- State of Marketing — 5,000+ marketing leaders across 30+ countries, annual.
- State of Sales — 5,500+ sales professionals across 30+ countries, annual.
- State of Service — 5,500+ customer-service professionals, 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 in 2024 to cover generative AI buyer expectations.
Each franchise produces a multi-month press cycle inside AdAge, Marketing Week, MarTech, AdWeek, Digiday, the Salesforce-adjacent trade press, and the broader business media. The Salesforce research stack is the operational template for the tech-research-as-pipeline-driver model — and the franchise is structurally tied to Dreamforce, the company’s 170,000-attendee annual conference, producing predictable September coverage cycles.
The Tech Brand-Operated Franchises
HubSpot State of Marketing. HubSpot’s annual State of Marketing report surveys 1,200+ marketing professionals globally and is heavily cited inside the inbound-marketing, content-marketing, and SMB-marketing trade press. The 2025 edition documented AI-content adoption at 88% of surveyed marketers and is HubSpot’s primary pipeline-driving content asset.
Microsoft Work Trend Index. Microsoft’s annual Work Trend Index surveys 31,000+ workers across 31 countries on hybrid work, AI adoption, productivity, and the broader future-of-work themes. The 2024 edition documented that 75% of global knowledge workers now use AI at work — a data point that anchored a six-month future-of-work coverage cycle across Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times, WSJ, and the broader business press. The franchise has run annually since 2021.
IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report. IBM, in partnership with the Ponemon Institute, operates the annual Cost of a Data Breach Report — now in its 19th edition. The 2024 edition documented the global average cost of a data breach at $4.88 million, the U.S. average at $9.36 million, the healthcare sector at $9.77 million, and AI-and-automation use as the single largest cost-reduction lever (saving an average of $2.22 million per breach). The franchise is the canonical reference inside cybersecurity earned media and anchors annual cycles across CSO Online, Dark Reading, SC Media, and the broader business press.
Cisco Cybersecurity Readiness Index. Cisco’s annual Cybersecurity Readiness Index surveys 8,000+ security professionals on identity, network, machine, cloud, AI, and data security posture. The 2024 edition documented that only 3% of global organizations have achieved the “Mature” stage of cybersecurity readiness — a data point that anchored a multi-month coverage cycle.
Adobe Digital Trends Report. Adobe (with Econsultancy) publishes the annual Digital Trends Report, surveying 13,000+ marketing, advertising, ecommerce, creative, and IT professionals globally. The franchise is the canonical reference inside marketing-technology coverage and is structurally tied to Adobe Summit, the company’s annual user conference.
Workday Global CFO AI Indicator Report. Workday publishes the annual Global CFO AI Indicator Report (surveying 2,500+ CFOs and senior finance leaders) and the C-Suite Global AI Indicator Report. The franchises anchor finance-and-HR transformation coverage.
ServiceNow Workflow research. ServiceNow operates the Workflow research franchise — quarterly thought-leadership-and-data publishing combining proprietary survey research with platform telemetry. ServiceNow also publishes the annual Enterprise AI Maturity Index and the World Forum research releases.
Snowflake Data + AI Predictions and Salaries. Snowflake publishes the annual Data + AI Predictions report and the Data Engineering Salary research — heavily cited inside data-and-AI category coverage and structurally tied to Snowflake Summit, the company’s annual conference.
Databricks State of Data + AI Report. Databricks publishes the annual State of Data + AI Report using a combination of survey research and platform telemetry across its 10,000+ customer base. The franchise is structurally tied to Databricks Data + AI Summit.
Slack Workforce Index. Slack, via Salesforce ownership, operates the quarterly Workforce Index — surveying 10,000+ desk workers on AI adoption, productivity, and workplace experience.
LinkedIn Workforce Reports. LinkedIn’s Economic Graph publishes the annual Future of Work report, the Workforce Confidence Index, the annual Jobs on the Rise franchise, and the Global Talent Trends report — using LinkedIn’s 1B+ member graph rather than traditional panel-based survey methodology.
Atlassian State of Teams. Atlassian’s annual State of Teams report surveys knowledge workers on productivity, collaboration, AI tooling, and the broader future-of-work agenda.
