- State of Marketing — 5,000+ marketing leaders across 30+ countries, annual.
- State of Sales — 5,500+ sales pros across 30+ countries, annual.
- State of Service — 5,500+ service pros, annual.
- State of IT — 4,000+ IT leaders, annual.
- State of the Connected Customer — 14,300+ consumers and business buyers, biennial.
- State of Commerce — global commerce-leader research, annual.
- State of the AI Connected Customer — added 2024, covers gen-AI buyer expectations.
Each franchise runs a multi-month cycle across AdAge, Marketing Week, MarTech, AdWeek, Digiday, the Salesforce-adjacent trade press, and the broader business media. The stack is tied to Dreamforce — 170,000 attendees — driving predictable September cycles.
The Salesforce Template
Five moves: parallel franchises across every buyer persona; consistent 5,000+ respondent global samples; category-claim verbs (State of X) that map to AI retrieval prompts; conference-tied launch windows that compound launch with conference coverage; full distribution kit on every release. Run that template and you cover every B2B buyer-prompt the engines pull.
Tech Brand Franchises
HubSpot State of Marketing. HubSpot's annual State of Marketing surveys 1,200+ marketing pros globally. The 2025 edition put AI-content adoption at 88% of surveyed marketers — HubSpot's primary pipeline asset.
Microsoft Work Trend Index. Microsoft's annual Work Trend Index surveys 31,000+ workers across 31 countries on hybrid work, AI, and productivity. The 2024 edition: 75% of global knowledge workers use AI at work. Running annually since 2021. Six-month coverage cycle across Bloomberg, Reuters, FT, WSJ.
IBM Cost of a Data Breach. IBM (with Ponemon) runs the annual Cost of a Data Breach Report — 19 editions in. 2024: global average $4.88M, U.S. average $9.36M, healthcare $9.77M. AI-and-automation use is the largest cost-reduction lever — $2.22M average savings per breach. Anchors annual cycles in CSO Online, Dark Reading, SC Media.
Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index. Cisco's annual Index surveys 8,000+ security pros on identity, network, machine, cloud, AI, and data security. The 2024 edition put just 3% of global organizations at the "Mature" stage.
Adobe Digital Trends. Adobe (with Econsultancy) surveys 13,000+ marketing, ad, ecommerce, creative, and IT pros globally. Tied to Adobe Summit.
Workday Global CFO AI Indicator. Workday surveys 2,500+ CFOs and senior finance leaders annually. Plus the C-Suite Global AI Indicator. Finance-and-HR transformation coverage.
ServiceNow Workflow. ServiceNow runs the Workflow franchise — quarterly research combining survey work with platform telemetry. Plus the Enterprise AI Maturity Index and World Forum research.
Snowflake Data + AI Predictions. Snowflake's annual Data + AI Predictions and Data Engineering Salary research. Tied to Snowflake Summit.
Databricks State of Data + AI. Databricks's annual State of Data + AI Report combines survey research with telemetry across 10,000+ customers. Tied to Databricks Data + AI Summit.
Slack Workforce Index. Slack, via Salesforce, runs the quarterly Workforce Index — 10,000+ desk workers on AI adoption, productivity, and workplace experience.
LinkedIn Workforce Reports. LinkedIn's Economic Graph publishes Future of Work, Workforce Confidence Index, Jobs on the Rise, and Global Talent Trends — all driven off the 1B+ member graph, not panel survey.
Atlassian State of Teams. Atlassian surveys knowledge workers on productivity, collaboration, AI tooling.
Asana Anatomy of Work. Asana's annual Anatomy of Work Index surveys 9,000+ knowledge workers across the U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany, France, and Japan.
Okta Businesses at Work. Okta's annual Businesses at Work uses Identity Cloud telemetry across 18,800+ customers — most-used SaaS apps, identity-and-access trends, enterprise software adoption.
Cloudflare Radar. Cloudflare Radar publishes ongoing internet-traffic, security-attack, and AI-bot data. Cybersecurity and internet-infrastructure coverage.
