Samuel Holcman: Thank you for tuning in to Real Talk. Be sure to join your host Sam Holcman again for another edition of our program. We'll have more Real Topics of discussion then. How do you sort out the so-called jargon from Enterprise Architecture and Business Architecture practices that work? Do the members of your organization find some business or technology advice utterly confusing? Welcome to Real with Sam Holcman. ⁓ In this program, we the record straight ⁓ and in terms that business people and technology people can understand. Now, here is host, Sam Holcman. ⁓ This is your Enterprise Architecture and Business Architecture briefing for May 2026. This is Real Talk with Sam Holcman I'm Sam Holcman. And let me give you an overview of this month's activities in enterprise architecture and business architecture. So both EA and BA have moved decisively toward the center of enterprise transformation in the last 30 days especially. And this is because organizations try to operationalize AI, artificial intelligence at scale. Recent market and thought leadership signals a clear shift away from architecture as static documentation and toward architecture as a business decision capability focused on speed, risk investment and operating model changes. Well, what changed this past month? The strongest theme across recent EA coverage is the rise of AI first and agentic architecture with one 2026 survey reporting a 92 % EA leaders seeing AI and agentic architecture as the top priority trend with enterprise architecture. In parallel, conferences and vendor narratives increasingly position architecture teams as the group that must govern how autonomous agents, data flows, and business processes interact in production environments. Business architecture has also gained visibility as the practical discipline for AI era transformation. Public events are emphasizing capability development, value streams, business rules, and decision models as the structures needed to connect strategy to execution. Well, why does this matter? The immediate implication is that EA and BA are no longer support functions that produce models for internal consumption. They are becoming enterprise disciplines. that help business leaders answer core questions. Where AI should be deployed, which capabilities matter most, where risk concentration sits, and how investment should be sequenced for measurable business outcome. This change has also raised the bar for architecture teams. Practices that remain framework heavy and inward looking are being criticized. While those that translate architecture to cost resilience, compliance, and customer impact, and of course, direct transformation outcomes are gaining relevance with CIOs and CEOs and the business. There's some interesting market signals. Recent tool platform announcements reinforce this direction of travel. Business architecture is also seeing broader recognition beyond specialist circles. A business architecture book has actually been shortlisted in the 2026 Business Book Awards, a signal that the field is gaining mainstream management visibility as a formal discipline. Now, what are your takeaways for this month? Treat EA and BA as strategic enablers of AI governance and operating model change, not as documentation functions. Expect architecture leaders to provide decision-ready insights on capabilities, value streams, investment choices, and transformation risk. Prioritize methods to connect architecture to execution in real time, especially where AI agents, integrations, and business processes interact. Use business architecture artifacts such as capability ontologies and value streams to anchor AI and transformation conversations in business terms that executives can act on. Now, what's the near term outlook? For the balance of 2026, the firms that gained the most from architecture will likely be those that integrate EA and BA into strategy execution, portfolio planning, and AI governance. Rather than treating them as a parallel discipline, it's the integration that's important. The practical question is no longer whether architecture matters, but whether the architecture function can produce business decisions fast enough to shape AI-enabled transformation before complexity outruns control. Please reach out to us on any of these topics at www.eacoe.org. and www.bacoe.org. We'd be happy to speak with you for a no-cost consultation on your specific requirements. We look forward to our next month's summary for you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for reading.