Just 3% of organizations have been able to achieve “desired cost savings” through productivity gains, according to new research from Gartner.

A survey conducted by the analyst firm highlighted a growing disconnect between board members and the on-the-ground reality of AI.

Despite the small number of firms who’ve recorded gains, three-quarters of board members still expect AI to deliver value in terms of productivity and costs.

Moreover, Gartner’s survey found that 85% are planning to spend even more in the coming year as they ramp up adoption rates.

CV Viverito, senior director analyst in the Gartner HR practice, said the survey identifies that while AI shows promise for enterprises, many are still failing to unlock tangible value.

“Ultimately, organizations will not generate cost savings from AI at this point,” he said. “The greater opportunity is to use AI to do things that weren’t possible before, such as shifting employee time into new capabilities, outcomes, and sources of growth.”

Using AI to unlock time savings – and thereby costs – for employees isn’t proving easy, however. A similar study from Gartner found that just 21% of the time freed up by the technology was redirected into more “innovative work”.

“There isn’t a struggle to create capacity; that’s happening already as organizations redesign work,” Viverito commented. “What organizations are struggling with is how to make that capacity usable and redirecting it to what is valuable.”

For organizations hoping to “make that capacity usable”, Gartner said those with several key traits and skillsets rank among those recording the most success.

These include those with high AI fluency, which helps them in “knowing when to trust technology, when to challenge it, and how to be accountable for the results”.

Leveraging “human connection” is another area in which workers are using AI to their advantage, the firm noted, particularly in areas such as stakeholders management, teamwork, and communication.

Mixed results with AI adoption

Gartner’s findings mark the latest in a string of studies highlighting lackluster returns from AI adoption in recent years. As ITPro reported in January this year, research from PwC showed widespread discontent among executives after heavy investment in the technology.

In the consultancy’s Global CEO Survey, just one-in-eight CEOs said that AI delivered both cost savings and revenue gains for their business. A third, meanwhile, reported gains in one or the other, but rarely both.

Crucially, more than half (56%) said they’d recorded no significant financial benefit at all. Optimism on this front was also lacking, the survey found. PwC noted that only 30% were confident about AI-related revenue growth across 2026.

A key factor behind growing discontent with AI lies in an inability to push projects from pilot to production, PwC noted. Enterprises have invested heavily in the early stages of the technology, but typically encounter difficulties when integrating the technology across the business.

Indeed, research from Accenture in April this year found that only one-in-ten UK firms had successfully deployed – or scaled – AI in core operations. The consultancy’s Generating Impact report also pointed to a “widening gap” between the basic use of the AI and its broader impact on organizational change.

Put simply, individual workers using the technology are seeing tangible benefits, such as increased productivity and time savings. Yet on a business-wide scale, these gains aren’t be translated into revenue.

Alignment is critical for success

Integration of AI across the business requires close collaboration and enterprise-wide alignment, Gartner noted. A July 2026 survey found that 78% of leaders have no clear alignment on “where AI creates value”.

Arj Bagga, VP analyst in Gartner’s HR practice, said this underlines the importance of a clear-cut strategy and expectations with the technology during the early adoption phase.

“Without a shared view of where AI matters the most for the organization, there is a disconnect in how to position the workforce, and ultimately, how to capture value from AI investments,” Bagga commented.

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Westcon-Comstor has teamed up with Palo Alto Networks to launch a new channel initiative aimed at accelerating growth for select Westcon partners across EMEA.

Announced at the distributor’s WestConnect event in Barcelona, the Partner Growth Circle has been designed to provide partners with structured business planning, enablement, and growth support to help them build and scale their Palo Alto Networks business.

Westcon-Comstor said it will work with participants to develop joint Palo Alto business plans tailored to priority solutions, target accounts, as well as agreed pipeline objectives, supported by coordinated sales and technical engagement.

In an announcement, Daniel Hurel, senior vice president of Westcon-Comstor’s Westcon EMEA go-to-market business, said demand for Palo Alto solutions has remained strong across the region as AI continues to reshape the cyber security landscape.

“The Partner Growth Circle is about helping partners translate that demand into scalable, repeatable business growth,” he explained.

“By bringing together joint business planning, technical enablement, demand generation and our wider value-added capabilities, we can help partners build stronger pipelines, expand customer relationships and develop more repeatable sources of revenue.”

Growth-focused partner benefits

Partners that successfully meet the targets laid out in their joint business plans will gain access to a host of exclusive Westcon-Comstor benefits, from tailored services workshops and certification support, to demand-generation funding.

They will also be able to utilize the distributor’s existing value-added capabilities – which include its Tech Xpert community, virtual demonstration environments via 3D Lab, as well as sales and pre-sales enablement.

Partner performance will be measured against their business plan and objectives, Westcon-Comstor said, with quarterly reviews designed to maintain a focus on execution and growth.

Additionally, the distributor will deploy its Intelligent Demand (iD) analytics-led sales and marketing program, which uses predictive data analysis to help partners identify the most promising opportunities.

“It is a focused approach built around shared commitments and measurable progress, and the next step in our collaboration with Palo Alto Networks,” Hurel added.

Expanded EMEA collaboration

The launch of Partner Growth Circle marks the latest phase of a long-standing partnership between Westcon-Comstor and Palo Alto Networks, with the pair’s existing distribution agreement spanning multiple markets across EMEA.

Previous collaborations also include SASEvolution, which packages Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma SASE solution with Westcon’s managed services to provide channel partners with market-ready security solutions.

Commenting on the pair’s latest offering, Palo Alto Networks’ vice president of EMEA ecosystems Patricia Murphy said The Partner Growth Circle will equip partners with the structure, enablement, and resources they need to scale effectively in the era of AI.

“By aligning our products and services with Westcon-Comstor’s deep channel expertise, we are creating a clear path for our mutual partners to accelerate growth, expand their technical capabilities, and deliver exceptional value to our joint customers,” she said.

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Microsoft is offering buyouts to 60,000 staff, equivalent to more than a quarter of its total workforce as the company looks to further reduce headcount.

That figure comes via sources in multiple reports, but Microsoft has confirmed the looming job cuts in a memo to staff, since published online.

The reduction comes as Microsoft invests further in AI and amid wider job losses in the industry. Earlier this year, Microsoft laid off 4,800 staff following a voluntary retirement offer in the spring.

Microsoft reports its quarterly results later this week.

Leaving by choice

As many as 60,000 workers are eligible to opt for the “voluntary exit” offer, sources told CNBC, out of a total global headcount of 223,000. It’s worth noting that the 60,000 figure represents those eligible, not the number expected to take up the offer.

Indeed, one publication reported that Microsoft predicts a smaller proportion of staff to take up the deal than a voluntary retirement offer earlier this year. That offer was accepted by around 30% of those approached by the tech giant.

Another source told Reuters that the buyout offer would be applicable across a wide range of business divisions, including AI experiences, Copilot, finance, gaming, Windows + Devices and more, but not marketing, commercial business, or security.

In a memo published online, Microsoft's chief people officer Amy Coleman said that employees offered the buyout span teams in Canada, India, the UK and the US, at experience level 70 and below.

This is based on an internal system for grading staff. Level 70 refers to senior positions such as a general manager or partner-level technical leader, according to one social media post.

Coleman added that the voluntary exit offer was time limited, with CNBC noting that it would expire by early December.

"This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support," Coleman wrote in the memo.

"It also gives participating organizations another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs."

Microsoft offered that aforementioned voluntary retirement program in April to 7% of American employees, followed by layoffs of 4,800 staff in July. Last year also saw multiple rounds of layoffs at the company.

Cuts everywhere

Microsoft isn't the only tech company continuing to reduce headcount. A host of major tech companies have announced layoffs across 2026 so far. In May, Cloudflare revealed plans to cut 1,000 roles, equivalent to around 20% of its workforce.

Oracle also announced 21,000 jobs would be axed in June, pinning the blame on AI. Last year also saw sweeping cuts at Dell Technologies, Salesforce, IBM, and Intel.

Much of this has been pinned on AI, though analysts have suggested the technology isn't ready to start taking over human roles yet, if ever.

A study by Oxford Economics earlier this year suggested evidence of an AI-inspired shake-up of jobs is "patchy" at best, with job losses really down to wider economic forces.

Some companies have said just that, with Atlassian saying last year's cuts to customer service have nothing to do with AI, and Amazon's 14,000 cuts pinned on reducing bureaucracy.

Microsoft’s motivation behind the voluntary exit scheme is also reportedly due to AI-related costs. Reports from Reuters, for example, suggest the company aims to reduce costs amid heavy spending on AI infrastructure.

Capital expenditures for the next quarter are expected to top $50 billion.

ITPro approached Microsoft for confirmation and comment, but did not receive a response by time of publication.

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Cisco has expanded available incentives in its 360 Partner Program, as well as making Cisco IQ generally available for partners as part of its mission to continue to deliver the support its channel ecosystem needs.

Details of the new offerings and updates were announced at the firm’s Partner Summit in Vancouver, Canada, today, but ITPro attended a pre-brief before the main event.

“Cisco didn’t wake up and realize that partners matter,” exclaimed Tim Coogan, senior vice president, global partner sales, told journalists during the pre-brief call last week.

That being said, Cisco understands that partners need to move “first and fast,” especially in the AI era, where threats have intensified, and traditional models of supporting customers are no longer fit for purpose.

Changes to the 360 program include dedicated paths for advisors, developers, and distributors, so they can be recognized for the valuable role they play. In addition, Cisco has introduced Partner Value Indexes (PVIs) for advisors and developers, with a dedicated Distributor PVI coming by Spring 2027.

Additional cross-sell bonuses were also unveiled in addition to a Cisco IQ adoption incentive.

Change is necessary for continued success

The 360 program was unveiled at the beginning of the calendar year and marked a big change; however, Coogan was keen to stress that the previous programs had evolved in response to partner feedback.

“We don’t do anything at Cisco without asking, ‘What about partners?. Are we building it the right way? Are we providing that platform?” Coogan said.

“When we built the [360] program, we didn’t build it and unveil it. We built it with our partners. Thousands of meetings, countless hours spent understanding the program.

“It was big news, and it has required our partners to do things differently. Part of the reason our previous programs, most notably Value Incentive Program (VIP), were around for 23 years. What some people may not know is that there were 46 versions of VIP. We are deeply committed to an iterative process over time.”

Coogan added: “It’s not a set it and forget it mentality. We believe that feedback is a constant source, and we have already made numerous changes. Change is difficult. We ask partners to invest in their capabilities to deliver this incredible portfolio, and we are as deeply committed to modifying it over time based on that same feedback.”

The B2B buying landscape is forever changed

Customers, on average, work with up to seven trusted partners, according to Coogan. What’s more, the B2B buying journey is non-linear with more than 28 touchpoints. This places even more emphasis on partners to help organizations navigate this new normal.

“We recognize that, at the end of the day, growth and profitability are fundamental to our company and to our partners as well. [Offering] Cisco IQ, not as a product, but as a platform, [means] our partners can use it to deliver new services revenue, new capabilities, and a different kind of buying and use experience for our clients. Cisco IQ will become a really, really powerful tool in the bag of our partners.”

Coogan also spoke to the importance of partner experience: “We believe incredibly deeply that our ability to save our partners time is just as important as our ability to help them drive growth and profitability. Finding an easier way to do business with Cisco, improving tools, and leveraging AI becomes fundamental to the experience our partners have with us,” he said.

“Our partners don’t owe us anything, and they don’t work for us; we earn the right to work with them every single day. Partner experience is one of the ways we can invest in their time with us by making that experience as positive and productive as possible.”

Coogan also stressed the importance of constant innovation, being able to react quickly, and scaling but without adversely affecting efficiency.

“It’s our 30th year of Partner Summit. This is not a revelation that partners are important. This is a 30-year journey with our partners, founded on trust, growth, agility, and innovation. We’re so very proud of our heritage and our legacy,” he added.

“Everything for us is founded around our principles of build, buy, and partnering… Ultimately, what we build and what we buy falls short in meeting the expectations of our customers if we don’t have the partner ecosystem to support it. We believe deeply that that partner ecosystem is the enabler for this build, buy, and partner strategy.

“This is a no-ego environment where we learn from each other, provide the platform and the foundation to deliver value in the field. And I think that's really what separates us.”

Hammer Distribution has announced a new UK-focused strategic partnership with cyber protection vendor Acronis.

Hammer’s channel network now has access to Acronis’ scalable portfolio of solutions, spanning cybersecurity, infrastructure, next-generation AI services, and MSP operations.

The move brings together two companies with established roots in the UK channel at a time when MSPs face increasing pressure to deliver greater value to clients while managing rising costs and complexity.

By pairing its own channel expertise with Acronis’ comprehensive cybersecurity platform, Hammer said partners will benefit from a single, integrated approach to tackling modern customer requirements.

In an announcement, Dominic Ryles, director of Cyber and Cloud at Hammer Distribution, described the collaboration as “a genuine step forward” for the company’s network of partners.

“Bringing together Hammer's channel expertise and Acronis's innovation in GenAI and XDR gives our partners a real competitive advantage, not just new products to sell, but an automated framework to secure and future-proof their clients' businesses,” he explained. “We're excited to see what our partners build with this."

Scalable cybersecurity for partners

Through the new agreement, Hammer partners now have access to a host of cyber security services, which include endpoint, managed, and extended detection and response (EDR, MDR, and XDR) tools, alongside email security, security posture management, security awareness training, and data loss prevention (DLP).

The deal also includes Acronis’ Cyber Frame, a new infrastructure offering designed for modern IT environments, as well as AI-native solutions such as GenAI Protection and Cyber Employee for augmenting and accelerating security operations.

Additionally, MSPs can now leverage automation tools across remote monitoring management (RMM), professional services automation (PSA), and workflow automation to help scale their operations.

Hammer said Acronis’ solutions are backed by its own enablement infrastructure, which covers onboarding support, technical training, and active pipeline development assistance.

Acronis general manager Jo Holliday said the partnership will benefit UK MSPs that find themselves under increasing pressure to deliver stronger protection and more efficient service delivery without increasing complexity.

“Hammer’s channel expertise makes them a strong route to market for Acronis in the UK,” she commented.

“Together, we can help partners bring natively integrated cyber protection, infrastructure management and service automation to more customers, enabling them to protect, manage and automate client environments more effectively while building scalable, profitable managed services.”

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Veeam has launched a global initiative that combines its data protection capabilities with local service providers’ local expertise to help customers address data sovereignty requirements.

The new Veeam Sovereign Service Providers Program will be launched in phases, with the first introducing the Data Sovereignty Competency within the company’s Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) program. Additional program offerings are set to follow later in the year.

The initiative will see the vendor work with participating service providers to deliver services tailored to customers’ business needs. These services will combine Veeam’s technical capabilities around sovereign data protection with providers’ local operating models, governance, jurisdictional expertise, and established market presence.

Veeam said this will enable customers to assess solutions across data location, operational control, access governance, and legal jurisdiction without compromising cyber resilience or recoverability.

“Sovereignty is defined by each customer’s regional government, legal, regulatory and operational requirements,” commented Michelle Graff, Veeam’s senior vice president of global partnerships. “Meeting those requirements depends on both technology and the way a service is operated.”

Graff said the company’s new initiative brings these two elements together by merging its own data protection capabilities with local expertise across governance and service delivery.

“The VCSP Data Sovereignty Competency gives customers a clearer way to identify providers that have invested in both,” she added.

Highlighting data sovereignty expertise

The VCSP Data Sovereignty Competency arrives as AI technologies become a critical element of business operations, security, and governance.

According to recent Veeam research, 70% of surveyed companies admitted that AI workflows are interacting with sensitive corporate data without full oversight, while 67% said employees are creating autonomous workflows that cannot currently be fully tracked.

The vendor said its new competency will now help customers identify providers that have demonstrated capabilities against its criteria for operational, legal, technological, and governance capabilities.

These requirements include local operating models, jurisdictional controls, in-region personnel, data governance, customer oversight, and resilient data protection.

The competency acts as a reflection of a provider’s alignment with its program requirements, rather than replacing a customer’s own legal, regulatory, risk, or compliance assessments.

Strengthening customer choice

By combining its own capabilities with local providers’ sovereign operating capabilities, Veeam said the resulting solutions will help customers address data sovereignty requirements as regulatory and geopolitical factors continue to evolve.

The new competency sits alongside other offerings in the VCSP program, with customers able to select service providers based on relevant requirements – including data sovereignty, disaster recovery as-a-service, and off-site backup.

Tim Pfaelzer, Veeam’s general manager and senior vice president for EMEA, said Europe has seen sovereignty evolve from a compliance consideration into a key strategic business requirement.

“As regulation expands and organizations scale AI initiatives, they need greater certainty over where data resides, who can access it and which laws govern its use,” he explained.

“Veeam’s technology, combined with the local operating capabilities of trusted service providers, gives customers a practical and defensible route to strengthen data control without sacrificing resilience or recovery.”

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More than eight-in-ten business leaders are confident that the UK can lead in AI, but only half as many UK employees agree on that front, according to new research from Microsoft.

A survey of 5,000 UK employees and 1,000 of their bosses as part of Microsoft's AI Diffusion Report reveals a growing gap between how business leaders and their employees see the potential benefits of AI.

Of the business leaders surveyed, 84% reported feeling confident that the UK can become "a world-leading economy within five years," but only 41% of UK employees agreed.

Mind the AI gap

What's behind the gap? According to Microsoft, 35% of the surveyed workers believed AI had reduced their own job security, with 57% saying it hurts job prospects for younger people.

