Customer Newsletter
October 2026
Your regular round-up of product updates, insights, expert guidance and resources that enable you to deliver results and stay ahead.
Past Editions Community
Explore this month’s top picks, designed to help you drive greater impact and value with Flexera
This month's highlights are designed to help you make more confident technology decisions, learn from your peers, and navigate the opportunities and challenges of a rapidly evolving cloud and AI landscape.
- Join our live webinar, Get control of AI costs before the bill arrives, on October 8 to learn how leading organizations are improving visibility into AI spend, identifying hidden costs, and building the governance needed to scale AI confidently before costs spiral.
- Explore The AI Cost Crisis webinar series including Session 1 on demand and upcoming live sessions focused on tracking AI usage, controlling costs, and creating a more sustainable governance framework for AI.
- Connect with peers in our upcoming virtual User Groups: the ITAM User Group on October 27 will explore how AI is changing software licensing, compliance, optimization, and governance, while the Cloud/FinOps User Group on October 29 will focus on automation across cloud cost optimization, workload performance, and operational efficiency.
- If you're approaching a Microsoft renewal, join us on November 5 as Rich Gibbons, Head of Microsoft Intelligence, Synyega, and Jeffrey West, Solutions Advisory Director, Data & Content, Flexera will reveal where Microsoft overspend commonly hides and more!
This is just a snapshot of what’s available to you below – dive in and enjoy the read!
Product updates
This month’s product updates are packed with enhancements designed to give you deeper visibility, streamline administration and help you manage the growing impact of AI across your technology estate. If you take away just three things, it’s this:
- Understand the financial and environmental impact of AI. The new AI Sustainability experience in Cloud Sustainability helps you track AI spend alongside carbon emissions, electricity consumption and water usage across connected AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud accounts. This gives FinOps and engineering teams a more complete view of AI workloads and supports better-informed optimization decisions.
- Gain more complete visibility into your container environment. Enhanced container discovery in Flexera One ITAM improves software inventory across security-hardened, minimal and ephemeral containers, helping organisations uncover significantly more of their container estate. The result is stronger risk governance, more accurate licence management and improved visibility across modern Kubernetes deployments.
- Save time with bulk agreement editing in Snow Atlas. Teams can now update up to 1,000 agreements at once, dramatically reducing manual effort while maintaining consistency and a complete audit trail. This helps improve data accuracy, reduce administrative overhead and free up time for higher-value compliance and optimization initiatives.
These updates and others are covered in our latest product updates blog here.
Want the full list of product updates? Dive into our release notes and community blogs for all the details.
What's new
Cloud cost management isn't just about cutting waste: What 5 years of Flexera's State of the Cloud data reveals
Cloud costs aren't increasing simply because organizations are using more cloud. They're increasing because cloud environments are becoming more complex. Hybrid architectures, SaaS growth, AI adoption, and evolving pricing models are making it harder to maintain visibility and control. This article explores five years of cloud spending trends and highlights how leading organizations are shifting from cost optimization alone to a broader focus on governance, accountability, and business value.
Who really owns AI? How shared governance is reshaping ITAM in the AI era
AI is everyone’s responsibility, but who’s accountable? Many organizations are adopting AI faster than their governance processes can keep up. Learn why leading organizations are moving to shared governance models that bring together IT, finance, security and business stakeholders to improve visibility, control costs and ensure AI investments deliver measurable value.
What impact does AI have on cloud and data cloud spend?
AI is changing the way organizations manage cloud and data costs, often in ways that aren't immediately visible. As AI adoption grows, so do the costs associated with compute, storage, data processing, and usage-based services. This article explores where AI-related spending is showing up, why it can be difficult to predict, and what IT, FinOps, and cloud teams can do to improve visibility and control.
AI adoption isn’t the finish line – it's the start of a much bigger operational challenge
As AI becomes embedded across business processes, visibility and governance are becoming just as important as innovation. Discover why operational maturity is emerging as the foundation for scaling AI sustainably, controlling costs, and realizing long-term business value. Read the full article from Flexera's Marlon Oliver, SVP EMEA.
Why AI spending is the fastest-growing part of IT budgets
AI spending is growing faster than any other area of IT, but many organizations still lack visibility into where that money is going. As AI adoption expands across applications, cloud services, and business processes, understanding usage, controlling costs, and demonstrating value are becoming increasingly important. Explore the trends shaping AI investment and learn how technology leaders can build stronger governance, improve cost visibility, and make more informed decisions as AI moves into everyday operations.
