite offering workforce planning, talent management, and advanced analytics. It leverages AI and ML to optimize employee performance, automate HR processes, and improve workforce visibility.
  • SAP SuccessFactors: An HR platform supporting recruiting, learning, and performance management to align talent strategies with business goals while leveraging cloud scalability and embedded analytics.
  • BambooHR: An HR solution for small and mid-sized companies that simplifies hiring, onboarding, and employee data management. It also offers reporting tools and employee self-service features to streamline HR workflows.

Spotlighting an Innovator: PersonaVision

US-based startup PersonaVision builds an AI-powered recruitment platform that uses its proprietary PVAI engine to automate resume screening, ranking candidates based on relevance. It minimizes human bias and manual effort. The platform integrates AI-driven modules like smart job posting and AI resume match for assessing behavioral traits, motivation, and cultural alignment.

8. Low-Code/No-Code Development Platforms

About 70% of new applications developed by organizations will use low-code or no-code technologies by 2025, up from less than 25% in 2020.

Likewise, 41% of businesses already have active citizen development programs. Close to 60% of all custom apps are built outside the IT department, with 30% built by employees with limited or no technical coding skills.

 

 

Additionally, low-code and no-code platforms enable companies to reduce app development time by up to 90%. Also, development using such platforms is 4.6x faster, 4.6x more affordable, and 4.8x easier than traditional development approaches.

For instance, OutSystems launched its Agent Workbench, a low-code approach to building and managing agentic AI workflows.

Key Capabilities & Benefits:

  • Rapid Application Development: 72% of business users build applications in three months or less using low-code platforms. Likewise, 59% of projects using low-code involved collaboration between IT and business teams.

 

Credit: Radixweb

 

  • Cost Efficiency: 45% of enterprises report that low-code reduced development costs. Additionally, businesses save close to USD 187 000 per year, while 60% save between USD 100 000-200 000 annually on average.
  • Empowered Business Users: Over 65% of enterprises will have adopted some form of citizen development model by 2025. Moreover, nearly 84% of enterprises said low-code/no-code tools empower more people to be involved in development.

Leading Low-Code/No-Code Development Platforms

  • Microsoft Power Apps: A low-code development tool that enables business users to create custom applications using drag-and-drop design and AI automation. It integrates with Microsoft 365, Dynamics, and Azure services.
  • OutSystems: An enterprise-grade low-code platform that accelerates full-stack application development. It supports cloud and on-prem deployment, reusable components, and real-time performance monitoring.
  • Mendix: A visual, model-driven development platform for building scalable business applications quickly. It enables collaboration between developers and business users through agile, low-code environments.

Spotlighting an Innovator: Junica

Cyprus-based startup Junica offers a low-code platform to build, customize, and scale IT solutions without programming expertise. The platform supports claim management, data cataloging, HR onboarding, and school administration by offering pre-built templates.

9. Cybersecurity & Digital Trust Tools

Around 90% of breaches are traced to human error. The global average cost of a data breach in 2025 is USD 4.4 million, while 97% of organizations reporting AI-related security incidents lacked proper AI access controls.

Likewise, 63% had no AI governance to manage or prevent shadow AI, and companies using AI in security achieved USD 1.9 million in cost savings compared to those that didn’t.

 

Credit: IBM

 

 

Additionally, 77% of organizations lack foundational data and AI security practices, and only 42% believe they strike a balance between AI development and security investment.

Further, 99% of respondents expected their cyber budgets to increase in 2024, and 55% were prioritizing software-defined perimeter or zero-trust approaches in the next two years.

 

Credit: PwC

 

Palo Alto Networks expanded its Prisma Cloud platform to deliver cloud-native application protection by integrating threat intelligence, identity-aware access, and runtime security in a unified service.

Key Capabilities & Benefits:

  • Identity & Access Management (IAM): 80% of organizations experienced an identity-related incident in the past year. Moreover, 83% of firms have IAM policies in place or under development, while only 28% have fully integrated those policies.
  • Threat Detection & Response: 79% of detections in 2024 were malware-free. And, roughly 45% of organizations will have experienced a supply-chain attack on their software pipeline by 2025 end.

 

Credit: CrowdStrike

 

  • Data Protection & Compliance: 81% of organizations plan to obtain ISO 27001 certification in 2025, up from 67% in 2024. Additionally, 59% of consumers say they feel uncomfortable when AI models are trained using their personal data, and 62% believe they have become the product.

 

Credit: Usercentrics

 

Leading Cybersecurity & Digital Trust Tools

  • CrowdStrike Falcon: A cloud-native endpoint protection platform that leverages AI and behavioral analytics to detect and stop cyber threats in real time. It offers advanced endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities for enterprises.
  • Fortinet Security Fabric: An integrated cybersecurity framework offering network, endpoint, and cloud security. Its centralized management and AI-driven threat detection ensure protection across digital infrastructures.
  • Cisco SecureX: A security platform that connects Cisco and third-party tools to unify threat detection, investigation, and response. It enhances visibility and speeds up remediation in hybrid networks.