Zoom Workforce Trends. Zoom publishes periodic workforce-trends research tied to hybrid work and unified-communications coverage, including the annual Workforce Transformation research.
Asana Anatomy of Work Index. Asana’s annual Anatomy of Work Index surveys 9,000+ knowledge workers across the U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany, France, and Japan on workplace productivity, collaboration loss, and AI adoption.
Okta Businesses at Work. Okta’s annual Businesses at Work report uses Okta Identity Cloud telemetry across 18,800+ customers to document the most-used SaaS applications, identity-and-access trends, and enterprise software adoption.
Cloudflare Radar. Cloudflare Radar publishes ongoing internet-traffic, security-attack, and AI-bot data — heavily cited inside cybersecurity and internet-infrastructure coverage.
Stack Overflow Developer Survey. Stack Overflow’s annual Developer Survey — now in its 15th edition — surveys 65,000+ developers globally on languages, frameworks, tools, salaries, AI adoption, and career patterns. The 2024 edition documented 76% of developers using or planning to use AI tools in their development workflow. The franchise is the single most-cited reference inside developer-community earned media and the canonical benchmark for technology-adoption data.
GitHub Octoverse. GitHub’s annual Octoverse report uses platform telemetry rather than survey methodology to document repository growth, language usage, AI-tooling adoption, and global developer-community trends. The 2024 Octoverse documented Python overtaking JavaScript as the most-used language on GitHub for the first time.
JetBrains Developer Ecosystem. JetBrains operates the annual Developer Ecosystem survey, parallel to Stack Overflow’s franchise — covering 30,000+ developers globally.
State of DevOps Report. The annual State of DevOps Report (Google Cloud / DORA) — now in its 10th edition — surveys 39,000+ technology professionals on software-delivery performance, the DORA metrics, and the broader DevOps maturity agenda.
HackerRank Developer Skills. HackerRank publishes the annual Developer Skills Report, anchoring engineering-hiring-and-skills coverage.
The Big Four and Analyst Layer
Gartner CIO Survey. Gartner’s annual CIO and Technology Executive Survey — surveying 2,000+ CIOs across 80+ countries — is the canonical reference inside CIO-and-IT-leadership earned media. The franchise anchors annual coverage inside CIO, ComputerWeekly, InformationWeek, ZDNet, and the broader IT trade press. Gartner also operates the Hype Cycle franchises and the Magic Quadrant evaluations.
Deloitte Tech Trends. Deloitte’s annual Tech Trends report — now in its 16th edition — names the technology themes the firm projects will reshape enterprise IT over the following 18–24 months. The franchise is the canonical reference inside enterprise-IT executive media. Deloitte also operates the annual Global Marketing Trends and Connectivity and Mobile Trends franchises.
McKinsey State of AI. McKinsey’s annual State of AI survey — now in its 7th edition — surveys 1,500+ executives globally on AI adoption, generative-AI use cases, value capture, and risk. The 2024 edition documented that 65% of organizations are now regularly using generative AI in at least one business function, up from 33% the year prior. McKinsey also operates the annual Technology Trends Outlook.
PwC Digital Trust Insights + Global CEO Survey. PwC’s annual Global Digital Trust Insights survey — surveying 4,000+ business and tech executives across 70+ countries — anchors annual cybersecurity and digital-trust coverage. PwC also operates the annual Global CEO Survey, surveying 4,700+ CEOs across 100+ countries — the franchise is structurally tied to Davos and anchors the World Economic Forum annual meeting coverage cycle.
Accenture Technology Vision. Accenture’s annual Technology Vision — now in its 25th edition — names the technology trends the firm projects will reshape enterprise strategy. The 2024 edition named generative-AI agents as the lead theme. Accenture also operates the annual Life Trends report and the Pulse of Change index.
KPMG and EY tech research. KPMG operates the annual CEO Outlook, the Global Tech Report, and the Generative AI in the Enterprise research. EY operates the CEO Confidence Index, the annual Tech CEO Outlook, and the Reimagining Industry Futures research.