Despite those concerns, 71% also agreed AI had a positive impact on their work and 69% believe it had boosted the quality of their work.

While business leaders and workers may disagree on the job risks and utility of AI, about six-in-ten of both groups believe the government should do more to help the UK reap the benefits of the technology. Indeed, more than a third from each group are now calling for heightened regulation and safeguards.

"Government and industry must work together to respond to British business leaders' calls for greater action on skills, build trust in the technology and ensure its benefits reach everyone," said Darren Hardman, CEO of Microsoft UK & Ireland.

"If we remain divided on whether AI will have a positive impact, if we fail to build trust in the technology and if we cannot put the necessary safety ecosystem for models in place, then we will not create the society we want.

"The UK has a chance to lead, not just in AI adoption, but in AI safety. Get both right, and we can unlock growth while ensuring the benefits of AI are open to all."

AI diffusion in the UK

Microsoft's wider AI diffusion report shows the UK has leapt from 35.6% adoption to 43.7% as of the second quarter of 2026. That ranks the UK second in the G7 when it comes to adoption rates after France, and eighth globally, according to Microsoft's figures.

The report noted that this shows a disconnect between the countries making frontier AI and applying it, with the US and China centered in most discussions about the technology.

"This overlooks a distinction between frontier AI and the more prosaic routine, task-level AI use through which most productivity gains are likely to be realised: tools embedded across routine business processes, public services, and everyday work," the report notes.

"Frontier capability does not automatically produce broad diffusion, as the United States’ comparatively low adoption rate of 33.0% illustrates, ranking at 21st globally in Q2 of 2026."

Development vs diffusion

Notably, the study found that the UK can't match the US or China in frontier capital spending, adding that an "excessive focus on that contest" risks distracting from how the UK can gain economically from the technology.

As a nation, the UK "does not need to be a leader in model development to reap the benefits", Microsoft said. The report added that countries that use these technologies will see the greatest long-term gains.

Regardless, Microsoft said the UK should still strive to meet the government's stated goal of becoming the country with the fastest AI adoption in the G7.

"Our thriving technology sector is playing a fundamental role in the economic growth recognised by the IMF," Hardman commented. "Business leaders and employees across the country are embracing AI to change not only what they do and how they get things done, but how quickly."

The report from Microsoft comes amidst increased investment in AI-related support for British businesses. The company has committed to £23 billion in investment over the next three years to help drive adoption rates, including $15bn in cloud and AI infrastructure.

However, recent reports show the company has pulled out of a data center deal with Nscale. As ITPro reported on 19 October, the deal has fallen through due to lingering concerns over power supply for the Essex-based site.

The Loughton development was set to deliver 50 MW of AI capacity, scalable to 90 MW, and to initially house 23,040 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs. It was expected to create 250 permanent jobs.

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The topic of conversation in enterprise IT used to focus on transformation: which platform to move to, how fast to migrate, and what the roadmap looked like. Gradually, the conversation has shifted to questions about how we ended up spending so much just to stand still.

Those conversations with senior IT and finance leaders across the region keep returning to the same issues, and the pattern goes beyond any single vendor or sector. Organizations are caught between rising software maintenance costs, a storm of vendor demands to upgrade to their latest AI versions, growing cybersecurity demands and budgets that have barely moved.

Microsoft's 2025 Work Trend Index finds that one in three employees say the pace of work over the past five years has made it impossible to keep up, and business leaders feel that pressure as well. When you factor in that nearly a quarter of the IT workforce's time goes on maintaining existing systems, it becomes clear why so many organizations are struggling to fund anything new.

We call this ‘innovation paralysis’, the inability to progress new strategies and ideas because existing systems consume so much of the budget, resources and attention that innovation requires. For channel partners that can identify and eliminate low-value spend, freeing up capital and resources for higher-value initiatives, this presents an opportunity to help clients accelerate progress and springboard to the future.

The pressure leaders are feeling also shows up in the numbers

Our research found that 44% of C-suite decision-makers see AI and automation as their top capability priority, and 69% anticipate significant changes in their ERP investments. However, most organizations have resources tied up in maintenance costs, with little room for anything new.

A separate Akamai study of 750 IT decision-makers in the UK, France, and Germany reinforces this point by highlighting how rising cloud costs are forcing over two-thirds of businesses to cut spending elsewhere. Those cuts hit AI budgets, cybersecurity investment, and IT staff the most, as only 11% of organizations say their AI initiatives are paying for themselves. The result is a widening gap between ambition and execution: vendors and market demand that businesses accelerate AI adoption and strengthen cyber resilience, yet organizations keep redirecting the resources needed to sustain existing systems instead.

Much of this pressure stems from vendor lock-in. Forced upgrade cycles, limited pricing transparency, and the threat of losing access to future innovation unless a company migrates to a newer version are now familiar frustrations, with 35% of C-suite leaders directly citing vendor lock-in as a barrier to their long-term technology goals. The impact of that dynamic becomes most visible in support contracts, where many European enterprises continue to pay premium maintenance fees for services that feel distant, standardized, and disconnected from their operational realities.

Trust: The gap channel partners must bridge

Relationships, implementation history, and the extent to which boards trust the guidance their channel partners provide all shape the outcome of enterprise technology investment decisions.

When vendors reinforce those constraints through costly migrations or unexpected licensing changes, the conversation moves from IT into the boardroom, where boards stop asking which platform to choose and start asking whose interests their vendor actually serves.

This is where channel partners can serve as the objective voice many organizations are actively seeking. The partners delivering real progress are walking into customer meetings and putting their clients’ desired business outcomes first, technology and solutions second.

From cost reduction to self-funded innovation

For many customers, this issue is not a lack of ambition. It is that too much of the IT budget is already committed to maintaining existing environments, responding to vendor-driven timelines, or absorbing cost increases that were not part of the original plan. This is where channel partners can play a far more strategic role: helping clients identify where budget is being consumed without creating proportional business value, then building a realistic path to redirect spend toward innovation.

That conversation should not start with a solution. It should start with the client’s roadmap. What systems are still delivering value? Which upgrades are being driven more by vendor pressure rather than business need? Where are costs rising without improving resilience, agility, or customer experience? By helping clients answer those questions, partners can advocate for the budget flexibility and technology choices the customers need, rather than accepting a vendor-prescribed route.

VMware is a useful example of how this dynamic is playing out. Following the Broadcom acquisition, many customers have had to reassess rising licensing costs, contract terms, and longer-term infrastructure plans. The partners creating value in those conversations are not just presenting alternatives; they help clients understand their options, protect continuity, and make decisions based on business priorities rather than external pressure.

The same principle applies to AI. Innovation does not always require a full migration or multi-year transformation program. In many cases, clients can make progress by layering Agentic AI capabilities onto stable enterprise systems they already trust, freeing up budget from low-value spend and applying it to targeted, measurable initiatives. For organizations caught in innovation paralysis, that shift matters. It gives them more control over when and how they modernize, and it gives partners a stronger role as advocates for the client’s roadmap, budget, and long-term business outcomes.

What this means for how partners position themselves

Across Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Value-Added Resellers (VARs), and management consultants, the channel partners building lasting customer relationships in this environment share a few characteristics. They lead with financial and strategic analysis rather than a product.

Just as importantly, they give clients more choices, helping them evaluate the best path based on business priorities rather than vendor timelines — and, in doing so, demonstrate that client needs come first. They are willing to name the cost of staying still, including the cost of lock-in, and they bring third-party data to support that conversation rather than relying on narratives that come from the vendor. They are also broadening the conversation beyond the IT team, finding their way into CFO and boardroom discussions, where the real decisions about innovation investment are happening.

The recurring revenue opportunity here is worth taking seriously because it naturally follows from the kind of relationship building being described. Customers who restructure their software estate to reduce maintenance costs and reinvest those savings in AI-enabled processes need ongoing advisory support, managed services, and implementation capability to make it work. That relationship deepens over time, built on independence from vendors and the ability to deliver outcomes the customer can see and measure.

Boards are already asking whether the advice they've been receiving has served the business or the vendor best. The channel partners who can answer that question in the customer's favor will own those relationships and close the trust gap. The ones who can't will find they're limited to competing on price.

BlueStar has announced it has agreed to be acquired by TD Synnex, in a move the US-based IT distributor said will generate new opportunities for partners.

Headquartered in Kentucky, BlueStar specializes in technologies across digital identification, point-of-sale (POS), radio-frequency identification (RFID), mobility, digital signage, networking, IoT, and robotics.

The company sells services exclusively to value-added resellers (VARs), integrators, and managed service providers (MSPs) in collaboration with hardware and software vendors.

Post-acquisition, BlueStar said it will continue to deliver specialized knowledge, trusted relationships, and dedicated partner support to the channel and wider IT community.

In an announcement, BlueStar chief executive officer Ryan Girvin described the move as a testament to the "hard work, commitment, and passion" of the firm's employees, customers, vendors, and network of partners.

"Together, we have built a company known for its expertise, innovation, and customer focus," he commented. "We believe joining TD Synnex creates an opportunity to accelerate our growth while preserving the specialized approach and entrepreneurial culture that have defined BlueStar from the beginning."

BlueStar will continue to operate as an independent company until the acquisition closes, with no changes to the processes, programs, and services it currently provides.

Girvin said the firm's success to date has been built on people and relationships – a focus that TD Synnex will help to strengthen through its broader resources and reach.

"We are excited about the opportunities this creates for our employees, customers, and vendor partners, and we are confident that TD Synnex shares our commitment to delivering exceptional value through expertise, service, and innovation," he added.

Expanding resources and capabilities for partners

TD Synnex provides a wide-ranging portfolio of technology solutions spanning cloud, cybersecurity, analytics, AI, and mobility. Supporting more than 150,000 customers across 100 countries.

According to the companies, TD Synnex moved to acquire BlueStar due to its specialized expertise, strong market position, and established presence across key global regions.

After completing the deal, the pair said customers, vendors, and partners can expect expanded resources, broader capabilities, and more market opportunities, alongside the industry expertise and high-touch support already on offer.

"BlueStar's success is built on the expertise of its team and the strong relationships they have developed with partners," commented TD Synnex CEO Patrick Zammit. "We're excited about the specialization BlueStar would bring to TD Synnex, including a focused go-to-market approach that has differentiated the business and created value for its partners."

The proposed deal remains subject to customary closing conditions and financial terms were not disclosed.

Businesses have spent the past few years investing heavily in AI, unified communications, collaboration platforms, and digital transformation. However, we’re increasingly seeing employees bypassing the systems organizations have invested in, causing significant security, compliance, and operational risks.

In fact, our recent research found a growing disconnect between technology investment and the realities of how people work. We’re experiencing a lack of cohesion between approved tools and employee requirements, with 71% of employees using non-approved communication tools at work when official systems do not meet their needs.

The concerns here are twofold: firstly, employees feel the need to seek out tools that better suit the way they work; secondly, the use of unapproved communication tools creates security and compliance risks while undermining the return on organizations' technology investments.

Channel partners are increasingly having to help customers and organizations navigate these challenges. It’s no longer enough for a customer to simply add new communication tools and technologies to their IT stack. They also need support to ensure the tools they’re implementing will bring impact and value to their employees, as well as ensuring that employees are actually using it in a way that will reap the benefits it promises.

The risk of shadow IT for businesses

The question to ask is, why are employees abandoning approved communication tools in the first place?

To uncover the reasoning, we need to delve into the uptick in ‘shadow IT’ use in the workplace. Shadow IT refers to employees using unapproved tools ‘in the shadows’, with organization leaders having little or no awareness of what is being used or how. This, in turn, creates a multitude of security issues, as these tools have not been properly vetted by an organization and therefore may have data security challenges that employees are unaware of when using them.

However, shadow IT is not a result of employees deliberately ignoring company policy, nor does it happen overnight. It develops gradually over time as employees become increasingly frustrated with the tools they are presented with at work that do not meet their own individual needs.

Particularly over the last six years, as hybrid work has increased dramatically, communication platforms often don’t fit naturally into day-to-day workflows.

Research shows that 71% of workers feel compelled to "make it work" with tools that were not designed for their needs, a figure that climbs to 79% among frontline workers.

The expectations around workplace communication have changed so much that many organizations are simply not set up to support employees in the right way anymore. Quick access to communication tools that offer flexibility is now crucial, but so is having systems that are easy to navigate.

For example, frontline or hybrid workers may need to respond quickly while away from their desks, making consumer messaging apps more convenient than approved workplace systems that were designed primarily for office-based use. The technology itself is not necessarily wrong, but it is not designed around the way people actually work, leading many employees to take matters into their own hands instead.

This complexity increases when we add AI into the mix. Shadow AI has seen a major uptick in UK organizations as legacy communication tools lack the AI capabilities employees today need to drive efficiency and innovation in their work. Our research found that 76% of workers use non-approved communication channels at work, significantly increasing the risk of cyber and compliance risks. To stop employees turning to their own preferred AI models, enterprises need to consider communication tools that already embed AI into workflows to improve productivity and day-to-day impact for teams.

We must remember that control, innovation, and employee experience are not competing priorities, but deeply interconnected. It is possible to provide the workforce with a streamlined communication tool stack that is efficient, easy to use, and supports their use of AI, while meeting compliance and control requirements.

Closing the communication experience gap is now essential for organizations that want to regain control, reduce risk and ensure technology investments deliver meaningful business impact.

The opportunity for partners

For channel partners, helping customers improve communication adoption presents far more than a services opportunity. It creates a route to becoming a trusted strategic adviser, supporting organizations with adoption, governance, integration, and AI readiness long after the initial deployment is complete.

The end goal for business leaders is to maximise ROI from their AI and communications tools. The ultimate way to achieve this is by streamlining tool overload to reduce spend and maximise operational efficiency, while ensuring that the chosen tools are delivering impact to employees in their day-to-day.

Channel partners are uniquely positioned to help businesses close this gap between technology implementation and real-world adoption. Customers need support not only with deploying new technologies, but with ensuring communication platforms are secure, intuitive, and aligned with how employees actually work. To maximise this support, there are four key areas that I believe channel partners can focus on to deliver real value to enterprises:

Assess organizational needs

Before implementing any new solutions, channel partners can help organizations take a step back and assess how their workforce is actually communicating. Different worker profiles, roles, and working environments will typically need different requirements, so a one-size-fits-all approach likely won’t deliver the best results.

By auditing existing tools, identifying gaps, and understanding the needs and working patterns of different employee groups, partners can help their customers determine the communications stack and solutions that will best support their workforce. This will ensure that technology decisions are driven by real-world needs from the start and create a stronger foundation for adoption and usability, as well as long-term value.

Training and usability

Channel partners can work with customers to establish robust and relevant training regimes that improve confidence, encourage adoption, and help employees get the most from the tools available to them. By improving adoption and confidence, partners can help organizations reduce reliance on unofficial communication channels and maximise the value of existing technology investments.

Strengthen governance

Governance is another area where many organizations continue to face challenges. Laws are changing all the time, especially when it comes to AI and automation. Channel partners have the opportunity to be the trusted voice that guides customers through the process with confidence, ensuring their chosen communication tools are compliant with evolving regulations while maintaining efficiency and usability.

The goal should be to embed governance into everyday workflows, rather than allowing it to become a barrier that encourages employees to seek alternative solutions.

Integration alignment

The final piece of the puzzle is ensuring communication tools fit within the wider organizational workflow. Can they connect to other business applications for a more integrated experience for the employee, or do they create additional steps that make the process more time-consuming?

By working closely with customers, channel partners can ensure communications infrastructure serves as a foundation for future AI initiatives, rather than a standalone technology investment.

The road ahead

The greatest opportunity for channel partners lies in helping customers bridge the gap between technology and employee experience.

Organizations are no longer looking for suppliers that simply deliver communications platforms. Indeed, they need trusted advisors who can help ensure those platforms are adopted, governed, and integrated in ways that improve productivity, reduce risk, and unlock greater value from AI and digital transformation investments.

Channel conversations often begin with a question: how can partners keep pace with technological change? My answer is that they should not try to keep pace with everything.

Across AI, cybersecurity, and cloud services, new products and features are arriving at a relentless rate. For many partners, the natural response is to expand their portfolios and pursue every emerging opportunity. But breadth without sufficient expertise is difficult to sustain and even harder to translate into meaningful customer value.

The channel’s real advantage has never been its ability to follow every product development. It lies in understanding customers, applying technology in the right context, and knowing when a new capability is genuinely useful.

That is why some partners are becoming more selective. They are concentrating on particular industries, business problems, or areas of technical expertise. This allows them to build deeper knowledge, stronger customer relationships, and services they can deliver consistently.

That focus matters because customers are not simply asking how quickly they can adopt new technology. They are trying to balance innovation with security, compliance, cost, and operational risk. They need partners that can help them make those judgments.

AI has changed the risk conversation

Document workflows offer a useful example. These conversations once centered largely on productivity, licensing, and incremental improvements to established processes. The arrival of generative AI has raised the stakes.

Organizations now need to consider what happens when commercially sensitive, personal, or regulated information is processed by an AI system. Where is that data stored? How long is it retained? Is it used to train a model? Who can access it? What happens when an AI tool connects to another business system?

These questions are particularly important in regulated sectors, but they should be part of every responsible AI deployment.

A compelling demonstration is no longer enough. Showing that an AI tool can summarise a contract or extract information from an invoice establishes what the technology can do. It does not establish whether an organization should use it, under what conditions, or with which safeguards.

If AI is introduced into a poorly governed document environment, it can amplify existing weaknesses. Information can be exposed more quickly, errors can move further through a workflow, and unclear access controls can create new compliance risks.

This is where channel partners can provide far more value than a product demonstration alone.