Spotlighting an Innovator: AINEXT TECNOLOGIA

Brazilian startup AINEXT TECNOLOGIA provides Myrmex, a cybersecurity multi-agent AI platform that operates through specialized AI agents. For example, Centurion for orchestration, Perseus for endpoint detection and response, Hydra for integration and network security, Iris for external intelligence gathering, and Scribe for automated reporting.

10. Cloud Infrastructure & Storage Solutions

96% of companies use at least one public cloud, and organizations run about 50% of their workloads in public cloud environments on average.

 

Credit: Spacelift

 

Similarly, 44% of traditional small businesses used cloud infrastructure or hosting services, compared to 66% of small tech companies and 74% of enterprises.

The Amazon Web Services (AWS) Q3 2025 data shows that global cloud-infrastructure service spending grew by USD 23 billion, a 28% year-on-year increase.

Key Capabilities & Benefits:

  • Elastic Scalability: On average, companies rely on 2.2 public clouds. AWS supports virtually unlimited scaling across 120+ availability zones in 38 regions globally, while Google Cloud introduced autoscaling groups.
  • Cost Optimization: 94% of IT decision-makers reported that they currently struggle with controlling cloud costs. Companies offer tools that analyze unit costs, map consumption, and allocate spend to teams for companies to understand what each product or team actually costs in the cloud.
  • Global Accessibility: AWS offers edge services such as 43 local zones and 31 wavelength zones to bring cloud capabilities closer to end-users in metropolitan or telecom-partner environments. Azure’s global backbone network spans more than 165 000 miles of fiber, with edge-nodes and peering in over 175 locations.xxCredit: AWS

Leading Cloud Infrastructure & Storage Tools

  • AWS: Provides compute, storage, and AI services. Also, it enables scalability, cost optimization, and innovation across industries through a pay-as-you-go model.
  • Microsoft Azure: A cloud platform offering infrastructure, AI, data management, and hybrid deployment options. It supports advanced analytics and security while integrating deeply with Microsoft enterprise products.
  • Google Cloud Platform (GCP): A cloud suite known for data analytics, AI, and multi-cloud compatibility. GCP powers high-performance workloads and enables organizations to modernize operations with scalable infrastructure.

Spotlighting an Innovator: Arcfra

Singaporean startup Arcfra makes a full-stack enterprise cloud infrastructure platform that simplifies on-premise IT operations across virtualization, containers, AI, private cloud, and disaster recovery. Its enterprise cloud platform integrates compute, storage, and networking into a unified architecture optimized for high performance and low latency.

7 Key Factors in Selecting a Digital Transformation Tool

1. Interoperability and System Coordination

Modern enterprises operate in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The right platform must offer deep application programming interface (API) extensibility and event-driven integration. It should also enable end-to-end system coordination that connects legacy cores with cloud-native ecosystems for continuous data flow and process coherence across silos.

2. AI-Native Architecture and Adaptability

Beyond embedding AI features, platforms must be AI-native, designed to learn from data, user behavior, and operational outcomes. This includes capabilities like autonomous optimization, self-healing workflows, and adaptive analytics that evolve with organizational change rather than requiring constant reconfiguration.

3. Data Governance and Observability Layer

Digital transformation demands data trust. Advanced platforms include embedded data lineage tracking, dynamic access control, and real-time observability across the data lifecycle. These features ensure compliance, transparency, and explainability for scaling automation and analytics responsibly.

4. Composability and Low-Code Extensibility

Enterprises require composable architectures that allow rapid assembly of digital capabilities. Tools with modular low-code frameworks, microservice APIs, and drag-and-drop features enable fast iteration and scaling.

5. Cloud Elasticity and Edge Readiness

Next-generation transformation platforms support elastic cloud scaling with edge computing integration. They allow intelligent workloads (AI models, automation bots, IoT analytics) to run closer to data sources for lower latency and enhanced resilience.

6. Security Automation and Zero-Trust Integration

With growing cyber complexity, security cannot be a layer as it must be built into the automation fabric. Leading tools incorporate policy-as-code, continuous compliance monitoring, and zero-trust identity models.

7. Ecosystem Intelligence and Marketplace Depth

A strong ecosystem amplifies transformation velocity. Tools with partner marketplaces, reusable AI models, connectors, and pre-trained automation packs accelerate deployment while ensuring alignment with industry-specific workflows.

Explore the Latest Digital Transformation Tools to Stay Ahead

The digital transformation tools will evolve to offer predictive insights, hyper-personalized experiences, and more. As organizations embrace hybrid and edge computing, digital tools will become more autonomous, scalable, and essential for driving continuous innovation and resilience.

With access to over 9 million emerging companies and 20K+ technologies & trends globally, our AI and Big Data-powered Discovery Platform equips you with the actionable insights you need to find the right partners and technologies for your business.

Leverage this powerful tool to spot the next big thing before it goes mainstream. Stay relevant, resilient, and ready for what is next.