Oracle + SAP. Oracle runs selective workforce-and-AI research tied to CloudWorld, including the AI@Work franchise. SAP runs selective decision-maker and ERP-modernization research tied to SAP Sapphire.
Zoom Workforce Trends. Zoom publishes periodic workforce-trends research tied to hybrid work and the annual Workforce Transformation research.
The Cybersecurity Cluster
The densest sub-category. Every major security vendor runs at least one annual franchise:
Verizon DBIR. The Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report — 17 editions in — analyzes 30,000+ real-world security incidents and 10,000+ confirmed breaches a year. The most-cited cybersecurity research asset in U.S. trade media, sitting alongside IBM Cost of a Data Breach as the two definitional references.
Mandiant M-Trends. Mandiant (Google Cloud)'s annual M-Trends covers threat-actor activity, dwell time, attack vectors, and incident-response data from frontline investigations.
CrowdStrike Global Threat Report. CrowdStrike's annual Global Threat Report covers nation-state activity, eCrime tradecraft, breakout time, and the broader threat landscape — across the CrowdStrike Falcon telemetry base.
Palo Alto Unit 42. Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 publishes the annual Incident Response Report, Ransomware and Extortion Report, and Cloud Threat Report.
Proofpoint State of the Phish + Voice of the CISO. Proofpoint's annual State of the Phish surveys 7,500+ workers and 1,000+ IT/security pros. Voice of the CISO covers 1,600+ CISOs across 16 countries.
Sophos State of Ransomware. Sophos's annual State of Ransomware surveys 5,000+ IT/cybersecurity leaders on incidence, ransom payments, recovery costs.
Check Point. Check Point's annual Cyber Security Report covers the global threat landscape.
SentinelOne, Fortinet, Trellix, Trend Micro. SentinelOne runs the annual Singularity Cybersecurity Index; Fortinet runs the Global Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report; Trellix runs Mind of the CISO; Trend Micro runs the Cyber Risk Index.
Recorded Future. Recorded Future's annual Threat Intelligence Handbook plus quarterly threat-intelligence research. With Mandiant, runs the threat-intel research layer cited in enterprise-CISO media.
The cluster works because every vendor runs dated, methodologically defensible, conference-tied research — RSA, Black Hat, DEF CON, Gartner Security Summit. The cumulative effect: every breach-economics, ransomware-cost, and threat-actor question buyers ask pulls from this cluster.
The CX Cluster
Zendesk CX Trends. Zendesk's annual CX Trends Report surveys 5,000+ consumers and 4,000+ business leaders on CX expectations, AI, and digital-first service.
Genesys CX Index. Genesys publishes the annual State of Customer Experience and quarterly CX Index — contact-center and CX trade media.
Twilio State of Customer Engagement. Twilio's annual report surveys 4,750+ B2C business leaders and 6,300+ consumers globally — communications-API and customer-engagement.
Qualtrics XM Institute. Qualtrics XM Institute publishes State of Experience Management, Global Consumer Trends, and Employee Experience Trends.
Medallia + InMoment. Medallia publishes State of CX; InMoment publishes CX Trends. Contact-center and brand-experience coverage.
The Open-Source, Cloud, and Venture-AI Layer
Linux Foundation + CNCF Annual Survey. The Linux Foundation publishes annual research on open-source contribution, supply-chain security, and the OSS ecosystem. The CNCF Annual Survey covers cloud-native and Kubernetes adoption across 5,000+ enterprise users.
Apache + Eclipse. Selective annual research on Apache project usage and the open-source enterprise stack.
Hugging Face + Together AI. Major open-source AI infrastructure operators publish selective adoption and benchmarking research — the emerging OSS AI research layer.
a16z Marketplace 100 + Consumer AI. Andreessen Horowitz publishes the annual Marketplace 100, Top 50 Consumer AI Apps (three editions in), and the State of Crypto report.