Trusted advice must produce practical outcomes

Customers do not necessarily need another standalone AI application. In many cases, they want useful capabilities embedded into the tools and processes their employees already use.

They want invoices handled with less manual intervention, contracts reviewed more efficiently, and routine administrative work completed with fewer errors. These outcomes may attract less attention than a new chatbot, but they are often far more valuable to the business.

Before recommending a new technology, partners should be able to answer three questions:

1. What specific customer problem will this solve?
2. What new security, compliance, or operational risks will it introduce?
3. Can the partner support its responsible adoption beyond the initial sale?

The third question is particularly important. A successful AI deployment requires more than implementation. Customers may need help mapping workflows, establishing governance policies, training employees, and reviewing performance as the technology evolves.

This creates an opportunity for partners to build services around adoption, risk management, and ongoing optimization. It also gives them a more durable role than simply facilitating a licensing transaction.

Transactional business will remain part of the channel, but it is becoming harder to differentiate through the transaction alone. Partners that combine technology knowledge with an understanding of governance, compliance, and business processes can have a much more valuable conversation with customers.

Vendors must help partners build trust

Vendors also have responsibilities. Partners cannot be expected to manage the pace and complexity of technological change without clear information and practical support.

If vendors want partners to invest in new capabilities, they need to provide transparent product direction, effective technical training, and clear answers about data handling. Partners should be able to explain where customer data is processed, how it is protected, what controls are available, and how the technology supports relevant regulatory requirements.

They also need honesty about a technology’s limitations. Confidence does not come from pretending that every new feature is suitable for every customer. It comes from giving partners the information they need to make responsible recommendations.

The future of the channel will belong to those who understand where they can add the most value and have the discipline to focus on it.

Customers already face more technological noise than they can reasonably process. What they need from partners is clarity: which developments matter, which risks need to be managed, and which investments will produce measurable results.

The partners that can provide those answers will remain valuable, regardless of how quickly technology changes.

The use of AI in financial departments is surging, but workers now find themselves spending a quarter of their week verifying or correcting AI outputs.

That's according to Datarails' 2026 CFO Sentiments Survey, which focused on the impact of AI on finance departments.

Datarails found that nearly all of the 270 chief financial officers (CFO) polled were using AI in some way for finance processes. While adoption is no longer a concern, the study noted that verification burden is.

Around 96% of CFOs said they spend at least 10% of their time checking or fixing AI outputs, with 8% spending more than half their working time on such efforts.

More widely, finance teams are spending 26% of their working week checking AI output to ensure it's accurate, the survey found.

Crucially, the study noted that they're right to check. Two-thirds of CFOs said their most common source of frustration with AI is when it gives confident answers based on incorrect data.

More than half (56%), meanwhile, said they've had AI provide different answers to team members despite using the same prompt and data.

"What this survey shows is that although AI adoption is now standard for CFOs, caution hasn't disappeared," said Didi Gurfinkel, CEO and co-founder of Datarails. "Finance teams have stopped asking 'will we use AI?' and started asking 'how am I going to most effectively check its work?’”

Keeping humans in the loop

Despite concerns about AI slop and inaccuracies, more than half of CFOs expect to increase their spending on AI licenses this year, with just 7% slashing budgets.

Three-quarters feel under ‘high’ or ‘very high’ pressure to integrate AI further, but just 7% said their finance department workflows are ready for a wider implementation.

Given such challenges, it comes as no surprise then that finance leaders value a human in the loop, with just 5% saying they'd hand an AI-produced financial report to the board without human review, and just 4% saying they'd do the same with monthly reports.

AI isn’t impacting jobs

The survey also asked CFOs about job losses, a recurring talking point since the advent of generative AI nearly four years ago.

Yet only 3% of respondents said they were cutting full time employees due to a shift to the technology – perhaps not a surprise given checking outputs remains manual work.

"Fears of job losses have been largely allayed, but the challenge of AI output verification is critical," said Gurfinkel. "Tackling it will allow finance teams to spend less time doing intensive checking, and let them focus instead on the strategic work they were actually hired to do."

A lack of auditability remains the main reason CFOs don't trust AI tools with mission critical tasks, the report found, with 75% of those asked naming it the biggest challenge.

That was followed by accuracy and so-called hallucinations at 71% and regulatory and compliance concerns regarding AI outputs at 54%.

Because of that, Datarails noted that a new technology category was emerging, with a third of CFOs looking to implement a "finance operating system", effectively a governed data layer for AI.

At the moment, finance teams use an average of 2.5 general-purpose models, with Microsoft Copilot the clear leader at 93%, followed by ChatGPT at 65% and Claude at 64%.

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Is it time to upgrade the fleet of endpoints across your organization? The answer to that question may well have once come from a simple check of the calendar. In 2026, however, the concept of a three-to-four-year refresh cycle feels like something from a bygone era, like looking back on the charm of an old sitcom.

Life was simpler then; prices were more stable, and the improvements between hardware generations were more predictable. In the age of mobile computing, AI PCs, a components (specifically memory) supply crisis, and Microsoft's Windows OS proclamations, among other factors, the conventional hardware refresh cycle has shifted, experts tell ITPro.

In its place is a complex picture of different and dynamic cycles that vary based on not just the type of device in question, but its role within the business and how friendly any upgrade can be on IT budgets. In 2026 and beyond, organizations will be considering multiple angles – not just the calendar – when opting into an upgrade program.

Which factors are affecting the refresh cycle?

The cycle is dead, or maybe it isn't – perhaps it's somewhere in between. Nobody can agree on a consensus, least of all the experts that ITPro consulted with.

Michael Rosholt, SVP at M&A specialist and IT industry investment bank martinwolf, falls into the former camp but adds certain caveats: "It depends on the type of technology," he says, adding: "Rather than one universal refresh cycle, we're seeing the market increasingly segmented by technology and use case."

It might not even be describable as a cycle, says Adam Bowles, who runs the managed IT services company Act360 in Canada, telling ITPro that it's split by role and device type – where employees with less intensive performance requirements are hanging onto hardware for longer to save on budget – while 'power users' may see a new device every couple of years due to the recent acceleration in functionality.

So how did we get here? The earliest factors that drove some of the shifts we are seeing today first emerged with Microsoft and its Windows 11 hardware requirements, "forcing replacements on OS support grounds, not performance," as Bowles phrases it. The migration pressure was compounded with the end of support for Windows 10, which triggered a rush of new purchases at the time.

Then there's the components crisis. Memory prices have surged due to the AI infrastructure buildout, which has carried seemingly permanent ramifications for the cost of devices and the memory powering those systems. Low-budget devices have been a major casualty, amid a general decline in PC shipments and a projected 20% year-on-year fall in sales, according to IDC analysis. Interestingly, PC manufacturers are struggling to maintain full product portfolios, the report highlighted.

Then there's the question of AI PCs, divided between the initial marketing push and newer systems that boast actually useful on-device capabilities. The expectation in the latter camp is that power users want to tap into the most powerful systems, like AI agents, without necessarily requiring a constant connection to a cloud server to churn through expensive and scarce tokens. Ole Bülow, director of business development at Egiss, poses the question: "Which capabilities will employees actually use during the device’s lifecycle?"

"This requires understanding applications and processing locations, rather than using an AI label as a universal refresh trigger," adds Bülow, whose experience lies in advising enterprises, including one instance supporting the transition of a 120,000-strong global enterprise from a three-year device refresh cycle to a four-year cycle.

How is the refresh cycle changing?

While experts can't agree on the 'death' of the conventional cycle, they all agree that it's both shortening and lengthening at the same time, depending on a few different factors, including the technology itself and the user.

"A hybrid lifecycle, supported by signals such as DEX, is recommended," Bülow continues. "A supported device used for predictable tasks may remain productive longer. Employees with increasing demands may require earlier replacement. The original device can then be redeployed to another user after secure recovery and preparation.

He continues: "An employee may require an upgrade before the device reaches end of life. Mini PCs or thin clients should not be assumed to be underpowered. Suitability depends on the specific work requirements. For thin clients, the business case should consider the remote computing environment, connectivity, licensing, support, and endpoint price.

That's certainly true across the equipment landscape that organizations of any size may conventionally seek to upgrade, from business smartphones to on-premises servers and everything in between. The challenge, as Rosholt sees it, is that much of this is now ad hoc rather than following a single schedule.

"IT leaders are looking more closely at how equipment is being used and whether an upgrade delivers a meaningful benefit," he explains.

"Employees with heavier workloads or a clear need for AI capabilities may receive newer machines sooner, while regular users can often keep their existing devices longer. Refurbished equipment is also becoming a more important part of the equation, particularly for users who don't require the latest hardware."

How can businesses navigate being pulled in multiple directions?

Greater flexibility seems like a broad solution for navigating this new, complex, mixed picture. Bowles says his company tiers hardware by role instead of buying the same laptops for everyone. That includes cheaper thin clients or refurbished units for lighter roles and newer machines for finance or development teams.

Bülow also seeks to understand how an employee is likely to use the device based on data and what the existing device estate can support in terms of functionality.

"Combine performance and employee experience data with repair history, battery condition, warranty and security requirements," he advises, adding: "Determine whether poor performance requires a new device, a repair or a software adjustment. Define clear criteria for retaining, repairing, redeploying or replacing equipment. Assign responsibility for reviewing exceptions."

How manufacturers are responding to the new market conditions may also inform what businesses do. The OEMs are pushing to replace PCs with newer models, but enterprises are being far more disciplined about how much they spend due to the components crisis.

One of the fixes they're employing is actually trimming configurations of memory to, at the very least, maintain price levels. It may well be, Rosholt says, that organizations now choose to take them up on the offer of financing options and leasing.

Long gone are the days of fixed refresh cycles for every device across an organization. Many factors are temporarily affecting the decisions that businesses make on a day-to-day basis, including price volatility and Windows support. But still, the increased complexity across the suite of enterprise hardware is also a sign of technological progress and diversity in the systems that end users will rely on as AI becomes more useful and prevalent.

Britain is a burgeoning market for NetApp, according to UK & Ireland VP Puneet Gupta, and with the recent launch of the company’s Novus system, it’s ripe for the picking.

Speaking to ITPro at NetApp Insight 2026, Gupta said the cloud storage provider has made significant headway in the UK in recent years. Indeed, since joining as VP for the region in December last year, he’s been shocked at the maturity and appetite among British businesses.

“I think the market has truly surprised me,” he told ITPro. “The growth in this market has been phenomenal. When you look from a distance, the usual view is that a mature market like the UK will have single-digit growth.”

“But look at how this market for external storage has grown. It’s remarkable.”

According to Gupta, figures from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems (ESS) Historical Tracker for Q2 CY2026 show NetApp reached a 28.5% market share in the UK all-flash domain. This growth follows several quarters of consistent flash hardware revenue growth.

This represents a potential springboard for NetApp in the UK market, Gupta told ITPro. Crucially, it comes at a vital time for enterprises as many accelerate AI adoption and associated infrastructure overhauls to compensate for the technology.

Data readiness was a key talking point at NetApp’s annual conference last week, and the company has been highly vocal on this front in recent years. UK businesses, meanwhile, appear highly receptive to the messaging.

“The way customers are now thinking about their data, their data infrastructure, their AI infrastructure has been absolutely remarkable,” he said. “The conversations with customers have been pretty amazing in the last few months.”

“When you talk to customers, data is at the center of everything that they’re thinking, and whether it is around data sovereignty, whether it is around compliance, whether it’s how to leverage data … a lot of customers are planning that ahead of time, [and] are making the right investments.”

Sovereignty, in particular, is an area Gupta and his team are keen to capitalize on in the coming months. As ITPro reported at Insight 2026, the company unveiled the new Keystone Sovereign service, which is rolling out first to European customers before hitting shelves in the UK.

The new service, which sits within NetApp’s broader Keystone storage as a service (STaaS) offering, aims to provide customers with flexible sovereignty-related controls.

Since arriving in the UK last year, Gupta said this has become a common recurring talking point with customers and partners across the UK, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

“Every customer is thinking about sovereignty,” he told ITPro. “Every customer wants to be prepared for data sovereignty.”

Gupta’s engagement on this front comes amidst a sharpened focus on sovereignty-related concerns on both sides of the English Channel. Research from Civo in June this year found 73% of firms now view sovereignty as a “strategic priority”, for example.

Acting fast with NetApp Novus

An area of huge excitement for Gupta lies in the launch of NetApp Novus. Unveiled at the annual conference, this is a new zettabyte-scale file system designed specifically for organizations running AI factories.”

According to NetApp, storage has become the key bottleneck for AI factories, with outdated architectures unable to contend with the intense demands placed on infrastructure by high-performance GPU clusters.

Gupta told ITPro that with Novus, the company’s product range is now stronger than ever and represents the culmination of several years of work for the company. With this in mind, the company is keen to bang the drum for its new flagship service.

“I think the portfolio we have today, I haven’t seen anything like this in many, many years,” he said. “I've been at NetApp for six years. The first signs I think we got were three four years back when we refreshed the all-flash portfolio.”

“We refreshed everything, brought in new stuff. Our partnership with the hyperscalers, now the Novus announcement. I don't think anybody else has the kind of portfolio today that we have, and with Novus, I think we have leapfrogged everybody else.”

Gupta added that Novus will be “very powerful for momentum” both in the UK and further afield for NetApp in the coming months and years – but engagement and execution will be critical.

“In go-to-market, that’s where me and my team, our role, really comes into play,” he noted. “We have organized ourselves pretty well. We’ve hired, we’ve made investments, we’ve hired new leaders.”

“I think we are very well positioned in the market. Of course, the proof of the pudding is how we execute, and I’m very confident that the team is energized and very well positioned, and having the right conversations.”

With Novus targeting neoclouds and GPU as a Service providers specifically, Gupta said NetApp is also targeting heightened engagement with UK operators on this front – in particular, smaller providers.

“There are a fair amount of smaller neoclouds [in the UK],” he said. “We are talking to the smaller ones because the big ones have made their investments in the past, so that will be a different conversation.”

“For the neoclouds, they’ve got a lot of funding from the market, and obviously when they get funding, they need to give a return and there will be increasing pressure from investors to find that.”

This is a tactical move by NetApp designed to swerve the larger neoclouds already deeply integrated with industry big hitters, creating in-roads for the long term.

“Any tech company that goes to them and says ‘I'll find you a better return on your investment’ I think will be music to their ears.

WatchGuard Technologies has announced the appointment of Allison Clarke as vice president of partner programs and go-to-market strategy.

Clark steps into the newly created role as the unified cybersecurity specialist moves to strengthen its channel-first business model and further streamline its partner experience.

The seasoned channel leader is tasked with leading the strategy, innovation, and alignment of WatchGuard's partner programs and go-to-market initiatives across all routes to market.

According to the vendor, she will work to ensure partners' voices play a key role in shaping business decisions – from programs and enablement to pricing, packaging, and product strategy.

In an announcement, WatchGuard CEO Joe Smolarski said the goal is to make it easy for partners to do business and grow with the company.

"Partners are at the center of everything we do, and Allison's appointment reflects our commitment to building a more connected, frictionless partner experience," he explained. "Her track record of creating programs that help partners grow makes her the right leader to help drive our next phase of channel success."

WatchGuard specializes in unified cybersecurity, with its AI-powered Unified Security Platform providing Zero Trust-aligned network, endpoint, identity, and cloud security in a single, integrated solution. The company says it currently serves more than 25,000 MSPs, who work to protect more than 1.5 million customers globally.

Clarke joins the business with more than 20 years of channel leadership experience, most recently serving as vice president of go-to-market and partner programs at SonicWall.

Prior to that, she spent almost a decade at Sophos, where she shaped the cybersecurity vendor's global channel strategy and partner programs, and has previously helped build and scale channel initiatives at McAfee.

Commenting on her appointment, Clarke highlighted WatchGuard's commitment to its partners as a key reason for joining the business.

"Partners want to do business on their terms, through the routes and motions that work best for them," she said. "My focus is on ensuring every interaction with WatchGuard is as simple, consistent, and rewarding as possible.

"I'm especially looking forward to meeting our partner community at IMPACT in Nashville and hearing directly from them about how we can continue improving their experience and helping them grow."

NetApp CEO George Kurian believes that despite the hype surrounding AI, achieving success with the technology still rests firmly on time-tested transformation tactics.

Speaking to ITPro at NetApp Insight 2026, the chief executive said that long-running adoption challenges with the technology show that it can’t become a case of the tail wagging the dog.

Indeed, grounded leadership and clear cut strategies are still vital to successful adoption projects.

“Like all transformations, AI transformation is a leadership and business transformation,” he told ITPro. “It’s not a technology transformation. It’s enabled by technology, like the desktop computer or client-server computing, or the internet. But it is a business and leadership-led transformation.”

Kurian’s comments come in the wake of repeated studies highlighting the challenges faced by enterprises adopting AI over the last three years.

A study from MIT in August 2025, for example, found 95% of AI projects were failing. Similar research in January this year, meanwhile, found that half of agentic AI projects were stuck at the pilot stage.

The result is that executives have become increasingly irate at the pace of adoption, with firms failing to push projects from pilot to production. Analysis from PwC found just one-in-eight CEOs reported cost and revenue improvements.

Getting AI data ready

Enterprises have faced a series of common recurring pain points when it comes to AI adoption, all of which are typically centered around data quality and infrastructure capabilities.

Research from IDC identified data quality as a leading problem on this front, with more than half (52%) of companies highlighting this as “the most important factor for AI projects success”.

On the infrastructure side, IDC’s study also found seven-in-ten business leaders cited data silos as the “biggest challenges for AI adoption”.

