Forrester
Forrester is a enterprise research, advisory and benchmarking subscriptions for business leaders.
Analyst Perspective
Forrester is a US-based public research, advisory and consulting firm focused on enterprise decision-makers across technology, marketing, customer experience, product and revenue functions. Its core business is selling subscription access to proprietary research, benchmarking, strategic frameworks and analyst guidance through offerings such as Forrester Decisions and Forrester Market Insights, alongside bespoke advisory engagements and licensed research use in client marketing programmes. The company makes money primarily from recurring enterprise subscriptions, with additional revenue from analyst-led consulting, project work and content licensing. Its customers are large organisations and functional leaders that need external market intelligence, buyer insights, competitive analysis and execution support. Recent product positioning also shows Forrester embedding generative AI into research delivery to widen access and improve workflow adoption, rather than operating as a foundational AI model provider.
Analyst Signal Briefing
Updated: 6 Jul 2026Forrester continues to shape the ‘agentic AI’ narrative, with Joe Stanhope categorising agentic CDPs as the next-generation paradigm for journey orchestration. New research highlights a critical shift in the sector, revealing that nine in ten US marketing agencies now utilise AI to prioritise cost reduction over creative differentiation. These developments, alongside analysis of Schneider Electric’s acquisition of Cognite, reinforce Forrester’s strategic role in balancing the conceptual potential of autonomous technologies against the pragmatic challenges of enterprise-scale implementation and creative output.
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Key insights about Forrester
Category Differentiation
Forrester is an enterprise research and advisory firm, not a marketing automation vendor or an adtech platform. It is most comparable to analyst and advisory peers such as Gartner and IDC rather than consulting-only agencies or foundational AI providers.
Forrester: About
Forrester operates a hybrid recurring-revenue and services model. It creates value by producing proprietary research, benchmarks, forecasts and decision frameworks, then packaging that intellectual property into annual subscriptions, enterprise access licences and analyst-supported advisory offerings. This core knowledge asset is further monetised through consulting engagements, custom workshops, content activation services and licensed reuse of published research in client demand generation and communications.
How Forrester Works & Monetises
Business model analysis and core revenue streams
Forrester uses a subscription-led monetisation model built around annual research memberships and enterprise access packages, often sold with analyst inquiry access, benchmarks and toolkits. It supplements this with project-based advisory and consulting fees, managed service fees for content marketing support, and licensing fees for research reprints and related assets. AI-enabled offerings appear to function mainly as embedded value-adds or add-on subscription layers that expand usage within client organisations.
Revenue Channels
Side-by-Side Comparisons
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Forrester: Key Competitors & Alternatives
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Research and advisory firm for enterprise technology and business leaders.
Recent Signals (Forrester)
Schneider Electric Announces Intention To Acquire Cognite
Forrester analyst Paul Miller explores what Schneider Electric's intention to acquire Cognite means for industrial knowledge graphs.
Read original sourceTreasure AI Named Leader in IDC MarketScape
Treasure AI (the business name of Treasure Data, Inc.) has been named a Leader in both IDC MarketScape assessments for Worldwide AI-Enabled Customer Data Platforms for B2C and B2B users (2026). IDC highlighted strengths including hybrid deployment, AI agent–based workflow automation, shared and account-centric customer models, contextual real-time orchestration, and predictive scoring. Treasure AI’s Intelligent CDP (TD ICDP) consolidates first-party, anonymous, and off-platform data into identity-resolved profiles to power AI agents across marketing, sales, and service. The company introduced Treasure AI Studio, a conversational AI workspace, in April 2026 and launched a free always-on version in June 2026. Company executives (Rafa Flores) and IDC analysts (Tapan Patel) framed the recognition as validation of AI-native, data-governed customer operations that enable real-time automation with human oversight.
Read original sourceOmnichannel Media Ignores In‑Store Shopper Journey
Sponsored by Fluent, Inc and published on July 6, 2026, the article argues that many so‑called omnichannel retail media strategies focus heavily on digital channels while neglecting in‑store experiences where the majority of purchases still occur. It cites eMarketer’s Path to Purchase 2025 and other industry research showing high rates of in‑store discovery and conversion (48% discover in stores; 31.5% buy immediately after in‑store discovery) and notes that in‑store retail media represented only 3.3% of non‑Amazon retail media spend in 2025. The piece recommends retailers treat stores as strategic media assets, activate first‑party data across digital and physical touchpoints, move media closer to point‑of‑purchase (POS/self‑checkout), and align cross‑functional teams and creative to measure full‑journey outcomes.
Read original sourceForrester: Frequently Asked Questions
What is Forrester?
Forrester is a public enterprise research, advisory and consulting firm that sells proprietary research, benchmarks and analyst guidance to business leaders.
Who uses Forrester?
Its paying customers are mainly enterprise executives, strategy teams and functional leaders in technology, marketing, customer experience, product and revenue roles.
How does Forrester make money?
It earns revenue from annual research subscriptions, enterprise access licences, advisory and consulting engagements, and licensing of research assets for client use.
Company Facts
- Founded
- 1983
- Headquarters
- United States
- Core Segment
- Agency & Consultancy
- Company Size
- 1,001–5,000
- Official Link
- forrester.com