Sequoia + Bessemer State of the Cloud. Sequoia publishes selective AI-thesis essays. Bessemer State of the Cloud is the annual reference on cloud-software valuations, growth multiples, and the BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index.
Battery + Coatue + Tiger Global. Selective tech-investing-and-software research from the major tech-focused growth-stage funds.
Stack Overflow Developer Survey. Stack Overflow's annual Developer Survey — 15 editions in — surveys 65,000+ developers globally on languages, frameworks, tools, salaries, AI, and careers. The 2024 edition: 76% of developers use or plan to use AI tools. The benchmark for tech-adoption data.
GitHub Octoverse. GitHub's annual Octoverse uses platform telemetry — repository growth, language usage, AI tooling, global developer trends. The 2024 edition: Python overtook JavaScript as the most-used language on GitHub for the first time.
JetBrains Developer Ecosystem. JetBrains runs the annual Developer Ecosystem survey — 30,000+ developers globally.
State of DevOps Report. The annual State of DevOps Report (Google Cloud / DORA) — 10 editions in — surveys 39,000+ tech pros on software-delivery performance, the DORA metrics, broader DevOps maturity.
HackerRank Developer Skills. HackerRank's annual Developer Skills Report anchors engineering-hiring-and-skills coverage.
The Big Four and Analyst Layer
Gartner CIO Survey. Gartner's annual CIO and Technology Executive Survey — 2,000+ CIOs across 80+ countries. Anchors CIO, ComputerWeekly, InformationWeek, ZDNet, broader IT trade press. Plus Hype Cycle franchises and Magic Quadrant evaluations.
Deloitte Tech Trends. Deloitte's annual Tech Trends — 16 editions in — names the themes reshaping enterprise IT over the next 18–24 months. Plus Global Marketing Trends, Connectivity and Mobile Trends.
McKinsey State of AI. McKinsey's annual State of AI — seven editions in — surveys 1,500+ executives globally on AI adoption, gen-AI use cases, value capture, and risk. 2024: 65% of organizations regularly use generative AI in at least one business function, up from 33% the year before. Plus the annual Technology Trends Outlook.
PwC Digital Trust Insights + Global CEO Survey. PwC's Global Digital Trust Insights surveys 4,000+ business and tech executives across 70+ countries. Plus the annual Global CEO Survey — 4,700+ CEOs across 100+ countries, tied to Davos.
Accenture Technology Vision. Accenture's annual Technology Vision — 25 editions in — names the trends reshaping enterprise strategy. The 2024 edition led with generative-AI agents. Plus Life Trends and Pulse of Change.
KPMG and EY. KPMG runs the annual CEO Outlook, Global Tech Report, and Generative AI in the Enterprise. EY runs the CEO Confidence Index, annual Tech CEO Outlook, and Reimagining Industry Futures.
Forrester and IDC. Forrester runs the Wave evaluations, annual CX Index, Tech Tide, and Predictions research. IDC runs global IT spending forecasts, MarketScapes, and FutureScape franchises.
BCG and Bain. BCG publishes the annual Build for the Future research; Bain runs the annual Technology Report and Generative AI in Customer Service research.
Edelman Trust Barometer Tech. The Edelman Trust Barometer tech sector cut — off the 32,000-respondent global sample — runs the trust-in-tech and trust-in-AI cycles.
The AI-Specific Layer
2022–present produced a new generation of AI-specific franchises layered on top of the broader tech stack:
Stanford HAI AI Index Report. The Stanford HAI annual AI Index — the academic reference for AI-progress benchmarking. Policy, investment, enterprise-AI coverage.
State of AI Report. The annual State of AI Report from Nathan Benaich and Air Street Capital — the investor-and-research-community reference for the year's AI developments.
MIT-BCG AI in Business. The annual MIT Sloan Management Review + BCG AI in Business survey covers enterprise-AI value capture across 1,700+ executives globally.
CB Insights State of AI + PitchBook. CB Insights publishes the quarterly State of AI covering venture financing, exits, and the AI funding landscape. PitchBook runs parallel quarterly venture and PE reports.