NetApp is now focused intently on both these fronts, emphasizing the importance of both modern storage infrastructure capabilities while providing customers with an array of data management tools.

The firm’s ONTAP data management software, for example, is designed specifically to help eliminate data silos and improve visibility. The NetApp Console, meanwhile, offers users a centralized management tool to monitor and optimize infrastructure processes.

At NetApp Insight this week, the company unveiled yet more capabilities on this front, including new AI-powered features aimed at improving automated storage management.

New AI features will provide customers with predictive maintenance insights and automated remediation, for example, while users can also integrate their own large language models (LLMs) within the console.

Kurian told ITPro that while these capabilities are vital for enterprises modernizing their IT estates and ramping up AI adoption, the basic transformation fundamentals still remain crucial.

“I think with regard to data prep and data quality, there are capabilities like what we are introducing, but also that the LLMs provide to be able to solve those challenges better,” he said.

“It doesn’t mean that because the technologies are there that it magically gets solved.”

Kurian added that NetApp engages closely with customers on this front, in particular by showcasing use-cases and best practices by leading organizations.

“I think it is an organizational question, and so we work with our clients to show them what is possible and the best practices of the high-performing organizations that have been successful with it. And there are more and more of those.”

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Employees are being actively encouraged to embrace AI, but they're not really sure what they should be doing with the technology.

That's one of the findings from a survey by Culture Amp for its How Employees Really Feel About AI at Work report. The majority (85%) of the 112,000 global respondents polled said their employer encourages "exploration and experimentation" with AI, but 42% aren't sure why they should be using it.

According to the study, a key issue facing workers lies in clear cut communication. Only 58% of respondents said leaders at their company had clearly explained the purpose of new AI tools and how it will feed into company goals.

A similar number said their managers have shared solid examples of the technology in action and how it can help them, but the study noted that still leaves a significant number left in the dark.

Despite confusion over adoption processes, 71% of those surveyed said AI tools make them feel more productive, with that rising to 93% among "power users" of the technology.

A similar pattern is seen for motivation. More than half (57%) of those polled said they're more motivated to step outside the box in their role, with that rising to 72% among AI power users.

Elsewhere, the survey also found that the C-suite had the most AI power users, at 5% points more than other groups.

"The same leaders that employees are looking to for explicit instructions on connecting AI use to company goals are the ones most likely to be using it multiple times a day," the company said in a blog post.

Risk versus reward

Most of those using AI (86%) said they understand the risks of the technology at work, with eight-in-ten revealing they trust that their employer will use AI in a responsible way. The same figure agreed that employees will be able to shape how AI is used in the organization.

That said, the report noted that AI isn't having much impact on workloads, with employees still reverting to manual processes across a range of tasks.

"AI usage, on this evidence, has minimal impact on workload, challenging the common belief that AI saves employees loads of time," the company noted. Culture Amp added that the survey results showed little difference in workload reports across AI usage levels.

"While initial AI adoption slightly improves workload perception, increased frequency of use yields no additional relief."

One company that took part found their employees saved 11 hours a week, but then spent 6.4 hours on "botsitting", with extra time going towards "feeding" data to the AI, correcting outputs and debugging mistakes, and editing "sloppy looking" work.

"Employees are telling us they understand the risks, they are using the tools, and they feel more productive," said Amy Lavoie, VP of People Science at Culture Amp. "That is not a workforce resisting change. That is a workforce that has done its part and is waiting on leadership to do theirs."

Lavoie added that managers need to be open and honest about the impact of AI to help drive adoption, even if they're not yet sure what the future holds.

"We do not know with certainty which roles AI reshapes, which skills hold their value, or what a career path looks like three years out," Lavoie said.

"As a result, leaders may go quiet, because saying nothing feels safer than saying something that turns out to be wrong. The most useful thing a leader can do right now is admit the plan is unfinished, and then keep talking anyway. Certainty is not what employees need from you right now. Candor is."

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Orca Security has cut the ribbon on a new global Partner POD Program and AI-powered Partner Success Platform (PSP), as the cloud security vendor looks to help partners improve profitability across the customer lifecycle.

The program combines incentives, enablement, deal protection, and partner support with AI tools geared towards helping partners identify opportunities, create marketing materials, build expertise, and automate time-intensive tasks.

Orca said the two initiatives are directly linked, with the Partner POD Program handling the incentives and rewards, while PSP provides the tools to help partners put them into action.

The partner program is built around three principles: making Orca easier to do business with, building profitability into the partner model, and extending the vendor’s innovation beyond its security offering and into how partners transact, sell, and get rewarded.

According to Orca, the new framework means partners will be recognized for value created across the customer lifecycle, from new business through to expansion and net retention.

In an announcement, Orca CEO and co-founder Gil Geron said AI has provided the opportunity to rethink the function of the traditional partner program.

“We’re moving beyond traditional portals and static resources toward an intelligent experience that can anticipate needs, connect insights and help partners take action,” he explained.

“Together, the Partner POD Program and Partner Success Platform create a foundation for AI to become a true growth engine, helping partners uncover opportunities and create more value for customers.”

Orca Security targets AI gains

Orca’s new Partner Success Platform has been designed to bring marketing, intelligence, enablement, and business planning together in a single partner operating system.

The platform’s AI assistant is trained on the vendor’s product documentation and will answer technical questions while linking partners directly to the relevant source materials.

PSP’s Demand Center analyzes prospective accounts against Orca’s ideal customer profile across 11 vectors, returning a match score, relevant intelligence, contacts, and downloadable preparation materials in under 30 seconds, the firm said.

Partners can also use AI to create co-branded social content and lead-capture landing pages in approximately one minute, while additional tools can generate quizzes, certifications, and demos to help build expertise.

Additionally, the platform offers automated planning and content tools for business plans, QBR-ready materials, solution briefs, integration guides, and technology alliance battle cards.

Every partner will receive access to PSP, with progress and activities tracked through the platform.

Commenting on the launch, John Tavares, senior vice president of Worldwide Partner and Alliances at Orca Security, said the Partner Success Platform has been designed around how partners work and will help them build expertise, strengthen focus, and get more work done.

“By making benefits easier to access, rewarding outcomes across the customer lifecycle and putting AI directly in partners’ hands, we’re helping them move faster and build more profitable cloud security practices,” he said.

The Partner POD Program and Partner Success Platform are available globally now and are localized in six languages at launch.

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With Dreamforce 2026 starting next week, Salesforce has an opportunity to show why it’s still relevant in an era dominated by agentic AI. The key to that could be an “if you can’t beat them, join them” mindset.

The company has spent most of 2026 fighting a war of words over the so-called death of SaaS thanks to the launch of powerful new agents.

The beginning of 2026 saw a mass sell-off of stock in software companies following the launch of Claude Cowork. The service offered new agents with sector-specific plugins designed to automate tasks across a range of areas, from legal and sales to marketing and data analytics.

With investors spooked, Salesforce was caught up in the sell-off, but CEO Marc Benioff shrugged off claims of a pending ‘SaaSpocalypse’ in typical fashion.

Convincing Dreamforce attendees that it’s still fighting fit could be a challenge nonetheless.

Claudeforce in the spotlight at Dreamforce 2026

The key to this, in my opinion, lies in Claudeforce, launched in partnership with Anthropic earlier this month. Closer collaborative ties with the company touted as a software killer makes perfect sense for the CRM giant.

This is a partnership that’s multi-faceted and mutually beneficial. It’s not just about integrating Claude within Salesforce’s portfolio of products but also Salesforce within Claude, with new plugins available for customers.

With this, it’s obvious that Salesforce is pinning its colors to the mast and betting that closer ties with Anthropic will insulate it from future market shocks.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is on the guestlist at Dreamforce, so I guarantee Benioff will be keen to show off the company’s fashionable new partner and provide customers with a roadmap on how this relationship will expand.

The happy family image won’t quite cut it though, and customers need real-world examples to get a gauge of how this will benefit them. Claudeforce is in beta with selected customers, so expect to see a steady stream of use-cases and case studies on how this is developing.

All roads lead to Slack

Slack has come on leaps and bounds since Salesforce acquired it in 2021. The one-time workplace collaboration platform now forms a core component of Salesforce’s agentic AI approach.

Serving as an ‘agentic OS’, Slack is a central point of contact for agents and customer business data within the broader Salesforce ecosystem. I expect this messaging will be drilled home further with Claudeforce on the scene.

Salesforce claims Slack will be the “intelligent backbone” of Claudeforce, although exactly what that means in practice is still up for debate. I think it’s safe to assume the platform will still retain its role as an agentic OS, but expect to see Salesforce emphasize its position as the critical intersection between core products and Claude.

Opening things up

Claudeforce might be the start of the show, but I want to see more detail on Headless 360. This is a new architecture for the CRM platform that essentially opens it up without the need for a traditional browser interface, but hasn’t received much attention since its April launch.

It’s an interesting proposition from Salesforce, enabling enterprises to link data, business logic, and workflows with third-party agents via APIs, model context protocol (MCP) tools, and command-line interfaces (CLIs).

This approach tracks with what we’ve seen from Salesforce in recent years, with the company focusing heavily on an open ecosystem approach when it comes to AI model choice.

I do wonder, however, if the noise surrounding Anthropic will drown things out on the Headless 360 front. Users aren’t limited to Claude, but you can bet they’ll be hearing about it more than other options such as OpenAI.

I will be reporting live from Dreamforce 2026 throughout the event, follow my coverage here and subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest from San Francisco.

Google Cloud and Accenture have unveiled a new joint business unit aimed at helping Gemini Enterprise customers scale AI capabilities.

The Accenture Gemini Enterprise Business Group will bring together Accenture’s Gemini Enterprise-certified consultants, forward deployed engineers (FDEs), and Google Cloud engineering staff to support enterprises.

According to the duo, the aim of the new unit is basically to help enterprises get more bang for their buck with agentic AI. In a blog post, Google Cloud said the scheme will help clients “realize measurable business value from their agentic AI and data investments”.

“The Accenture Gemini Enterprise Business Group will help clients achieve these outcomes faster, bringing together the talent, advanced AI and data capabilities, and industry expertise needed to reinvent with confidence and create value at scale,” said Julie Sweet, chair and CEO at Accenture.

The new business group will prioritize four key areas, according to Google Cloud, including:

• Increasing enterprise adoption of Gemini Enterprise
• Building “repeatable industry-specific solutions that reduce time to value”
• Driving user adoption and use of Gemini Enterprise tools
• Bridging gaps between AI experimentation and enterprise-wide transformation

The last of these is crucial for Google Cloud and is an area of intense focus in recent months. As ITPro reported in July, the hyperscaler and Accenture teamed up to drive AI capabilities for mid-market businesses, a demographic that has traditionally struggled with adoption rates.

AI adoption has been a difficult challenge for enterprises across the board, however, particularly in terms of measuring return on investment (ROI). Research from Accenture in April revealed only one-in-ten UK organisations had successfully deployed or scaled AI in core operations.

That same study noted that many enterprises are dealing with mismatched efficiency gains when it comes to AI. While individual workers are reporting productivity improvements, these aren’t translating into broader business value.

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said the launch of the business group “significantly expands the expertise and resources” available to customers to “deliver real business value”.

“Building on the success we’ve seen with world’s leading brands, we’re combining Google Cloud’s full-stack AI capabilities with Accenture's deep industry expertise to deliver transformation at scale,” he said.

FDEs in the spotlight

All told, Google Cloud said the new business group will establish a workforce boasting roughly 1,000 forward deployed engineers.

These engineers essentially act as consultants embedded within enterprises, providing teams with technical guidance along with practical support to co-design and build AI systems.

FDEs are now at the forefront of big tech’s attempts to drive AI adoption, as ITPro reported in July. Earlier this year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft both pledged billions in funding to recruit and deploy FDEs.

Both companies said the use of FDEs aims to streamline adoption processes for enterprise customers and, crucially, “compress timelines” when it comes to deployment of the technology.

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Digital sovereignty is now a key focus for the C-suite, but new research shows organizations aren't confident they can fully achieve these goals.

In a study from Capgemini, 44% of organizations ranked sovereignty as a board-level priority, with efforts on this front accelerating across the US, Europe, and APAC. Nearly four-in-five are “executing or building a strategy”, for example, with a further fifth expected to put one in place within the next year.

Capgemini said this investment focus reflects mounting concerns over whether organizations can maintain critical business operations in an “increasingly uncertain geopolitical environment”.

Four-in-five respondents specifically highlighted geopolitical volatility and disruption as the “leading driver” of digital sovereignty initiatives.

Concerns over strained transatlantic relations have prompted calls to reduce reliance on US tech providers in recent months, and it’s a viewpoint that’s gaining significant traction across Europe.

The jury’s out on digital sovereignty

Despite this sharpened focus, more than half (59%) of organizations think that achieving full digital sovereignty is an unrealistic goal.

There are a number of contributing factors here, the study found. In particular, a concerning number of respondents revealed they are chronically overdependent on foreign technology solutions and suppliers.

Others, meanwhile, highlighted lengthy switching timelines as a key concern. More than one-third (36%) of respondents said that transitioning from a critical provider would take more than 12 months. One-in-ten said they have no “viable alternative provider” at all.

Limited supply chain visibility is another key hurdle when it comes to bolstering digital sovereignty. Indeed, 86% said they have “significant exposure to foreign or externally controlled supply chains”.

The result is that IT leaders now find themselves wedged between a rock and a hard place when it comes to sovereignty. From a practical and financial perspective, efforts to achieve full sovereignty just aren’t viable in many cases.

“Today’s organizations operate in highly interconnected technology ecosystems where complete independence is rarely achievable,” said Karine Brunet, chief operations and delivery officer at Capgemini.

Michael Murphy, Deputy CTO at Arqit, agreed that full digital sovereignty could be an unrealistic goal for many organizations – and pursuing it could actually be counterproductive.

Capgemini’s study noted that achieving full sovereignty could actually harm competitiveness, for example, although more than half believe they can achieve these goals without making sacrifices on that front.

“Most organizations depend on a global technology ecosystem, and attempting to own or control every part of the stack would mean giving up access to capabilities that are too costly, complex, or valuable to replicate.”

“A more useful approach is to treat sovereignty as a spectrum,” Murphy added. “Different workloads carry different risks, and the safeguards should reflect that.”

A more pragmatic approach

These concerns are driving a rethink of how organizations can improve sovereignty capabilities, according to Capgemini, with some targeting what could be described as a sovereignty-lite approach.

Rather than targeting complete technological independence, organizations are now taking a pragmatic approach that centers around “retaining control over key digital capabilities” and reducing dependence on a single provider.

Capgemini advised IT leaders to take into account a range of variables when pursuing this approach, including data localization considerations, access controls, and potential “technology constraints”.

Elsewhere, the consultancy recommended a tactic of “selective control” of critical technologies alongside strategic partnerships rather than fully sovereign ownership.

Matt Harris, SVP & UKIMEA managing director at HPE, echoed these recommendations, noting that organizations can still bolster resilience without embracing a fully sovereign stance.

“A more practical goal is to achieve meaningful control over the most strategically important layers, including sensitive data, AI deployment environments, security, networks, and governance,” he said.

“IT leaders should therefore begin by identifying their most sensitive data and critical workloads, assessing where external dependencies create operational or regulatory risk, and ensuring that portability, auditability and viable exit options are built into technology decisions,” Harris added.

A bridge too far?

Capgemini’s study isn’t the first to question the viability of complete digital sovereignty. As ITPro reported in July, analysis from Forrester warned true tech sovereignty could be a bridge too far for European enterprises.

The consultancy’s Global Sovereignty Forecast predicted that the shift toward tech sovereignty will move “slowly over the next five years”, warning that attempts to divest from US tech providers will fall flat.

Speaking to ITPro at the time, Dario Maisto, principal analyst at Forrester, said attempts to move away from popular vendors would require a monumental effort – and one many European enterprises simply cannot afford.

Commenting on the Capgemini report, Proton COO Raphael Auphan told ITPro that European organizations should consider the longer term costs of not pursuing sovereignty goals.

Auphan pointed to recent research from Proton that found nearly three-quarters (74%) of European firms fear a US-imposed ‘kill switch’ could cut them off from vital tools and services.

“Sovereignty doesn't threaten competitiveness, dependency does,” Auphan told ITPro. “Every Euro spent on US tech subsidises foreign competitors and hands leverage to another jurisdiction.”

“Europe won't outspend the Americans or outwork the Chinese, but it can lead on its values. In an era where AI companies vacuum up personal data and trust in US tech leadership is eroding, "built in Europe" is now a genuine differentiator.”

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In recent years, there have been tremendous technology developments and industry shifts. The rapid adoption of generative AI has been a significant disruptor, forcing both vendors and the channel to re-evaluate their offerings and take a more agile stance to expand market reach and boost operational efficiency.

New business opportunities are being driven by trends such as AI storage integration, cloud sovereignty, and the demand for proactive cybersecurity measures. However, given this rapid pace of change, with some partners still focused on legacy resale and non-proactive, break-fix models, are resellers really in a prime position for success?

The biggest trap channel partners could fall into is failing to recognise new opportunities and respond with agility. With AI-driven workflows, regulations, and shifting buyer expectations, those who stick to old approaches risk being sidelined and seeing their margins shrink.

Key industry and technology shifts

Major trends reshaping the channel landscape include the integration of AI with storage infrastructures, the rise of sovereign clouds for data compliance, and the development of advanced data protection platforms.