Rising Databricks costs don't have to be a mystery
As data cloud environments grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand what's driving spend, where inefficiencies exist, and which optimization actions can be taken without introducing risk.
Learn how Flexera uncovered high-impact optimization opportunities across its Databricks environment, reducing costs by 17% in just 30 days while maintaining production performance.
Whether you're looking to improve cost visibility, strengthen collaboration between FinOps and engineering teams, or establish a more proactive approach to data cloud governance, this story offers practical insights you can apply in your own environment.
Anthropic Mythos and AdminStudio: Accelerating the journey from vulnerability discovery to remediation
Finding vulnerabilities is only half the challenge. Remediating them quickly is what reduces risk. As AI helps security teams identify more vulnerabilities at greater speed, many organizations are finding that packaging, testing, and deploying updates has become the new bottleneck. Learn how automation and application readiness processes can help accelerate remediation and reduce the time vulnerable software remains in your environment.
Webinars
Our webinars are designed to help you get more from Flexera solutions—whether it's learning new strategies, hearing from peers, or solving real challenges. Join live or catch up on-demand and take away insights you can apply right away.
Live webinar: Get control of AI costs before the bill arrives
AI adoption is accelerating, but many organizations still lack visibility into where AI spend is occurring, who owns it, and whether it's delivering business value. Join Chris Hayes, Principal Solutions Architect, Anglepoint, and Mark Bradley, Senior Product Management Manager, Flexera on October 8 to explore how leading organizations are gaining control of AI costs before they spiral.
You'll learn how to identify and track AI spend across applications, models, vendors, and teams, uncover hidden costs, reduce waste, and establish the governance needed to scale AI confidently and cost-effectively.
The AI cost crisis webinar series: From AI visibility to AI governance
AI is creating new opportunities for innovation, but it's also introducing new cost, governance, and accountability challenges. In Session 1 of our AI Cost Crisis webinar series, available now on demand, Flexera's Tracie Stamm and Forrester's Tracy Woo discuss why AI spending is becoming a growing concern for organizations and what leaders need to do to prepare.
Next, join us live for Session 2, where we'll dive into practical approaches for gaining visibility into AI usage, controlling costs and creating a sustainable governance framework that enables innovation without sacrificing accountability.
ServiceNow Best Practices webinar series
AI is expanding the technology stack across SaaS, cloud, software, hardware, data platforms, agents and models. Yet the information needed to govern these technologies, including usage, cost, risk, ownership and business value, often lives across different tools and teams, making it difficult to make informed decisions.
If you missed our October session, Beyond ServiceNow: How to govern your entire technology stack in the age of AI, you can now watch it on demand. Flexera experts Pavi Gehlot and Clayton Starko explore how to establish a practical operating model that connects visibility to accountability and action, helping organizations clarify ownership, align stakeholders and make better technology decisions.
Watch the October session on demand
Then join us on November 3 for the next session in this webinar series, Scaling ServiceNow operations without over-engineering or burnout. Learn practical approaches for supporting growth, improving efficiency and delivering value with ServiceNow, without creating unsustainable processes or placing additional strain on your teams.
Join our next virtual ITAM User Group
The most valuable ITAM conversations don't always happen at conferences. Sometimes they happen between practitioners facing the same challenges.
Join Flexera customers and ITAM professionals on October 27 for an interactive discussion exploring how AI is changing software licensing, compliance, technology optimization and governance. Share perspectives, ask questions and hear how others are adapting their ITAM practices in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Join our next virtual Cloud/FinOps User Group
The most valuable FinOps conversations don't always happen at conferences. Sometimes they happen between practitioners tackling the same cloud challenges every day.
Join fellow Flexera customers, cloud leaders and FinOps practitioners on October 29 for an interactive discussion on how organizations are approaching automation across cloud cost optimization, workload performance and operational efficiency. Share experiences, ask questions, and hear how others are reducing manual effort, improving visibility, and scaling cloud operations more effectively.
Live webinar: Approaching a Microsoft renewal? Check this first!
