The full title is the Innovation Guide for Generative AI Technologies, and it’s the first appearance of the Emerging Market Quadrant from research firm Gartner.

Publishing today on Gartner.com and due to update again every four weeks, the EMQ ranks vendors in a standard Gartner 2×2 that doesn’t look much different from the MQ (dare I call it the “MQ Classic”?).

The EMQ was first slated to appear in the summer but ran into delays – and for the first round, Gartner has published three EMQ 2×2 charts. A fourth will follow when the report updates in a month.

The battlegrounds: Future potential and features
In the new EMQ, the x-axis judges future potential (MQ: Completeness of vision) and the y-axis evaluates current features (MQ: Ability to execute).

Vendors in the top right of the EMQ are tagged as Emerging Leaders. Top left is Emerging Challengers and bottom right is Emerging Visionaries. The only quadrant with a different name than the MQ is the bottom left. In the EMQ it’s called the Emerging Specialists, a label more flattering than the MQ’s Niche Players tag.

One notable visual difference from the MQ: The EMQ color codes vendor dots. Dark blue denotes vendors that completed the initial survey, light blue shows the vendors that Gartner researched, in the absence of a vendor submission. A surprising number of big name vendors are showing as “completed by Gartner”: we expect those dots to change color in the next update, due in four weeks from now.

More focus on research, less spotlight on analysts
It’s unusual for such a major piece of Gartner research not to be attributed to any analysts. No analyst are listed as authors of the initial 26-page document. This lines up with the speculation we’ve often heard that Gartner is trying to get away from “rock star” analysts and instead place more focus on the research – which makes sense from a continuity point of view, and spreads the load for inquiry handling.

There are three initial EMQs. You won’t see any of the three featuring in a vendor reprint yet, as Gartner has blocked this for EMQs for the time being. The first three are:

• Generative AI Specialized Cloud Infrastructure Vendors
• Generative AI Engineering Vendors
• AI Knowledge Management Apps/General Productivity Vendors

A fourth 2×2 will be added to the report when the update publishes in late October – GenAI Model Providers.

All four of these have a dedicated category on Gartner Peer Insights. These are new GPI categories – and vendors who wish to amplify their voice of the customer with regard to the EMQs should focus on sourcing reviews in these categories.