Another area we see skyrocketing is the edge-cloud-hybrid ecosystem. Organizations are seeking to operate across edge, on-premises, and public/hybrid cloud with seamless data mobility and unified management. With multi-cloud and hybrid architectures becoming the norm, especially for backup and disaster recovery (DR), scalability and cost control remain paramount issues for organizations.

Equally apparent is the need for consistent security and compliance measures across these environments, along with ensuring flexibility to prevent reliance on a single vendor. Data sovereignty, which requires that data be governed by the laws and regulations of the country where it is stored or processed, marks a shift away from generic cloud-first strategies towards more localized management, hybrid-cloud arrangements, and thorough sovereignty evaluations.

With organizations struggling to balance increasing data volumes against rising infrastructure costs, there is also growth in smart multi-tiered storage. This includes storage analytics and tools for real-time monitoring and automated management to enable visibility across different tiers. With the capability to assign "hot" or frequently accessed data to high-speed, premium storage and "cold" or archival data to more affordable options, organizations can avoid the costly mistake of over-provisioning with high-performance drives.

Meanwhile, legacy hardware sales and on-prem-only solutions will continue their sharp decline, falling short for partners who rely on them. The shift to cloud and as-a-service models, combined with economic pressures, has made this a low-margin area.

Channel opportunities for business growth

As global data volumes near 200 zettabytes and AI-native technologies become increasingly sophisticated, customers are demanding comprehensive services that extend beyond traditional project-based hardware or standard cybersecurity offerings.

Customers are seeking partners who can provide AI-ready, sovereign, and resilient data protection that works seamlessly across on-prem, edge, and cloud. With this in mind, key growth areas for the channel are:

AI-driven services and automation

Cyber-resilient data storage solutions and integrated, AI-powered security platforms are driving significant growth opportunities for channel partners. These companies can tap into new opportunities by providing services focused on AI integration that extend beyond just implementing AI tools. These offerings may include automating IT operations, AI monitoring, and intelligence in data protection.

The recent geopolitical shift created by the U.S. government’s unprecedented export-control directive - which restricts global access to the most powerful AI models developed by Anthropic (the prominent US-based AI research and safety company) - has created immediate channel opportunities. If Value-added Resellers (VARs) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) pivot quickly, they can offer services such as sovereign AI consulting (providing data residency, technological autonomy, and jurisdictional control), regional cloud hosting with sovereign cloud space, as well as advisory services on cross-border regulatory compliance, such as offering risk mitigation audits.

Hybrid-managed offerings

Customers are increasingly adopting multi-tiered architectures that integrate edge computing, on-premises systems, and public cloud solutions. This shift calls for seamless data mobility, unified management, and real-time analytics to ensure efficiency. For channel partners, this trend opens new opportunities for designing, managing, and securing these distributed, complex environments.

The ubiquity of cloud has highlighted a challenge: the importance of operational visibility. Managing data across multiple environments without a unified dashboard has introduced unnecessary complexity and increased the risk of security blind spots. The lack of visibility across edge-cloud-hybrid ecosystems presents an opportunity for partners to act as trusted advisors while also delivering unified management and monitoring across fragmented infrastructures.

Cybersecurity and compliance-as-a-service

Cybersecurity continues to be the foremost growth driver for the channel. Providers are already broadening their offerings to counter the rising frequency of cyberattacks, introducing services such as managed detection and response (MDR), ransomware protection strategies, and compliance solutions. With the emergence of AI-driven threats, there is a growing demand for integrated cyber recovery solutions, presenting lucrative opportunities for partners capable of delivering robust managed security services.

Many opportunities will come from customers who are ready to adopt AI-powered infrastructures and hybrid governance models (the framework that enables managing operations across both physical offices and remote endpoints) in response to data sovereignty pressures. As organizations incorporate AI into their operations, they must address increased security vulnerabilities while ensuring their workloads and data adhere to relevant jurisdictional and privacy laws. Therefore, partners who can offer high-value consulting, data auditing, automation, and managed services, as well as architecting hybrid or sovereign cloud environments, will see the most growth.

Potential challenges

Obstacles to capitalizing on opportunities in the AI era include a lack of sufficient expertise (the talent gap) and longer sales cycles. The channel could struggle to find people who can manage hybrid ecosystems, navigate compliance, and handle the complexity of AI-driven environments. This is an area where vendors can really add value, especially in helping partners bridge that gap with hands-on training, workshops, and webinars.

Another hurdle is that most customers, especially outside the enterprise segment, will face tighter budgets and more cautious spending, which could slow adoption and delay new projects.

There could also be setbacks resulting from vendor complexity, too many tools, programs, and licensing models, which could further slow down the momentum if not simplified early in the year.

The path to success

To embrace these new opportunities, the channel must anticipate changes among customers, vendors, and markets. Buying technology is no longer what customers are looking for; they want solutions that deliver resilience, compliance, and sustainability. The channel must move from being generalists to specialists, guiding and supporting customers and accelerating the shift to service-led models in areas like AI and cybersecurity (such as delivering Backup-as-a-Service and cyber recovery).

Meanwhile, vendors must support this shift by making things easier: offering flexible licensing, providing specialised training and integration tools, and driving closer collaboration with partners. Vendors will also be expected to simplify hybrid and sovereign architectures, provide automation tools, and jointly develop go-to-market initiatives that help partners scale their operations.

The current industry transformation presents a huge opportunity for channel businesses to shift from just reselling to delivering high-value, integrated solutions. As the rise of AI-native and autonomous storage creates a demand for consulting and managed services, clients will most definitely need expert guidance to implement and manage these complex systems.

eSentire has announced a new strategic partnership with CMS Distribution, designed to expand the availability of its managed detection and response (MDR) services across the UK and Ireland.

Through the agreement, CMS now offers eSentire’s cyber security capabilities to its ecosystem of resellers, MSPs, MSSPs, and other value-added partners.

With immediate effect, partners gain access to the vendor’s multi-signal MDR platform, alongside 24/7 security center expertise, threat hunting, incident handling, and response services.

In an announcement, eSentire said the move aims to help partners expand their cyber security portfolios and provide customers with expert-led detection and response capabilities – without adding complexity to their existing security operations.

“CMS Distribution has a strong reputation for helping technology vendors scale through the channel,” said Phil Skelton, senior director at eSentire, in an announcement. “Together, we can make advanced MDR more accessible to partners and their customers, helping organisations strengthen resilience, reduce response times and stay ahead of disruption.”

Founded in 2001, eSentire specializes in Controlled Autonomy SecOps (CASO) and provides managed security services to more than 2,000 organizations across 35 industries worldwide. The vendor’s offering combines AI technology, security analysts, threat hunting, and human expertise to identify and respond to cyber threats.

CMS Distribution represents more than 200 technology vendors and provides partners with services across areas including cyber security, software, hardware, networking, cloud services, and information security.

eSentire said CMS brings a strong channel footprint, deep vendor relationships, as well as a broad technology portfolio to the partnership.

The pair added that the move will help address growing demand for fast and reliable protection from increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks, enabling partners to deliver enterprise-grade MDR while maintaining flexibility and support for existing security investments.

“Cybersecurity has become a board-level priority for organisations of every size, and partners need proven solutions that are simple to position, easy to adopt and trusted to deliver outcomes,” commented Huw Jones, chief business officer at CMS Distribution.

“Our partnership with eSentire expands the capabilities available to our channel community and helps partners address one of the most urgent customer challenges in the market.”

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The UK channel is entering one of the most consequential periods of change it has faced in over a decade. The Broadcom/VMware acquisition has acted as a catalyst, accelerating changes that were already underway and encouraging partners to address a new reality that the old channel playbook no longer works.

The reshaping of VMware’s traditional partner ecosystem, along with the move to subscription‑only licensing and the subsequent contraction of mid‑tier partner opportunities, has created a vacuum that the market needs to fill.

However, this disruption can also provide clarity. For those willing to adapt and embrace change, this year represents a structural reset and a chance to modernize virtualization portfolios. Partners can strengthen hybrid cloud capabilities and build new alliances that reflect the needs of a very different customer landscape.

From resale to services: A new channel economy

The channel is moving decisively away from a resale‑led model and toward a services‑first economy. Customers are looking for partners who act as strategic advisors, who can guide them through migration and manage complex multi‑cloud environments. They are seeking partners that actively optimize their infrastructure over the long term, rather than just selling licenses.

By changing VMware, Broadcom accelerated the end of an era where broad vendor lists and transactional relationships were enough to compete. UK partners must now decide whether they will evolve into cloud and infrastructure specialists or risk being left behind in a market that has already moved on.

This transformation is happening alongside a broader consolidation across the partner ecosystem. After years of juggling sprawling vendor portfolios and chasing every certification and incentive, partners are now being pushed to focus. With fewer viable vendors in play, partners can finally invest in the relationships that deliver commercial value.

This is raising expectations across the board. As the generalist reseller falls behind, a channel is emerging defined by sharper positioning and more deliberate ecosystem choices as vendors seek partners with technical depth and consistent execution.

Ecosystem alignment as a competitive advantage

This means success will hinge on alignment. The partners who prosper will be those who embed themselves within an ecosystem and operate as true extensions of their chosen vendors. This means co‑marketing, co-selling, and delivering with a level of reliability that customers can measure.

As channel programs mature, customers will increasingly gravitate toward suppliers who demonstrate operational strength and a clear plan for supporting multi‑cloud, AI‑driven, and cost‑optimized environments. In a landscape shaped by consolidation and rising expectations, a well‑structured, high‑performing ecosystem becomes a competitive advantage.

Across the industry, the vendors making the greatest impact are those helping partners strengthen cyber resilience and accelerate cloud and network modernization. Those who get ahead will also deliver measurable value for customers while unlocking new growth opportunities across the channel.

The successful vendors will be those who have a commitment to empowering partners with the technology, expertise, and support needed to deliver exceptional outcomes, a model that is increasingly becoming the benchmark for what effective ecosystem leadership looks like.

The rise of service‑centric models

At the same time, the channel is undergoing a structural reset that goes beyond VMware. Customers are rethinking their entire approach to infrastructure, resilience, and cloud economics. They want predictability and outcomes over a complicated patchwork of point solutions.

This is driving the rise of service‑centric ecosystems, where the value lies not in the number of vendors a partner represents, but in the ability to integrate, manage, and optimize across environments without locking customers into a single technology path.

Vendor‑agnostic service providers are gaining traction because they offer freedom, which is something that is increasingly rare in the industry. The ability to deliver resilience as a baseline and give customers room to evolve their stack without disruption is becoming a defining differentiator.

Another trend that is reshaping the channel is resilience‑first architecture. With regulatory pressure increasing and cloud costs rising, organisations are evaluating how they protect and operate their environments. Partners who can deliver integrated continuity, security, and recovery capabilities across clouds, data centers, and edge environments are becoming indispensable.

Customers want a consistent operational model regardless of where workloads live, and they expect partners to provide it.

Operational excellence and AI‑enabled scale

Customers are tired of fragmented support models and inconsistent delivery: they want a single operational fabric, predictable SLAs, and clear accountability. This is where ecosystem alignment becomes essential. Partners who can plug into a broader, well‑orchestrated service framework will outperform those trying to stitch together disparate tools and vendors.

The channel is evolving from “best of breed” to “best of integration,” with the partners who understand this leading the next phase of growth.

The rise of AI‑enabled operations is also widening the gap between partners who can scale intelligently and those who cannot. Customers now expect proactive monitoring, automated remediation, and data‑driven optimization as standard. The channel’s role is moving from selling technology to delivering continuous service improvement, and that requires platforms capable of ingesting, correlating, and acting on signals across the entire estate.

Vendor‑agnostic service providers are uniquely positioned here because they can apply AI across heterogeneous environments rather than being constrained by a single vendor’s ecosystem.

Partners who align themselves with ecosystems that simplify complexity, enhance resilience, and remain vendor‑neutral will be the ones who advance. The winners will be those who help customers navigate choice; who deliver outcomes rather than components; and who build ecosystems designed for the long term.

Glean has cut the ribbon on a new global partner program as the enterprise AI startup looks to expand its channel ecosystem.

Unveiled at the company’s inaugural Glean:GO Partner Summit, the Glean Partner Network brings together its existing partner pathways, expertise, and resources under a single global program.

The initiative gives partners access to training, commercial support, and go-to-market resources, providing greater flexibility in how they work with Glean and helping them grow their business around its enterprise AI platform.

The offering brings together company knowledge, people, permissions, and activity, giving AI applications and agents access to context from across an organization.

Glean said it is building on strong momentum for its channel ecosystem, which has grown to span North America, EMEA, APJ, and Latin America, while its partners have now completed more than 2,000 accreditations across sales, technical, and delivery disciplines.

“Partners are central to making enterprise AI work,” said Zubin Irani, vice president of partnerships at Glean.

“The Glean Partner Network gives partners more ways to build real businesses with Glean and gives customers a clearer path to the expertise they need. As partners build their capabilities and deliver results, we will invest alongside them.”

The new Glean Partner Network

Glean said its new partner program has been built to recognize partners for the capabilities they build, the value they create, and the results that they generate.

The Glean Partner Network includes referral, commercial, services and solutions, and technology pathways, with partners able to participate in more than one depending on their capabilities.

Partners can develop agents and custom connectors, co-sell and transact Glean technology, lead implementation and adoption, operate AI services, or develop technology extensions and customer solutions.

The program also includes self-service training and tiered ‘Boost Camps’, alongside specialist competencies across areas such as agent building, custom connectors, and embedded experiences.

Additionally, partners have access to resources such as deal registration, market development funds (MDF), co-marketing opportunities, as well as dedicated sales, technical, marketing and executive support.

Meeting partner and customer needs

Glean said its new initiative will generate opportunities for partners to expand across sales, services, technology, and solutions as their capabilities develop, with the potential to earn greater investment from the vendor as they grow and deliver customer impact.

For customers, the program aims to make it easier to find partners with the expertise required for different AI projects – including deploying Glean, building an integration or an agent, operating AI services, and creating industry-specific solutions.

Scott Blahauvietz, vice president of AI and cloud sales at AHEAD, a Glean partner, said enterprises require a practical way to apply AI across data, permissions, and workflows, rather than more AI models.

“Glean provides the permission-aware foundation to move from experimentation to adoption,” he commented. “Through the Glean Partner Network, AHEAD can pair that foundation with the implementation, governance, and enablement needed to build AI programs that are secure, scalable, and embedded in how people work.”

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New research from McKinsey suggests enterprises are finally reporting benefits from AI, but cost-related concerns and “constrained” productivity gains still weigh heavy on the minds of IT leaders.

Figures from the consultancy’s State of AI in 2026 report show more than one-third (37%) of respondents recorded “some” earnings impact with the technology, although that marks the same share from last year’s report.

Meanwhile, “AI high performers” said AI is now having a “significant” impact on operational efficiency and earnings.

The report suggests that enterprise AI maturity is rising, with an increasing number of enterprises now successfully scaling the technology. Improvements in this regard are being reported across the board, McKinsey noted, with respondents scaling chatbots, coding agents, and more sophisticated AI agents.

The use of agentic AI has increased significantly, for example, with 40% of large enterprises scaling agents, up from 27% last year. Meanwhile, around two-in-ten are actively scaling software coding agents.

“Among AI tools, chatbots are the most widely scaled, with 47 percent of respondents saying their organizations are scaling them across the enterprise,” the report states.

“About two-in-ten respondents report reaching the scaling phase across their organization with AI agents and a similar share report the same with software coding agents.”

Mismatched AI productivity

Workforce productivity gains rank among the most notable improvements for enterprises, according to McKinsey.

Around 80% of respondents said that AI has improved individual productivity, while 50% report that AI helps them “make better decisions”. Crucially, however, McKinsey warned that “the experience is not universally positive”.

Mid-level managers and individual workers are more likely than executives to report AI-related problems. McKinsey said this shows that AI impact “remains concentrated” among certain groups within the enterprise.

This is by no means the first study to highlight this trend. Research from Accenture in April this year found many enterprises are dealing with mismatched AI productivity gains.

Similar to McKinsey, the report found that workers are reporting benefits with the technology such as higher-quality output levels and faster project delivery times.

Yet the report pointed to a “widening gap” between the basic use of the technology and its wider enterprise impact. A key factor, Accenture said, lies in the fact that organizations' process changes are “lagging behind” integration rates.

Similarly, many AI strategies typically fail to modernize underlying IT infrastructure or workflows to accommodate the technology.

“A striking finding this year is the gap between individual gains and enterprise impact. At the individual level, AI is clearly a boon: 80 percent of survey respondents say it has improved their productivity and half say it helps them make better decisions,” said Dan Tinkoff, senior partner at McKinsey.

“Yet, only 37 percent of organizations report any positive EBIT contribution, essentially flat compared with last year.”

AI costs are taking the shine off enterprise gains

Cost-related concerns continue to weigh heavy on IT leaders’ minds, according to McKinsey. Around 20% of respondents said that AI-related operating costs have “constrained their AI use”.

“Those cost constraints are being reported across the full range of AI tools. For each of three tools – AI chatbots, AI agents, and software coding agents – about one-in-ten respondents say their organizations’ use has been constrained by costs,” the report states.

McKinsey also highlighted token-related cost concerns. This has become a recurring pain point for some businesses over the last year as firms ramp up adoption of the technology.

The ‘tokenmaxxing’ trend, for example, has prompted a surge in usage and landed some firms with hefty bills.

As ITPro previously reported, Accenture asked workers to stop using AI for basic tasks amidst skyrocketing costs while Uber revealed it blew through its entire annual AI budget in just four months.

Rising operational costs haven’t dampened investment rates, however. More than one-quarter (28%) of respondents said their organisation is now spending more than 10% of their total IT budget on AI tools.