Forrester and IDC. Forrester operates the Forrester Wave evaluations, the annual CX Index, and the Predictions research franchise. IDC operates the global IT spending forecasts, the MarketScapes, and the FutureScape research franchises.
BCG and Bain tech research. BCG publishes the annual Build for the Future research; Bain publishes the annual Technology Report and the Generative AI in Customer Service research.
The AI-Specific Research Layer
The 2022–present period has produced a new generation of AI-specific research franchises layered on top of the broader tech research stack:
Stanford HAI AI Index Report. The Stanford HAI annual AI Index Report is the canonical academic reference for AI-progress benchmarking — heavily cited inside policy, investment, and enterprise-AI coverage.
State of AI Report (Air Street Capital). The annual State of AI Report from Nathan Benaich and Air Street Capital is the canonical investor-and-research-community reference for the year’s AI developments.
MIT Sloan Management Review + BCG AI research. The annual MIT-BCG AI in Business survey covers enterprise-AI value capture across 1,700+ executives globally.
Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google selective releases. The major AI labs publish selective research on model capabilities, safety, and enterprise adoption. Anthropic’s Economic Index, OpenAI’s ChatGPT usage research, and Google’s AI Hub research are the canonical lab-led references.
The Annual Cadence
Tech is the densest research-franchise category in any industry. The predictable annual cycles:
- January — Deloitte Tech Trends, Accenture Technology Vision, McKinsey State of AI, World Economic Forum Future of Jobs, PwC Global CEO Survey (Davos cycle).
- March/April — Adobe Summit + Digital Trends Report, Microsoft Work Trend Index, HubSpot State of Marketing, Stanford HAI AI Index Report.
- May — Stack Overflow Developer Survey, Snowflake Summit research, Databricks Data + AI Summit research, ServiceNow World Forum releases.
- June — Cisco Live cybersecurity research, Atlassian Team summit research.
- July — IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, Workday Rising research.
- September — Salesforce Dreamforce + State of franchise releases, Gartner Symposium + CIO Survey release, Oracle CloudWorld research.
- 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).
Brand teams operating in tech should map proprietary-research launches against these windows. Launching during Dreamforce, Gartner Symposium, RSA, Black Hat, or re:Invent absorbs coverage. Launching against the dead windows (February, August, late December) produces cleaner share-of-voice.
The AI Communications Layer for Tech
Tech is the most heavily-retrieved category inside the answer engines because tech buyers ask AI-mediated questions at higher rates than any other category. When buyers ask the engines — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews — “what does the data say about [tech category],” “which tools are most adopted,” “what is the cost of a data breach,” “how many developers use [language or framework],” “what is the state of AI adoption,” the engines retrieve heavily from Salesforce State of franchises, IBM Cost of a Data Breach, Microsoft Work Trend Index, Stack Overflow Developer Survey, GitHub Octoverse, Gartner CIO Survey, McKinsey State of AI, Stanford HAI AI Index, and the broader research stack. The tech category is also the category where proprietary research compounds fastest into Citation Share — because tech buyers default to data-anchored answers, and the engines preferentially retrieve the franchises that consistently produce dated, source-attributable research. The structural implication: tech brands without an annual research franchise are losing AI Citation Share to competitors that have one. The canonical doctrine on survey-as-Citation-Share is at the EPR Survey Research hub.
The Bottom Line
Tech is the densest, most operationally mature survey-as-press-tactic category in any U.S. industry. Salesforce operates seven parallel State of franchises. IBM has run Cost of a Data Breach for 19 years. Microsoft, Cisco, Adobe, HubSpot, Workday, ServiceNow, Snowflake, Databricks, Asana, Okta, and Stack Overflow operate canonical annual franchises. Gartner, Deloitte, McKinsey, PwC, Accenture, KPMG, EY, Forrester, IDC, BCG, and Bain operate the analyst and consulting layer at scale. Stanford HAI, Air Street Capital, and MIT-BCG operate the academic-and-investor AI research layer. For tech brand communications teams, the operating question is not whether to launch proprietary research — it is which franchise window to launch into and which existing franchise to compete against.
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