With new Microsoft bundles, higher enterprise licensing costs and increasing audit activity, renewals have never been more complex. On November 5, Rich Gibbons, Head of Microsoft Intelligence, Synyega, and Jeffrey West, Solutions Advisory Director, Data & Content, Flexera will get together to share where Microsoft overspend commonly hides, how to uncover the data you need before negotiations begin, and how to make more informed decisions around E5, Copilot, E7 and your wider Microsoft estate. You'll gain practical steps to reduce risk, optimize spend and prepare for your next renewal.
Missed Flexera Live? Join us virtually
After an eight-stop global roadshow packed with customer insights, expert perspectives, and practical strategies, we're bringing the best of Flexera Live to you in a three-day virtual event on November 10-12.
Join us to explore how leading organizations are improving visibility, strengthening governance, and making smarter decisions across AI, cloud, SaaS, and technology investments.
Featured sessions:
- November 10: Managing the economics of enterprise AI
- November 11: Optimizing AI, cloud & technology spend
- November 12: The impact of AI on SaaS management
Whether you're looking to gain control of AI costs, optimize technology spend, or improve governance across your technology estate, you'll leave with practical insights and actionable strategies you can apply immediately.
Register for the region most relevant to you and join the conversations shaping the future of technology management.
Events
Meet Flexera at Gartner IOCS EMEA 2026
As organizations navigate growing complexity across AI, cloud, SaaS, and technology spend, visibility and governance have never been more important.
Join Flexera at the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference in London on 16-17 November to explore practical strategies for controlling costs, reducing risk, and improving decision-making across your technology estate.
Connect with our experts, discuss the latest trends shaping technology management, and learn how leading organizations are turning technology intelligence into better business outcomes.
Visit the Flexera booth to continue the conversation.
Meet Flexera at Heliview Cloud & Data 2026
As organizations generate more data, adopt more AI, and expand their cloud footprint, gaining visibility into technology usage, costs, and business value is becoming increasingly important.
Join Flexera at Heliview Cloud & Data in Amsterdam on October 8 to explore practical strategies for improving governance, optimizing technology investments, and making better decisions across cloud, SaaS, data, and AI.
Connect with our experts, discuss the trends shaping technology management, and learn how leading organizations are turning trusted technology intelligence into meaningful business outcomes.
Visit the Flexera booth to continue the conversation.
Meet Flexera at Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo™ 2026
Technology leaders are under increasing pressure to balance AI innovation, cloud transformation, cost optimization, cyber risk, and business value. If you're attending Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo™ in Orlando on October 19-22, visit the Flexera team to discuss the challenges and opportunities shaping today's technology landscape.
Learn how leading organizations are improving visibility across AI, cloud, SaaS, software, and hardware investments, strengthening governance, reducing waste, and making more informed technology decisions. Whether you're focused on AI governance, FinOps, SaaS management, technology spend optimization, or building a more accountable operating model, our team would love to exchange ideas and share practical insights from across the industry.
Connect with peers, explore emerging technology management trends, and discover how better visibility and trusted intelligence can help you maximize the value of your technology investments.
Attending Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo™? Stop by Flexera booth #342 and connect with our team of experts.
See you at AWS re:Invent 2026
Cloud and AI innovation are moving fast, but so are the challenges of managing costs, governance, and operational complexity.
If you're attending AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas from November 30 to December 3, stop by the Flexera booth to explore how leading organizations are gaining greater visibility across cloud, SaaS, and AI investments, improving cost accountability, and making more informed technology decisions.
Whether you're focused on FinOps, AI governance, SaaS management, cloud optimization, or maximizing the value of your technology investments, our experts would love to share practical insights, industry trends, and proven approaches from organizations navigating similar challenges.
Connect with peers, exchange ideas, and discover strategies for turning technology intelligence into better business outcomes.
Visit Flexera at booth #160 to connect with our experts and discuss the strategies, challenges, and opportunities shaping modern technology management.
Meet Flexera at Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference 2026
Today's technology leaders are navigating a growing mix of AI, cloud, SaaS, and infrastructure investments while balancing cost, governance, risk, and business value.
If you're attending Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference in Las Vegas on December 8-10, stop by to connect with the Flexera team and explore how leading organizations are gaining greater visibility across their technology estate, improving cost accountability, and making more informed decisions across cloud, SaaS, and AI.
Whether your focus is FinOps, AI governance, cloud optimization, or technology spend management, we'd love to exchange ideas, discuss industry trends, and share practical approaches for turning technology intelligence into better business outcomes.
Add Gartner IOCS to your calendar and stop by the Flexera booth to connect with our experts. Booth details coming soon.