“Looking ahead, 60 percent of respondents expect their organizations to increase their AI investments over the next year,” McKinsey noted.

“Respondents in pharmaceuticals and medical products, insurance, and banking and other financial institutions are the most likely to expect increasing investment.”

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Enterprises are falling into a trap of using AI when it’s not necessarily needed, and it’s costing them dearly, according to Roger Lee, AVP of solutions consulting at Appian.

Speaking to ITPro, Lee said the hype surrounding AI - particularly agents - is pushing some IT leaders to apply the technology in an ‘AI for the sake of AI’ type approach.

“I think a lot of organizations and a lot of senior executives and staff within organizations have been told to ‘do AI’,” he said.

“So rather than just pushing AI for the sake of AI, look at what the decisions are we’re trying to improve, what data we are using, and where does that human oversight sit.”

Lee’s comments come after Accenture told staff to stop using AI for unnecessary tasks amid surging costs. As adoption of the technology accelerates, he told ITPro that enterprises need to have a serious conversation on how they integrate AI tools.

Agents vs business rules

Pursuing the ‘AI for the sake of AI’ approach means that many businesses aren’t just incurring huge costs, but adding needless complexity to processes that were already streamlined prior to the generative AI race.

“The key thing is really trying to identify the right place for AI versus just trying to use AI to solve everything,” he said.

“In many cases, if it’s straightforward automation, if there’s a business rule where you’ve got a definitive yes or no answer, then sometimes business rules and workflows that result in a definitive answer are the right way to go.”

Admittedly, Lee said there are instances where agents are necessary, especially with regard to research or complex problem solving tasks. Acknowledging that this is a case of different strokes is crucial, however.

“I take an example from insurance with an automation claim, where you wanted to do some research and do some work, then an AI agent might be the right solution for that,” he said.

“But it's really understanding the right place to use a rule versus an AI agent, and the impact that that can give.”

This is particularly relevant in regulated industries, Lee said, where margins of error can have huge ramifications.

Agents are highly effective in terms of dynamic reasoning, he noted, but in cases where businesses need a “really definitive zero error response” then IT leaders need to know where and when to automate.

“Regulated industries is another area where humans in the loop are really important,” he said.

“It's what makes processes accountable. So to ensure that not everything is automated, where you have things that are exceptions or outliers, that you absolutely have humans in the loop to respond to those.”

Shoehorning AI into processes

Enterprises have found themselves shoehorning AI into areas and processes that aren’t applicable, research from Gartner shows. Moreover, they’re expecting near-immediate returns with the technology.

Ironically, a key factor behind this lies in the desire to deliver returns on investment with AI. Yet by doing so they’re less likely to unlock any benefits.

Speaking at the time, Melanie Freeze, director of research at Gartner, said that many AI initiatives are “overly ambitious or poorly scoped” and don’t align with “real operational needs”.

Ultimately, Lee told ITPro that as with any adoption process, AI should still be viewed as a “business pull rather than technology push” approach.

“I think that the whole value that you can get from AI within an organization is all around what the business needs, rather than what the technology can push to the organisation,” he said.

“First and foremost, what problems are we trying to solve, rather than where can we use AI, and that changes the perspective on what we're trying to do,” Lee added.

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Exclaimer has announced the launch of MSP Connect, a new partner program designed to help managed service providers (MSPs) provision, manage, and scale email signature services across customer environments.

Available immediately, the initiative brings consumption-based billing, centralized self-service provisioning, and dedicated channel support together with integrations for ConnectWise, Kaseya, and Microsoft Marketplace.

Exclaimer said the program has been designed to address the operational challenges MSPs face when managing email signatures across Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace environments, where updates can otherwise require manual, user-by-user administration.

With MSP Connect, billing adjusts according to actual customer usage, allowing MSPs’ costs to increase or decrease as customers add or remove users.

MSPs will also have access to a redesigned partner portal that allows them to provision and manage signatures across multiple customer environments from a single location, while native integrations with PSA platforms aim to reduce administrative work.

In an announcement, Exclaimer chief operating officer Jim Turner said MSP Connect was developed in response to feedback from partners around the ease of use and billing model of the program’s predecessor.

"MSPs have been clear about what they need from us: a platform that is easy to provision at scale, a commercial model that flexes with their customers and commercial support that helps them grow," he explained.

“MSP Connect is the reset. It removes unnecessary steps, gives partners more control through self-service, and aligns billing with what their customers use."

Strengthening MSP revenue generation

Exclaimer’s MSP Connect launch marks the next phase of its channel-first growth strategy as the email signature management specialist looks to strengthen its partner network.

Partners already account for 30% of the firm’s annual recurring revenue, while its global channel ecosystem includes around 5,000 partners.

The company said MSP Connect will now enable partners to add email signature management to existing Microsoft 365 and managed services relationships without introducing a complex deployment or support burden.

MSPs can generate license margin, bundle Exclaimer’s technology into wider managed services packages, as well as create additional revenue through services such as signature design, deployment, and ongoing management.

"An MSP is a business within a business. It needs to manage hundreds of customer environments without adding operational drag," commented Louise Taylor, vice president of channel at Exclaimer. "If getting one customer live requires a long sales process or a services project, the economics stop working."

Reducing friction for MSPs

Exclaimer’s new program includes not-for-resale (NFR) licensing, dedicated channel account management, as well as co-brandable partner enablement materials.

The vendor said its platform can be deployed by MSPs in under an hour depending on the customer environment, using directory data to populate approved signature attributes across Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace without requiring any heavy integration project or mandatory professional services.

Additionally, MSPs can build additional services around the platform, including signature template design and template catalogue creation, while their customers’ marketing teams can utilize approved campaign banners, engagement analytics, and rule-based signature content.

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For years, much of the relationship was anchored by the renewal itself. Customers turned to partners for help making sense of license positions and vendor terms, and the transaction carried enough margin to support the account work around it.

With Gartner expecting worldwide IT spending to reach $6.31 trillion this year, driven by software and AI infrastructure, the market is still growing around partners. The difficulty is that growth no longer flows through the channel in the same way.

A license can still open the account. Its value now depends on whether the partner can use that moment to extend their services to support the broader software estate.

Buying is moving around the reseller

A large part of the traditional reseller model grew around Microsoft licensing and the incentives attached to it. Backend fees historically gave partners dependable income around the customer relationship, often through repeatable work across accounts.

As those economics have narrowed, customers have gained more ways to buy technology. A reseller may spend months shaping the right solution, then see the purchase move through a marketplace because the customer wants to draw down an existing cloud commitment. The advice remains valuable, even when the transaction lands somewhere else.

Months of account work can suddenly become detached from the order. Understanding how the customer intends to buy has become just as important as understanding what they intend to buy.

A renewal now sits on top of a software estate that may have moved faster than the agreement in front of the customer. SaaS spreads through different parts of the business before central teams have a full grip on ownership. Cloud costs shift the economics of tools that once looked predictable. On top of this, AI capabilities are arriving inside the platforms customers use every day.

By the time the renewal comes around, the agreement today may not show enough about whether spend still accurately reflects how the business operates.

The license should open a wide view of the estate

To protect the relationship, partners need to turn the renewal into a clearer view of the estate behind it.

The license position shows what the customer is entitled to use. Usage data shows whether the business still depends on it. The gap between those two things often reveals important opportunities for optimization, cost control, and better decision-making.

Partners with Software Asset Management (SAM) and IT Asset Management (ITAM) expertise already have much of that capability. They understand how quickly entitlement can drift away from real use, especially when software is purchased centrally and then adopted unevenly across the organization. Turning that knowledge into a managed service gives customers a clearer view before the renewal deadline forces a decision.

SaaS management builds naturally from there. Applications can spread through teams long before central IT has a clean view of ownership or spend. A partner that can show which tools are active and which contracts no longer reflect use is helping the customer make a better renewal decision.

AI adds the same pressure in a newer form. Capabilities are being added into platforms customers already run, so the cost can build inside familiar contracts before the business has worked out where the value sits. Connecting that spend back to usage gives partners a stronger role than simply helping the customer process the next agreement.

Our 2026 State of the Cloud report findings suggest the services market is already moving this way, with nearly half of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) planning to offer AI consulting and SaaS management services. Enterprise use of MSPs has also risen year on year, which points to larger organizations looking for specialist help as their estates become harder to manage.

Margin must come from the services around the license

Partners that stay closest to the customer will be the ones that make the estate clearer between renewals. The license gives them a route into that work, then the service relationship has to carry it forward.

Account teams need enough visibility into usage and consumption to challenge assumptions before procurement turns the renewal into a price negotiation. Sales teams also need to be measured on the service opportunities created around the license, not only on the order itself.

Resale remains a key part of the channel, and the license still opens the door. More of the margin now comes from helping customers understand the full technology estate behind it. Understanding what they own, what they use, where costs are increasing, and where technology investments are delivering value.

In that environment, the most successful partners will be defined by the insight they provide and the outcomes they help customers achieve.

Organizations are mostly seeing a return on their AI investment, new research shows, but many are struggling to translate business context into AI systems and workflows.

Eight-in-ten IT leaders globally expect AI spending to increase over the next two years, according to Alteryx's 2026 IT Leader Research: The State of AI Ownership, Agents, and ROI report.

While 77% agree business context - the rules, definitions, and operational knowledge that shape how their organizations operate - is critical to producing accurate and relevant AI outputs, 53% say they struggle to incorporate this within AI systems and workflows.

The result here is that AI models are forced to make generic assumptions that could lead to mistakes, false insights, or incorrect metrics – and that has a big impact on business efficiency.

More than a third of respondents told researchers that the ability to measure AI ROI will be one of the capabilities that most distinguishes technology leaders from their peers.

Notably, firms are increasingly measuring AI success through productivity improvements (53%), cost reduction (45%), and revenue growth or broader business impact (39%).

“Our research highlights a growing gap between AI ambition and enterprise-scale execution,” said Andy MacMillan, CEO of Alteryx.

"Organizations have proven they're willing to invest in AI, and many are already seeing returns. But scaling AI requires more than better models. It requires making the business knowledge people use every day available to the systems making decisions.”

Lacking context

While AI can analyze information and generate responses, it can't consistently apply company-specific rules, policies, thresholds, and decision criteria unless that knowledge is built into the workflows it uses to make decisions.

Part of the problem is limited data access, Alteryx found, with only 18% of organizations reporting that business users have fully self-service access to cloud data.

Indeed, most are still relying on IT or data teams for routine data access and analytics, with 38% describing a mixed model and 15% saying business users remain largely dependent on technical teams.

Two-thirds of technology leaders say AI and agent-based systems are most productive when managed within the line of business, with 71% saying that AI initiatives are most successful when IT and business teams collaborate closely.

However, strategy (37%) and delivery (38%) remain concentrated within IT, while business teams are most often responsible for defining requirements (30%).

"The organizations creating lasting value from AI will be the ones that operationalize their business logic so it becomes visible, governed, repeatable, and ready for AI," said MacMillan.

What’s driving AI ROI?

The AI investments that appear to be delivering the best ROI are workflow automation and autonomous agents, cited by 27%, followed by copilots or assistants, at 16%, and AI-powered customer experience at 14%.

Virtually all IT leaders (93%) told Alteryx they were confident agentic AI could deliver measurable ROI for their enterprise within the next two years.

The first processes to be automated by agentic AI, they reckon, will be IT operations and incident management, cited by 47%, followed by customer support and service workflows at 39% and data analysis and reporting at 36%.

"Within our research, a small group of organizations self-identified as leading the way in AI innovation, confirming a clear path to achieving meaningful business value with AI technologies," the researchers concluded.

"These organizations point to a clear set of priorities behind their progress: rigorous measurement of AI's business impact, treating AI rollout as a strategic and operational priority, and building the governance and literacy needed to scale with confidence."

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UK small businesses have an increasingly optimistic outlook on the potential of AI tools, new research suggests, but bold leadership will be required to ensure successful deployment.

A study published by Dell Technologies shows two-thirds (66%) of UK SMBs now view AI as a “route to growth”. More than half (56%), meanwhile, told the firm that AI could give their business a competitive advantage moving forward.

This optimism is driving investment, the research found, with funding primarily aimed at unlocking productivity gains, improving customer experience, and improving decision making.

Brian Horsburgh, UK small business country manager at Dell Technologies, told ITPro the study shows AI is having a marked positive impact for SMBs, particularly in terms of allowing workers to sharpen their focus on specific tasks.

“One of the realities of working in a small business is that everyone wears multiple hats. Many people find themselves spending hours on admin, reporting, marketing or customer queries, even though those aren't the things that inspired them to start or join the business,” he told ITPro.

“AI can help take some of that work off their plate, giving them more time to focus on customers, creativity, and growth.”

Pulling ahead of the pack

According to Dell Technologies, a small group of “AI front runners” has emerged among UK small businesses.

Representing around 7% of the firms surveyed, these report the strongest gains from using AI, allowing them to free up six or more hours each week with the technology.

Horsburgh told ITPro that a recurring theme with these front runners is having a clear cut strategy and not rushing headlong into adoption for the sake of it.

Indeed, these companies are more likely to have dedicated leaders championing AI than their slower-moving competitors.

More than half (52%) have “clearly defined specific AI use cases”, the study found, often starting with small examples before moving to more complex use cases as they mature.

“Having the right strategy is critical. Our research shows that those who are gaining the most from AI today say that AI use is coming from leadership as a priority,” Horsburgh said.

“Adopting AI means identifying ways it can help you do more of what helps your business grow and in fact, the number one piece of advice that came through from businesses of all sizes is to start small and iterate.”

Horsburgh said the findings highlight the need for dynamic, open-minded leadership when it comes to AI adoption. Initial use cases are key, he noted, but employee training and cultivating an “AI-friendly culture” are equally important.

“Those three pieces are critical to building a culture that drives benefits,” he told ITPro. “The outcomes that SMBs are seeing are positive for staff: more time to think strategically, improving decision making, improving customer experience, and having the right environment can help teams see those benefits sooner.”

The SMB agility dynamic

Dell Technologies’ study emphasized that small businesses have an inherent advantage over larger organizations when it comes to adoption.

First and foremost, they’re typically more agile and flexible with how they approach the technology – and the report noted that is now translating into higher rates of success.

This advantage isn’t lost on large businesses, either, Dell Technologies found. Nearly two-thirds (61%) of larger firms said greater flexibility is a key advantage for SMBs. Similarly, they have “more focused business needs” and are less risk averse.

SMBs also recognize these advantages, according to Dell Technologies, and are less likely than their larger counterparts to cite key barriers, such as lengthy approval processes, employee resistance to change, or fear of failure.

“Smaller businesses can have an advantage because they're often more flexible and can move faster than larger businesses, so starting with one or two key opportunities can potentially have an outsized impact.” Horsburgh told ITPro.

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QBS Software has expanded its European security portfolio through a new distribution partnership with Futurex, a provider of enterprise cryptographic solutions.

The agreement will see QBS act as an official Futurex distributor across Europe, making its technology available to the distributor’s network of resellers and managed service providers (MSPs).

The deal means QBS partners will be able to support customers looking to modernize their cryptographic infrastructure, move security workloads to the cloud, and address evolving regulatory requirements.

Futurex’s portfolio covers a range of enterprise use cases, including hardware security modules (HSMs), centralized key management, public key infrastructure (PKI), certificate lifecycle management, code signing, data protection, and payment security.

The solutions can be deployed across on-premise, private and public cloud, as well as hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

In an announcement, Jordan Travers, group head of security sales at QBS Software, said Futurex’s portfolio offers a “comprehensive approach” to enterprise cryptography.

“Our partners can now support a wider range of customer requirements, from cloud HSM and key management to PKI and payment security,” he explained. “This partnership gives the channel a strong foundation for building trusted, scalable cryptographic services across Europe.”

Expanding partner opportunities in Europe

Part of the QBS Technology Group, QBS Software operates out of 20 offices across Europe and connects more than 12,500 SaaS and software vendors with resellers globally.

QBS partners will now have access to Futurex platforms including CryptoHub, which brings together cryptographic services and key management across distributed environments, as well as the firm’s cloud-based cryptographic infrastructure, VirtuCrypt.

The platforms are designed to help organizations reduce operational complexity, maintain control of cryptographic keys, and apply consistent security policies across applications and infrastructure. They also offer flexible deployment models, centralized administration, and support scalable service delivery.

For resellers and MSPs, the companies said the partnership will generate new opportunities to differentiate their security offerings without adding fragmented tools or complex operational processes.

Simon Marrion, Futurex’s director for channels, Europe, said QBS’ established network of security-focused partners will help the vendor expand its reach across the continent.

“QBS Software combines deep regional expertise with an established network of security-focused partners,” he commented. “Together, we can help European organizations modernize cryptographic infrastructure while maintaining the control, resilience, and compliance their environments require.”

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Globant has announced the launch of Glob.AI, a new AI marketplace designed to transform how enterprises access, purchase, and deploy AI services.

The platform brings a self-service experience to Globant’s AI Pods model, allowing organizations to identify a business challenge, select an AI Pod suited to the task, and access production-ready services through an output or consumption-based pricing model.

Released in mid-2025, Globant’s AI Pods are service units run by a set of AI agents and supervised by humans. According to the company, more than 40% of its top customers are already using AI Pods, generating a pipeline worth around £261 million.

Globant said Glob.AI uses defined and repeatable processes, while allowing customers to choose which AI models they use and where those models run.

Additionally, the company confirmed that customer data will not be used to train external AI models, while token consumption will be managed through a proprietary Token Vault designed to provide greater visibility and traceability over AI usage.

