2026: When AI gets real

If 2025 was the year the channel pivoted to AI, 2026 will expose whether that pivot was built on a proper foundation – or on PowerPoint.

Customers and partners alike are set leave the experimentation and Proof of Concepts (PoCs) behind and start focusing on adoption and scale. Analysts are already echoing this shift, where ROI, governance, security, and practical outcomes outrank AI’s shinier features.

AI accountability: governance, risk, and regulation finally arrive

In 2026, AI will no longer be just something you deploy; it will be something for which you’re accountable.

As enterprises embed AI into core operations, regulatory frameworks are closing in. Governments and standards bodies are rolling out enforcement timelines for AI governance frameworks that demand transparency, human oversight, safety, and risk mitigation. Entities like the EU AI Office are set to begin supervising compliance for general-purpose AI models, with enforcement activities kicking in next year.

This matters to partners for two reasons. Customers will stop tolerating black-box implementations and demand explainability, auditability, and documented risk controls. Meanwhile, partners will be expected to advise on compliance as a billable service, not a checkbox.

Channel partners morph into strategic advisors

Which brings us to the biggest role shift of 2026: partners will increasingly be judged not by how many tools they sell, but how strategically they guide customers through complexity.

2026 forecasts show that partners must transition from tech resellers to trusted AI and risk advisors – not a new concept, admittedly, but now they need to help customers manage bias, security, compliance, and responsible adoption across a host of new environments.

It will be the moment that partners stop being suppliers and start to become stewards of the customer journey.

Skills bottlenecks become business bottlenecks

One theme that will dominate planning next year is the skills shortage.

In 2026, customers won’t be impressed that a partner can use AI – they’ll want teams capable of operationalising it at scale. And there simply aren’t enough specialists yet: AI architects, ML engineers, cloud governance experts, and security pros remain scarce.

This skills scarcity will limit deal size, slow delivery, and force partners into ‘acqui-hires’ or strategic hires, just to stay competitive.

Security: hygiene becomes the price of entry

If 2025 saw cybersecurity grow as a distinct revenue stream, 2026 sees it become embedded everywhere.

Integrated security platforms, not point tools, will be table stakes. Real-time threat analytics, AI-driven detection, and automated response capabilities will be expected, not sold as premium extras.

And with AI agents proliferating inside enterprises, identity security, especially for machine and non-human identities, will attract the attention of Board members.

Organizations that cannot secure both human and autonomous identities risk breaches that could undo even the smartest AI strategy.

Sustainability and resilience squeeze into the channel agenda

There’s a good chance that the carbon footprint of AI infrastructure will become a much bigger deal in 2026.

AI systems, especially large-scale models, and their supporting datacentres consume significant energy. As enterprises face both regulatory pressure and shareholder scrutiny over sustainability, partners will find themselves asked not just “how fast can we train this model?” but “can we measure its energy impact too?”

Environmental reporting and energy efficiency will move from niche concerns into procurement checklists.

Data sovereignty and geopolitical risk become selling points

Similarly, in 2026, data sovereignty will no longer be a niche compliance requirement.

As regulatory pressure tightens and geopolitical uncertainty persists, customers in regulated sectors will demand tighter control over where data lives and how it flows.

Partners that can embed sovereignty-by-design into architectures, ensuring residency, auditability, and control, will lead growth in regulated verticals.

This opens a new services vector: sovereignty-as-a-service, where partners offer governance, compliance, and risk assurance alongside technology.

The real infrastructure story: resilience over hype

The data center boom isn’t slowing. Hyperscalers continue investing billions in capacity to support AI workloads, and physical infrastructure demand remains strong even amid economic uncertainty.

But partners won’t win by selling racks alone. The partners who do best will be those who can help their customers orchestrate hybrid cloud and edge workloads, optimise cost and performance across public and private infrastructure, bake resilience into every part of their stack, and translate capacity into business outcomes.

The uncomfortable truth about 2026

Here’s the thing that no vendor deck will say out loud: 2026 won’t be easier than 2025. It’ll be more consequential.

AI will stop being a differentiator and start becoming a requirement. Compliance, governance, security, and sustainability won’t be optional services – they’ll be expectations.

But for those ready to shift from selling technology to delivering measurable business outcomes, 2026 is a moment of enormous opportunity. By the time 2027 rolls around, the channel won’t be talking about whether AI is important. It’ll be talking about how well you made it work.