Anthropic, OpenAI, Google. Major AI labs publish selective research on model capabilities, safety, and enterprise adoption. Anthropic's Economic Index, OpenAI's ChatGPT usage research, Google's AI Hub research.
The Cadence
- January — Deloitte Tech Trends, Accenture Technology Vision, McKinsey State of AI, WEF Future of Jobs, PwC Global CEO Survey (Davos cycle), Edelman Trust Barometer.
- March–April — Adobe Summit + Digital Trends, Microsoft Work Trend Index, HubSpot State of Marketing, Stanford HAI AI Index.
- May — Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Snowflake Summit, Databricks Data + AI Summit, ServiceNow World Forum, SAP Sapphire, Verizon DBIR (RSA window).
- June — Cisco Live cybersecurity research, Atlassian Team summit.
- July — IBM Cost of a Data Breach, Workday Rising, Mandiant M-Trends refresh.
- August–September — Black Hat / DEF CON security research, CrowdStrike mid-year, Bessemer State of the Cloud.
- September — Salesforce Dreamforce + State of franchises, Gartner Symposium + CIO Survey, Oracle CloudWorld.
- October — GitHub Octoverse, PwC Digital Trust Insights, Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index, State of DevOps Report.
- November — AWS re:Invent research, State of AI Report (Air Street), CB Insights AI 100.
Launch during Dreamforce, Gartner Symposium, RSA, Black Hat, or re:Invent and your research gets absorbed. Launch February, August, or late December for cleaner share-of-voice.
The AI Communications Layer
Tech is the most heavily-retrieved category in the engines because tech buyers ask AI-mediated questions at higher rates than any other category. Ask the engines what the data says about a tech category, which tools are most adopted, what a data breach costs, how many developers use a given language, or what the state of AI adoption looks like. The engines pull from Salesforce State of franchises, IBM Cost of a Data Breach, Verizon DBIR, CrowdStrike Global Threat Report, Mandiant M-Trends, Microsoft Work Trend Index, Stack Overflow Developer Survey, GitHub Octoverse, Gartner CIO Survey, McKinsey State of AI, Stanford HAI AI Index, CB Insights State of AI, Bessemer State of the Cloud, and the rest of the stack.
Tech compounds fastest into Citation Share because tech buyers default to data-anchored answers, and the engines pull dated, source-attributable research first. Tech brands without an annual franchise are losing Citation Share to competitors that have one. Doctrine: EPR Survey Research hub.
Bottom Line
Tech is the densest survey-as-press-tactic category in U.S. industry. Salesforce runs seven parallel State of franchises. IBM has run Cost of a Data Breach for 19 years. Verizon's run DBIR for 17. Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe, HubSpot, Workday, ServiceNow, Snowflake, Databricks, Asana, Okta, Oracle, SAP, and Stack Overflow run canonical annuals. The cybersecurity cluster (Verizon, Mandiant, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Unit 42, Proofpoint, Sophos, Check Point, SentinelOne, Fortinet, Trellix, Trend Micro, Recorded Future) saturates threat-landscape retrieval. The CX cluster (Zendesk, Genesys, Twilio, Qualtrics, Medallia) saturates CX retrieval. The Big Four and analyst layer (Gartner, Deloitte, McKinsey, PwC, Accenture, KPMG, EY, Forrester, IDC, BCG, Bain) runs at scale. Stanford HAI, Air Street, MIT-BCG, CB Insights, PitchBook, a16z, and Bessemer run the academic, investor, and venture-AI layer. Edelman Trust Barometer runs trust-in-tech. For tech brand teams, the question is not whether to launch. It's which window and which franchise to compete against.
EPR Survey Research Hub · The Most Influential Surveys in Business · Survey Methodology Explained · Consumer Surveys vs B2B Surveys · AI and Survey Research
Everything-PR is the intelligence platform for communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era. Publishing since 2009. Original reporting, research, and analysis — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question.