In an announcement, Globant CEO and co-founder Martín Migoya described the new platform as a “one-stop shop” for its AI Pods, with each one specialized by task and industry.

“Traditional AI adoption drives token consumption far beyond what efficient output requires, and the real cost is the wasted tokens plus the unstructured, manual supervision of AI,” Migoya said.

“AI Pods introduce a smarter model, running the right AI through parallel agents, loops, workflows, and deterministic processes, representing the true state of the art of what AI can deliver today.”

Globant also highlighted a number of early results from its AI Pods, including a 20% increase in throughput generation at global football governing body FIFA while improving or maintaining quality rates.

The technology also enabled AI deployment across key functions at LALIGA within three months, as well as a reduction of up to 40% in contract timelines at Argentine energy company YPF.

Elsewhere, pharmaceutical company PharmaMar has implemented the technology to accelerate oncology research insights by 15x, while a leading commercial bank completed a COBOL migration in two months compared with a projected 14 months using a traditional approach.

Globant said its Glob.AI platform aims to move technology delivery away from fixed-term projects and lengthy procurement processes towards a more continuous model, with customers able to access and monitor work in real-time.

The marketplace will also feature AI Pods developed with technology partners including Anthropic, AWS, OpenAI, Google Cloud, SAP, Salesforce, Vercel, Adobe, and Microsoft Azure.

"AI is not just making the same projects faster, it is making thousands of projects viable that never were before," commented Guibert Englebienne, co-founder of Globant. "Until today, enterprises could not buy technology services this way: instantly, transparently, paying only for results.

“That is the shift Glob.AI delivers, and the strong demand for AI Pods shows enterprises are ready for it."

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Rapid7 has announced a new distribution partnership with Exclusive Networks that will see the cybersecurity vendor expand its channel presence in the UK.

The agreement will see Exclusive Networks act as Rapid7’s strategic distribution partner across the UK, providing partner enablement and go-to-market support across Rapid7’s cyber security portfolio.

The partnership will see the companies work with strategic partners and managed security service providers (MSSPs) to expand access to Rapid7’s cyber security portfolio, as well as create new opportunities for channel-led growth.

In an announcement, Rapid7’s senior sales director for Northern Europe Ross Baker said Exclusive Networks’ regional expertise and cyber security focus made it well-suited to support the company’s UK expansion plans.

“This partnership is about creating long-term value for partners and customers alike,” he commented. “The UK market is a highly advanced, partner driven region and increasingly focused on outcome-based cybersecurity.

“Exclusive Networks’ deep regional expertise, cybersecurity specialisation, and commitment to partner enablement make them an ideal strategic distributor for Rapid7 as we continue investing in growth across the region.”

Rapid7 targets channel expansion

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Rapid7 specializes in cybersecurity software and managed services designed to help organizations tackle security threats, with its Rapid7 Command platform bringing together security data, AI, threat intelligence, exposure, and detection capabilities into a single offering.

The vendor said its distribution deal with Exclusive Networks will focus on increasing channel capacity, strengthening technical enablement, and accelerating go-to-market execution across its portfolio.

Exclusive Networks brings an established footprint in Northern Europe to the partnership, which includes more than 550 reseller relationships, as well as its cyber security-focused go-to-market expertise.

Additionally, the pair said they will work to help partners develop deeper cyber security capabilities and deliver services across the entire customer lifecycle.

Commenting on the agreement, Neil Brosnan, vendor alliances director at Exclusive Networks UK, said the next phase of cyber security growth will come from helping customers simplify their operations – rather than simply selling more point products.

“Customers don’t need more tools; they need platforms that help them see more, respond faster and reduce risk with confidence,” he explained. “That’s why Rapid7 is such a great addition to our portfolio.

“Together, we’re giving partners the technology and expertise they need to build more strategic security practices and deliver better outcomes for customers.”

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Otter.ai has appointed Mike Barnes as its first head of partnerships and alliances, as the AI software specialist looks to build out its global partner ecosystem and accelerate its enterprise growth.

Barnes is tasked with building and scaling the vendor’s channel ecosystem across the US, UK, and Europe, with an initial focus on recruiting technology partners, resellers, MSPs, systems integrators, and distributors.

He joins the business from Gainsight, where he most recently led partnerships, and brings more than two decades of experience across channel and partnership roles in enterprise software and marketing technology.

In an announcement, Otter.ai CEO and co-founder Sam Liang described Barnes’ appointment as an “important step” in the expansion of the company’s enterprise growth strategy.

“Mike has spent his career building successful partner ecosystems and understands what it takes to create value for both partners and customers,” he commented. “His experience will be instrumental as we expand our enterprise reach through the channel.”

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Otter.ai develops conversational AI designed to capture and structure knowledge from workplace conversations.

The firm’s platform automatically transcribes meetings and calls, generating insights and action items that can be shared across teams and integrated into existing workflows.

With the platform now used by more than 35 million professionals globally, the company is looking to expand its offering beyond meeting transcription towards becoming a tool for capturing institutional knowledge from across the wider enterprise.

Building a channel ecosystem

Barnes’ appointment marks the beginning of Otter’s plans to build a structured partner program from scratch, with the first phase to focus on partner recruitment, foundational go-to-market activity, and early lighthouse partnerships.

According to the vendor, the second phase will expand partner enablement, training, support, co-selling, and co-marketing resources, with the company also planning to develop regional growth opportunities across its priority markets.

Otter said it is looking to work with partners capable of helping enterprises deploy conversational AI across areas including sales, customer success, operations, media, education, financial services, and construction.

Commenting on his new role, Barnes said partnerships will play a key role in helping enterprises connect Otter’s AI capabilities with the systems and workflows they already use.

“As more enterprises adopt AI across their business, those tools are only as valuable as the context they can access,” he explained. “Partnerships will be critical to bringing Otter’s conversational knowledge into the systems, workflows, and teams where work happens. I’m excited to help build the ecosystem that makes that possible.”

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The doom-sayers appear to be wrong about AI leading to job losses, with government figures showing that UK businesses are using the technology to automate roles and support staff, not replace them.

New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests that firms are far more likely to use AI to improve operations than they are to reduce staffing levels.

Researchers found that, when asked how AI was being used internally, the most frequent answer was 'improving business processes', particularly among organizations with more than 50 employees.

AI adoption among UK businesses with 10 or more employees has almost tripled since late 2023, rising from around 12% to 35%. Larger organizations are leading the way, with 49% of those with 250 or more employees saying they use at least one AI system, compared with 28% of businesses with nine employees or fewer.

Notably, fewer than 10% of firms have reduced employee headcount as a result of AI, according to ONS figures.

But they're not taking on extra staff either, which is a problem. Just 1% of the smallest businesses and 1.2% of the largest businesses report increasing headcount as a direct result of AI. Around half of businesses report no change at all.

UK firms ramp up AI skills training

Businesses mostly said they were integrating AI skills into their workforce through training or reskilling existing staff.

Over 60% are doing so to reduce barriers to AI expertise within their workforce, and around 40% of medium- to large-sized businesses report integrating AI skills through training.

According to Fasthosts, which has analysed the data, fears that workers across multiple industries will be replaced may be unfounded.

"Economists are pushing to distinguish between task automation, where AI automates specific activities, and job automation, where an entire role disappears," the researchers said.

"Current evidence suggests that the former is occurring much faster than the latter, for example with tools such as AI receptionists which can step in by picking up routine enquiries when staff are unavailable. AI is primarily being used to automate repetitive tasks within existing jobs, rather than eliminate roles altogether."

Long-term gains

The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts that technological change could create 170 million jobs while displacing 92 million by the end of the decade, resulting in a net increase of 78 million jobs.

As ITPro recently reported, UK firms specifically view AI as a long-term growth driver when it comes to jobs.

Analysis conducted by Box found 65% of business leaders expect their overall headcount to increase in the next three years, with just 14% expecting numbers to decrease.

Of those using agents, only 8% said the technology was eliminating existing roles. If anything, it was creating demand for new AI-focused expertise.

Nearly half are hiring ‘AI agent operators’, for example, with 32% adding ‘workflow automation specialists’.

Other key areas such as security and compliance, governance, and ethics all recorded significant AI-focused job growth.

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It might not have the draw of the recent FIFA World Cup, but esports has a global, and growing, following.

Research suggests the global esports market is worth some US$5bn, according to data firm Statista. This is growing steadily, with some analysts predicting that the sector will reach US$10bn by 2035.

At the same time, the number of esports players is significant: Statista predicts 925m users by 2030. In the UK, trade body UKie values the sector at £111.5m.

UKie's figures date from 2019, though, so are certain to underestimate both the value and levels of participation in esports, not least because of increased uptake of gaming during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

In the game

Esports, or competitive video games, are not new. According to UKie, the first “esports” event was the Atari Space Invaders Tournament, back in 1980; 10,000 dedicated fans took part. Since then, the trade body says, esports has become the world’s fastest-growing entertainment sector.

This makes esports an important industry in its own right. Saudi Arabia usually hosts the Esports World Cup (exceptionally, this year’s tournament was moved to Paris). The Kingdom has put esports at the centre of its Vision 2030 strategy for economic diversification, with the sector expected to employ 39,000 people by the end of the decade.

Closer to home, British Esports has built a 15,000 sq ft arena and the National Esports Performance Campus in Sunderland. Clearly, there is more to esports than playing Call of Duty in a darkened basement.

And, while the direct economic impact of esports – from games development, tournaments and events and even merchandising – is significant, there is another reason it is attracting attention. Esports is gaining recognition as a way to develop digital skills. And organizations are starting to view gaming, and especially esports, as a way to attract and retain talent.

British Esport cites figures from the Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport stating that 80% of advertised jobs now need digital skills. At the same time, the digital skills gap is costing the economy £63bn a year. And, despite a cooling market in some areas of the technology sector, employers still struggle to attract digital talent.

Military first

One of the earliest sectors to recognize this is defence. Esports in the UK armed forces has developed largely from the ground up. But the activity now has official backing, with esports facilities on RAF stations and Army barracks and even an esports suite on HMS Prince of Wales.

In 2024, the MOD recognized esports as an official, military sport. Last year, the MOD’s Cyber and Specialist Operations Command worked with the British Esports Federation to deliver a defence and industry tournament, the International Defence Esports Games (IDEG). This will be open to military personnel from Allies and partners around the world, in due course extending to veterans, cadets and players in the defence industry. The inaugural IDEG Finals will take place in Sunderland this October.

The connection between esports and workplace skills in the military is a direct one. As the MOD states, fast responses and hand-eye co-ordination, honed by competitive gaming, are essential for troops operating drones.

But, the MOD says, esports develops other key skills, such as cyber awareness, decision-making under pressure, and leadership.

This, of course, is not new.

“For centuries we’ve used ball games like rugby and football to develop teamwork, hone mental and physical fitness and build resilience," said Lieutenant General Sir Tom Copinger-Symes, at the time Deputy Commander of UK Cyber & Specialist Operations Command.

"We’ve also used games to discuss ethics - how to win, but win well. That’s increasingly relevant in a world of AI and autonomous drones on the battlefield. Esports perfectly complement these games in preparing us for 21st Century security challenges."

And it is those “soft” skills that make esports a valuable tool for business too.

Business next

Esports can, and possibly should, be part of any business’ digital skills toolkit. And using esports to develop teamwork and communications is in many ways more practical than physical sporting leagues.

“Gaming generally is a good way of getting people to learn. It taps into a human love of play and collaboration,” Adam Waters, director of AI culture and gaming at BFBS, the forces’ broadcasting and media charity, told ITPro.

“It doesn’t have to be a competitive Call of Duty league, which is what many think of when it comes to esports.” BFBS recently launched its own esports Pro League for the wider forces community, with an emphasis on casual gaming.

Waters is also seeing defence companies standing up esports teams to play alongside service personnel. “Esports itself is something more companies seem to be formally getting involved in,” he says.

“Something I’m seeing in a lot of organizations is a need for technical skills combined with emotional intelligence or ‘people skills.’ People who game in teams should look at developing these.”

One advantage of esports is the way it is built around teams, with teams competing in leagues based around individual games. This allows players to gain skills, not just from play, but from managing teams or even running tournaments. The broader emphasis on teamwork is one reason the military and cadet forces value esports.

Professional skills

Learning to develop professional and organizational skills through esports goes alongside leadership and communication skills. But the way esports fosters a sense of inclusion is also important, according to George Osborn, author of Power Play and Editor of Video Games Industry Memo.

“Outside of a handful of direct links between playing games and developing a useful professional skill, such as using a controller and becoming a drone pilot, esports develop similar soft skills to sporting activities,” he told IT Pro.

And businesses can also build esports into social activities, brand building and potentially, recruitment. Skilled workers might be more attracted to a workplace that reflects their interests, and esports can be part of that.

But Osborn cautions that enterprises need to be aware of cultural nuances around esports, and understand that building a community takes time.

Some esports, he says, are more commercial in nature; for others they are driven by the local gaming culture. Some games, such as fighting games, are even “properly countercultural”, he warns, and might not lend themselves to a corporate endeavor.

“Take baby steps to understand these things, align around communities that can work with you, and provide long-term support to a sector that is still finding its feet,” he recommends.

On the face of it, the channel model is the perfect arrangement. Partners gain access to technologies and revenue opportunities they could never build alone. Customers benefit from top-drawer advisers who can bring together the right solutions for their needs. And vendors get to extend their reach into markets and sectors that would be impossible to serve directly. Everybody wins.

So why is there so much friction in the channel, and why is it seemingly getting worse? A report by the global channel trade association – the GTIA – found that satisfaction with vendor relationships has declined year over year, falling from 39% in 2025 to just 18% in 2026. 

The reasons cited in the report touched on a number of challenges, including the rise of AI. But there are other issues as well, such as the sheer complexity and administrative burden of setting up and maintaining a properly functioning partner program. 

The hidden operational cost for partners

The result is that staff end up spending a disproportionate amount of time running the program rather than working with customers. 

Sales teams are forced to spend time on administration rather than selling. In some cases, people are employed for no other reason than simply to carry out the back-office functions of running a program. 

There are certification and recertification requirements. Time is spent completing mandatory training courses, as well as tracking and maintaining multiple vendor accreditations. 

Then there are the onboarding processes for new vendor relationships, managing multiple partner portals and logins, deal registration administration, and rebate and incentive program management. And let’s not forget the inconsequential task of monitoring program changes, updates, and new requirements. 

The operational cost of running some programs is becoming a real burden. And it’s happening because somewhere along the line, the channel has started to mistake complexity for sophistication. 

In other words, the IT channel has become so focused on complicated products, architectures, services, and business models that it assumes something is better simply because it is more complex.

Little wonder, then, that when the conversations dwell on such matters, they ‘risk turning into therapy sessions about how bad some programs are’.

Clearly, one approach to handle increased complexity is to invest in platforms, processes, and people to handle it. In fact, the channel ecosystem has become so convoluted that an entire specialist software sector has emerged to help vendors manage the process. 

The 2025 Canalys Channels Ecosystem Landscape report found that there are 261 companies – driving $7.46 billion in revenue in 2024 – simply to help companies ‘design, develop, execute and manage a broad channel partner and alliance ecosystem’.

Simplicity is becoming a competitive advantage

The other approach, though, is to make them simpler – something that really hit home during a recent bucket-list trip to Italy. 

Life there moves at a different pace, and it pushed me to reassess how I look at things – not just personally but also in terms of my work with the channel as well. I have to say that it has reshaped my own thinking in terms of making things simpler, clearer and less complicated.  

For me, that means going back to basics. And I think it can be boiled down to four core areas. 

First, vendors need to simplify the rewards and incentives on offer. As we’ve seen repeatedly, complex incentive structures, overlapping programmes, and opaque reward mechanisms tend to create unnecessary administrative effort and uncertainty. In reality, partners should be able to clearly understand how their investment translates into benefits. 

Second, sales enablement needs to focus on capability, not box-ticking compliance. Training, certifications, and specialisations should help partners solve customer problems and grow their expertise, not tie them up in unnecessary red tape.  

Third, there should be a laser-like focus on improving the overall partner experience. Portals, onboarding processes, deal registration systems, and day-to-day workflows shape how partners experience a vendor. As I mentioned earlier, small points of friction can quickly accumulate into a significant operational burden. 

Finally, vendors need to create greater commercial predictability for their partners. After all, they need to make decisions about hiring, training, and business development based on expected returns. Without clear discount structures, transparent requirements, and predictable program rules, how can partners be expected to plan and invest with confidence?  

In fact, I’m so convinced that this is the right approach that I would argue that simplicity is becoming a competitive advantage. After all, partners have finite time and resources to deal with such matters. Vendors that respect those constraints, through clear programs, predictable rewards, streamlined processes, and reduced friction, are much better placed to succeed. 

Knowledge workers are secretly yearning for the days before AI entered the mix, with three-in-ten saying they preferred work before adoption of the technology.

In a survey of office workers by digital transformation firm Adaptavist, 65% said they preferred the pre-AI era and 38% would remove generative AI tools from the world entirely if they had the chance.

Younger workers in particular are among those most frustrated by AI, with 40% of Gen Z and Millennials saying they would scrap generative AI tools, compared with 32% of Gen X and 29% of Boomers.

The findings mark a shift in feelings about AI, the researchers said. While businesses continue to invest heavily in the technology, public concern is growing over its impact on jobs, workplace surveillance, privacy, and security.

Meanwhile, AI has introduced new pressures for workers, eroded the value of skilled work, and left employees feeling less engaged and less valued than before.

"These findings point to an underlying gap we see in most AI implementations," said Neal Riley, AI innovation lead at Adaptavist.

