Tech News

Latest tech news, product launches, and industry trends.

15 Competitor Monitoring Tools Teams Actually Use (2026)




Your competitors are adjusting pricing, launching new ad creative, publishing content that outranks yours, and showing up in AI answers you didn’t know existed — often all in the same week. Competitor monitoring tools exist to catch those moves early, but most teams end up with fragmented data scattered across platforms, and by the time they’ve pieced it together, the window to respond has closed.
Digital Marketing

AI citation tracking: How to track (and grow) AI engine citations




AI search engine citation tracking helps measure brand visibility and authority in AI-powered search results. As AI-powered search experiences reshape how people discover information, evaluate vendors, and build shortlists, visibility inside AI answers is no longer a vanity metric. If AI engines aren’t citing your brand, you’re missing influence at the exact moment buyers are forming opinions.
Digital Marketing

Axios npm Supply Chain Compromise – Guidance for Azure Pipelines Customers

On March 31, 2026, malicious versions of the widely used JavaScript HTTP client library Axios were briefly published to the npm registry as part of a supply chain attack. The affected versions — 1.14.1 and 0.30.4 — included a hidden malicious dependency that executed during installation and connected to attacker-controlled command-and-control (C2) infrastructure to retrieve […]
The post Axios npm Supply Chain Compromise – Guidance for Azure Pipelines Customers appeared first on Azure DevOps Blog.
Feed

Optimizing Git policy management at scale

With just a single improvement in the REST API of Azure DevOps, we achieved a massive reduction in CPU usage and execution time when managing Git policies: 2x less CPU and 10-15x faster execution! This change is already available to all users of Azure DevOps, and it’s time to share a bit more detail: the […]
The post Optimizing Git policy management at scale appeared first on Azure DevOps Blog.
Feed

Public Preview: Actual Result for Manual Tests in Azure Test Plans

We’re excited to announce the public preview of the highly anticipated Actual Result (AR) feature for manual testing in Azure Test Plans! This feature has been one of the top requests of the community, and we’re thrilled to make it available for you. Why use the Actual Result feature? Manual testing is a critical part […]
The post Public Preview: Actual Result for Manual Tests in Azure Test Plans appeared first on Azure DevOps Blog.
Feed

AEO Strategy for B2B: 9 Tactics to Increase B2B Answer Engine Visibility




Research shows that 32% of buyers discover new B2B vendors using generative AI chatbots. This is why an answer engine optimization (AEO) strategy for B2B businesses is essential. AI-driven answer engines help buyers discover, evaluate, and shortlist vendors. The same research found that buyers start with an average of 7.6 potential vendors and narrow this to 3.5 before making their final decision.
Digital Marketing

Azure DevOps MCP Server April Update

This update brings a set of improvements and changes across both local and remote Azure DevOps MCP Servers. Here’s a summary of what’s changed. Query work items with WIQL We’ve introduced a new wit_query_by_wiql tool that enables users to construct and run work item WIQL queries. For our remote MCP, to ensure reliability and performance, […]
The post Azure DevOps MCP Server April Update appeared first on Azure DevOps Blog.
Feed

The future of generative engine optimization: How 5 GEO trends reshape loop and inbound marketing




​​GEO — or, as HubSpot refers to it, AEO — has found its place in the search landscape, and it’s reasonable to think that the future of generative engine optimization is guaranteed. According to Datos’s State of Search report, Q4-2025 saw some interesting changes. For the first time, AI tools had a consistent 1.31% to 1.34% of visits in the U.S. In previous quarters and reports, traffic to AI tools was growing. This stability in traffic suggests that AI search tools may have found their place in the wider search landscape.
Digital Marketing

One-click security scanning and org-wide alert triage come to Advanced Security

We’re shipping two major capabilities that change how security teams enable and act on application security in Azure DevOps: CodeQL default setup makes it possible to enable code scanning across your organization without configuring a single pipeline, and a new combined alerts experience in Security Overview gives security administrators a single place to search, filter, […]
The post One-click security scanning and org-wide alert triage come to Advanced Security appeared first on Azure DevOps Blog.
Feed

Answer engine optimization case studies that prove the ROI of AEO in 2026




Answer engines are already influencing how buyers discover brands — and the results are measurable. According to the 2026 HubSpot State of Marketing report, 58% of marketers say visitors referred by AI tools convert at higher rates than traditional organic traffic. As platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini increasingly shape buying decisions, visibility inside AI-generated answers is quickly becoming a competitive advantage.
Digital Marketing

April Patches for Azure DevOps Server

We are releasing patches for our self‑hosted product, Azure DevOps Server. We strongly recommend that all customers remain on the latest, most secure version to ensure optimal protection and reliability. The latest release of Azure DevOps Server is available from the download page. This patch applies to the most recent version, Azure DevOps Server, and […]
The post April Patches for Azure DevOps Server appeared first on Azure DevOps Blog.
Feed

How HubSpot became the #1 CRM in AI search [A case study]




Today, more and more buyers are beginning their journey with an AI-search. They may ask ChatGPT to compare products or use an AI-powered platform like Perplexity. Or, they're just Googling an offering and reading the AI Overview, all without clicking a link. 
HubSpot realized that our buyers were moving from search engines to answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — but we had no reliable way to measure AI visibility and understand whether our AEO plays were working.
Digital Marketing

AEO Insights: Building an Informed Answer Engine Strategy




By now, you know that everyone’s buzzing over answer engine optimization (AEO). So, just what is AEO in marketing? It’s a new way of ensuring your brand shows up in the places your prospects are using more and more: AI tools like Gemini, Perplexity, and ChatGPT. These AEO insights will catch you up on the most crucial information to get started now.
Artificial Intelligence

Marketing forecast fundamentals every growth team needs




A marketing forecast estimates future marketing results, such as leads, pipeline, and revenue, using historical data and conversion assumptions. Marketing forecasting connects planned activity to expected outcomes, helping teams understand what performance is likely to look like before campaigns are executed. This approach supports clearer planning, more predictable growth, and stronger alignment between marketing inputs and revenue targets.
Digital Marketing

Improving the Markdown Editor for Work Items

We introduced the Markdown editor in July 2025 to bring Markdown support to large text fields in work items. Since then, we’ve received valuable customer feedback highlighting challenges with the editing experience, particularly when switching in and out of edit mode. Many users found the current interaction model confusing and, at times, disruptive. For example, […]
The post Improving the Markdown Editor for Work Items appeared first on Azure DevOps Blog.
Feed

Search Central Live Asia Pacific 2026: Get Ready for Sydney and more!


It's that time of the year again! Let's talk about the Search Central Live (SCL) schedule for the
Asia Pacific (APAC) region. We have mapped out a series of events designed to connect you with our
Search teams and fellow community members. Here is everything you need to know about our plans for
the year, at least for the APAC region.
Feed

Search Central Live is coming to Canada!



Our event series, Search Central Live, is coming to Toronto, Canada on April 21, 2026 for the first time!
The event series has been a great way for communities to connect with each other and Googlers to learn
more about the web ecosys...
Feed

Unlock language-specific rich symbol context using new find_symbol tool

Refactoring at scale is a time-consuming and error-prone process for developers. In large codebases, developers have relied on manual searches and incremental edits across multiple files to accomplish these tasks. Modern development workflows depend on fast and accurate code navigation to avoid these pitfalls. When developers refactor existing code, explore unfamiliar areas of a large […]
The post Unlock language-specific rich symbol context using new find_symbol tool appeared first on Visual Studio Blog.
Feed