"It is much easier for organizations to focus on adoption metrics – who is using AI, how often they are using it – than it is to measure its impact on the work itself."

Just over three-in-ten (31%) of the workers who said they'd like to get rid of AI said it was because they believed it reduces creativity. Almost as many had ethical doubts, with 29% citing concerns over misuse and 28% worrying about surveillance and privacy.

‘AI slop’ is a leading frustration

Notably, nearly half (46%) said that dealing with low-quality 'AI slop' makes their job feel less meaningful and more repetitive. More than one-third (37%), for example, admitted it has made them less engaged at work overall.

It's not as if workers are seeing the big efficiency benefits often associated with AI, the study found. More than four-in-ten (42%) now spend more time verifying and fact-checking AI output than they actually save by using it.

Almost half said that poor quality AI-generated work is actively slowing down their projects, while 55% believe it is reducing overall team efficiency.

The findings from Adaptavist align with recent research from ISC2, which found nearly two-thirds (65%) of cyber professionals are spending more time deciding whether to trust or act on AI-generated recommendations.

A similar number (63%) said they now find themselves reviewing and validating AI outputs, creating larger workloads and essentially wasting time on a daily basis.

‘AI slop’ has become a recurring buzzword over the last 18 months. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella penned a blog post in January this year calling on the industry to disregard the term.

Yet research shows this is having a direct impact on workplace efficiency and productivity. As ITPro reported in January, analysis from Zapier found employees are working an extra four and a half hours each week cleaning up mistakes.

The consequences of not acting on low quality AI-generated outputs can be grave, the study noted. Respondents reported having had work rejected due to poor AI outputs, while others highlighted customer complaints and even security incidents.

AI is adding pressure

Workers are also feeling pressured, with half believing that their performance is now being compared – fairly or not – to AI-generated output.

Around a quarter are facing intense pressure to improve performance, improve quality, and be more efficient, just to keep pace in a machine-accelerated environment.

Another quarter said they use AI simply to meet workload demands, and 23% rely on the technology to keep up with colleagues.

"By understanding the nature of the work and the different value streams across your business, you can more accurately measure outcomes and impact rather than simply counting actions," said Riley.

"When AI is introduced thoughtfully, with the right guardrails and genuine support for the people using it, it can enhance rather than erode what makes work meaningful and impactful."

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Barracuda Networks has announced a series of enhancements to its Partner Success Program in a move the cybersecurity vendor said will help MSPs and channel partners strengthen expertise and accelerate growth.

The initiative now includes new enablement, marketing, and partner engagement capabilities designed to improve operational efficiency, deepen technical knowledge, and unlock new business opportunities through the BarracudaONE cyber resilience platform.

The update includes expanded demand generation tools, enhanced marketing resources, and partner experience improvements, alongside additional training and certification options via the Barracuda Mastery Program.

In an announcement, Michelle Hodges, senior vice president of global channels and alliances at Barracuda, said the latest enhancements reflect the company’s continued commitment to partner success.

“At Barracuda, our partners are at the center of every decision we make, from product innovation to go-to-market execution," she commented. "We’re creating more opportunities for partners to engage customers, sharpen differentiation and grow their business — and making it easier than ever to do so.”

Expanded partner capabilities

As part of the update, Barracuda is introducing a new through-channel marketing automation platform that features co-branded campaigns, social and email syndication, and turnkey campaign execution to help partners generate demand.

The company also revealed that it plans to launch a Partner Locator tool designed to connect customers with certified partners and help drive high-intent sales opportunities.

On the training front, the Barracuda Mastery Program has been expanded with additional role-based learning, technical labs, and advanced sales and technical badges aimed at strengthening partner expertise and validating specialist skills.

Elsewhere, the company has introduced new role-based experiences and automation within its Partner Portal, including guided onboarding journeys designed to simplify engagement, accelerate time to value, and help businesses scale.

Commenting on the refresh, Sean Furman, president at STF Consulting, said the enhanced program will help partners strengthen their expertise while tapping into new revenue opportunities.

“Barracuda’s expanded training, certifications and partner recognition programs give us the tools to build expertise and stand out in a crowded market,” he explained.

“These investments elevate our credibility as a strategic advisor and translate directly into greater customer value, stronger retention and new opportunities to grow high margin recurring revenue.”

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Google Cloud has recorded its best quarterly growth to date, with earnings reports showing revenue surging 82% to $24.8bn.

Across the wider company, Google-owner Alphabet saw revenue climb 24% to $119.8bn, with income up 30%.

Despite such gains, Google was still on the back foot, with share prices falling 3% after revealing a big boost in capital expenditure and being forced to defend delays to its top-end AI model.

"Q2 was an amazing quarter, with Alphabet revenues growing 24% year-over-year and Google Cloud revenues accelerating to 82% growth, driven by demand for AI infrastructure and AI solutions," said CEO Sundar Pichai in a statement. "It’s great to see wide adoption of Gemini Enterprise, with nearly 90% of the Fortune 100 using it."

"Our AI investments are redefining what’s possible across every part of our business."

Continued capex concerns

After the results were announced, Google admitted in a conference call it will increase its capital expenditure this year, which is largely focused on AI infrastructure spending such as data centers.

Last quarter, that was bumped up by $5bn to an already massive $180bn to $190bn, and it has now been increased to $195bn to $205bn.

Over the second quarter alone, Google recorded capex of $45bn, with most used to boost "technical infrastructure to support our investments in AI," said Anat Ashkenazi, senior VP and CFO, according to a transcript of the conference call.

"The increase in the range is primarily due to an acceleration in the delivery of capacity to meet growing demand," said Ashkenazi, adding that spending would "increase significantly" in 2027.

Google isn’t alone in dealing with surging capex rates. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is projected to spend $200bn and Meta plans as much as $145bn.

These huge outlays have sparked concerns about the cost of AI over the last 18 months, but industry leaders insist it's all part of the process. Pichai compared this stage of AI to the early days of the shift to the cloud.

"I do think it feels like we are in very early innings of what feels like a secular shift across multiple areas in our core information businesses just the possibilities when I see what all you can do with the absolute frontier capabilities, there's still a lot of work ahead to translate all that into experiences for our consumer users," he said, in response to an analyst question.

Ashkenazi added that "while we have increased our capacity quite significantly over the past 3 years, the demand still outpaces that investment."

AI delays

Google Cloud might be flying high, but concerns over AI model-related delays are rising among investors. The firm’s flagship model was once again delayed this week.

The company unveiled Gemini 3.6 Flash and a cyber-focused model, Gemini 3.5 Flash Cyber this week, following the lead of competitors such as Anthropic in the space.

However, Gemini 3.5 Pro wasn’t included in the launch after initially being set for release in June. Google said it would be made available "as soon as it's ready".

"Gemini 3.5 Pro is currently in testing and our team is already building the next generation of models," Pichai said on the conference call. "We have started our most ambitious pretraining run yet for Gemini 4 and are excited by the progress we are seeing at the frontier."

That didn't convince one analyst, Douglas Anmuth from JPMorgan Chase & Company, who asked about Pichai's confidence in keeping Gemini models at the frontier — the front of the pack, the leading edge of AI development.

Pichai defended Google's AI efforts, saying the company was "very committed and very confident of being at the frontier, and, model releases aside, remains a leader on "many attributes" — though he admitted work was needed on coding and agentic coding.

"I am very excited by the progress I'm seeing internally on Gemini 4, and I'm confident that people will be pleased when we are putting it outside," he added.

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Writing recently in ChannelPro, Lutz Lambrecht, chief partner officer at SNP Group, observed that strong partnership ecosystems show greater resilience in the face of economic turbulence and market disruption. He highlighted value alignment, versatility, and adaptable technology as key factors that build partners’ and vendors’ resilience.

Lambrecht described how stronger alignment on solution positioning, definitions of customer success, and the measurement of outcomes puts partners in a stronger position to communicate value and build credibility with customers.

The power of partner and provider alignment resonated with me as the CEO of a transatlantic digital agency that aims to help UK and US organizations in the public, private, and membership sectors to navigate cloud, digital, and AI transformation.

Looking for strong leadership

Many of our customers are seeking support to implement generative AI tools within their membership organisations.

Data from the Professional Associations Research Network (PARN) report 2025 [pg33) revealed that members expect their professional body to guide how to safely implement AI, and even which LLMs to select:

• 82% told PARN that they want best practice guides and case studies on AI implementation
• 67% want training on AI
• 64% want their professional body to regulate the use of AI in their profession
• 63% want their professional body to vet and provide access to approved AI tools

There is clearly a chain of trust at work. Members are looking for AI guidance from their professional bodies. In turn, professional bodies seek trustworthy support from their digital platform providers. And, finally, digital platform providers rely upon their technology partners.

Navigating change together

When you’re responsible for the performance, stability, and security of an organization’s website or e-commerce platform, you need full confidence in the technologies that you select to build it. But it goes deeper than that. You must also have faith in the people within the vendor’s organization and its core values.

During the recent Codegarden conference in Copenhagen, Karla Santi, CEO of American digital agency, Blend Interactive, presented the findings from the platinum partner’s survey of 40 small, medium, and large digital agencies, undertaken by Promethean Research. This revealed:

• The average revenue growth over the past year was 7.5% compared to 20% in previous years
• Sales cycles are extending
• Clients are seeking more business case framing and asking ROI questions earlier in engagements
• Agency leaders are feeling the strain of navigating market disruption
• agencies that reduced services and specialized achieved above-average growth

Based on the survey data, Santi encourages fellow digital agency leaders to refine their services and protect their relationships.

In the first episode of the Loom podcast, I sat down with Mats Persson, CEO of the open source CMS platform company, Umbraco, to discuss how business leaders can remain confident in such uncertain times.

We discussed how the vendor’s values of transparency and flexibility are tightly aligned with our own, and how this helps us to build trust with customers.

An open culture opens doors

Referring back to Lambrecht’s point about value alignment, it was Umbraco’s openness that first attracted us to become a partner. We were able to make an informed decision about whether it was the right organization and technology for us to partner with because, to a large degree, we were permitted to look behind the curtain.

We could see what the company was really like, what its enterprise aspirations were, and how central partners really are to its growth strategy.

As Persson commented during the podcast discussion, “You gain more trust if you're open and willing to share your challenges. Partners can handle the truth. If you're transparent with them, it’s an opportunity to fix something, and that becomes more trustworthy.”

Gaining confidence in the cloud

Vendor trust was a really important aspect in my decision to put Umbraco Cloud forward when speaking to our clients about their projects. The company’s transparency solidified my decision to move from us hosting customers’ sites to building enterprise customers’ projects on Umbraco Cloud.

There was an established feedback loop of Umbraco listening to partners and customers. This is not merely performative. Umbraco has demonstrably acted upon feedback. That gave us enormous confidence that when we saw a pain point, we knew it would get fixed.

We didn't switch everything over all at once. We started to feel it out, to see how the support functions. We explored what the challenges were and what we needed to change to get the best out of it. We liked what we saw and started to build increasingly complex sites on Umbraco Cloud.

Quality beats quantity

As Lambrecht wrote in ChannelPro, “The strength of a partner ecosystem is not defined by the number of partners in a network, but by how effectively partners are aligned, enabled, and equipped to deliver value in changing conditions. At the core is a shared value narrative that brings together complementary strengths of vendors and partners, with both combining to create a joint proposition that is clearly differentiated.”

We talk about trying to build a culture of openness within our organization and with our stakeholders. But if we were dealing with a CMS vendor that didn't share those values, wasn't providing the necessary level of support, and wasn't adapting the product based on feedback, that would show to the end client.

Ultimately, carefully choosing who you work with is a major consideration as we all navigate these uncertain times together.

We are not unique. Indeed, many other companies are on the same journey of discovery to get to a point of established trust and create the foundations of current and future success.

When Allbirds, an eco-friendly luxury shoemaker, announced in April it had struck a $50 million (£37 million deal) to become an AI data center provider, its stock surged more than 580% in a single trading session.

Whether things aren't quite working out, or whether you've identified a brilliant opportunity, pivoting into a new space is often the best bet for surviving – and thriving.

The technology industry is rife with reinventions. Take Nintendo, which started out making handmade toys, or Amazon, which was a mere humble bookseller.

Plenty of companies have successfully made a transition from one line of business to another – sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes out of necessity, and sometimes so dramatically we've forgotten their original purpose. Here are some of our highlights.

1. BlackBerry: From phone maker to auto software developer

In February 2016, BlackBerry acquired the U.K. cybersecurity company Encription as it embarked on a dramatic pivot into cybersecurity consulting. It then broadened its horizons to the software space and now, with the QNX operating system, the firm develops critical software and services for more than 275 million cars around the world.

"It's been a large transformation over the course of the last decade as we've divested businesses and really narrowed our focus towards the B2B segments of QNX and Secure Communications," BlackBerry CEO John Giamatteo told Richard Quest in an interview with CNN in January this year.

"So that narrowing of focus has allowed us to simplify, reduce our costs, divest ourselves from subscale businesses, and really put ourselves in a much better position for profitability and long-term growth."

2. Nokia: From paper mill to handsets to next-gen networks

Like BlackBerry, Nokia gained worldwide recognition for its outstanding mobile phones – manufacturing devices from 1982, starting with the Mobira Senator, and now continuing in spirit under the spun-off HMD Global brand.

The origins of the Finnish technology icon, however, stretch back to 1865, when engineer Fredrik Idestam established the company as a paper mill.

It wasn't until a significant merger more than 100 years later — where Nokia, Kaapelitehdas, and Finnish Rubber Works merged to create the Nokia Corporation — that electronics became a key line of business.

Although its reputation faded in the 2000s with the birth of the smartphone — and the eventual sale of its mobile and devices division to Microsoft in 2013 — Nokia continued to make waves under the radar, and under the ground.

It began focusing on networking in 2014 and is now undergoing a major pivot away from sluggish telecom hardware toward AI-native networks, data center networking and 6G tech.

3. Samsung: From groceries to electronics and beyond

Samsung is among the world's most widely known brands and one of the 21st century's biggest technology success stories. The South Korean institution deals in all kinds of goods from fridges to smartphones to laptops to speakers.

In fact, it's hard to find an electronic device that Samsung doesn't manufacture. But the company didn't always start this way.

The company actually started life as a small grocery trading company in 1938, with the 40-employee-strong entity dealing in dried fish, local groceries and noodles. Amazon may have pivoted into this space recently with its Fresh stores, but for Samsung, groceries have always been in its lifeblood.

Samsung didn't enter the electronics industry until the late 1960s, when it started manufacturing black-and-white TVs. It's now a trillion-dollar company that comprises 80 separate companies, spanning construction, financial services, medical services, and many other areas.

In the future, Samsung is hoping to focus on the technologies of tomorrow, including agentic AI and 6G communications.

4. Slack: From gaming to workplace collaboration

Slack is one of the most widely used collaboration platforms on the planet, with the multi-billion dollar business boasting tens of millions of daily users each day.

Well before its massive acquisition by Salesforce for a tidy sum of close to $30 billion (£22.5 billion) – and indeed before it rose to prominence – the company's origins lay in the world of gaming.

When co-founder of photo-sharing site Flickr, Stewart Butterfield, attempted to get his new venture Tiny Speck off the ground in 2009, he developed an internal communications platform to help the team as it was developing its computer game Glitch.

This fanciful 2D MMORPG launched in 2011 and was eventually shut down roughly a year later — with these efforts to make it big in the gaming world ending in tears.

From these ashes, however, Butterfield pivoted the company and instead focused his team's efforts on making their internal communications tools public. Hence, Slack Technologies — and the widely used platform we now know today — was born.

Why Slack? It stands for "Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge". Glitch is long dead, but you can still find a wonderful homage to Slack's origins on its website.

5. YouTube: From dating site to video hosting

The video-sharing platform YouTube has become a giant force in the technology industry, especially since its acquisition by Google, and it's become a hub for businesses across the world.

Millions of users have created businesses using the site, and many existing organizations use the hosting platform as an extension of their own businesses to push video content to billions of viewers.

But before the first video, 'Me at the zoo', was uploaded more than 20 years ago, its founders originally aimed to create a video dating site. The vision, according to co-founder Steven Chen, was to build a platform that allowed people to upload videos of themselves describing their ideal partners.

"We always thought there was something with video there, but what would be the actual practical application?" Chen said at SXSW 2016 in Austin, Texas, according to CNET.

"We thought dating would be the obvious choice."

Delinea has cut the ribbon on a new global partner program designed to improve partner profitability and simplify engagement with the identity security vendor.

The Delinea Partner Advantage Program introduces a range of new incentives and operational changes, including protected discounts, published deal registration rules, AI-powered training, and streamlined quote-to-cash processes.

Developed following partner feedback gathered through a global listening survey, the initiative aims to address ongoing channel concerns around margin erosion, channel conflict, and unclear rules of engagement, while providing partners with a more structured framework geared towards long-term growth.

In an announcement, Scott Goree, Delinea’s senior vice president of channel and alliances, said the company has avoided unnecessary complexity and focused on combating the practical challenges faced by partners.

“Partners don’t care about your partner program,” he commented. “They care about technology that works, protected discounts, and a vendor that’s easy to work with. We built this program around what partners told us they actually need.”

Inside the Partner Advantage Program

California-headquartered Delinea’s identity security platform governs access for human users, machines, and AI agents across on-premises and cloud environments, continuously working to discover identities, analyze risks, and apply least privilege access controls.

The firm said its new channel program has been built around three pillars – Protect, Align, and Scale – and includes codified rules of engagement, AI-driven enablement, and greater channel autonomy to help partners drive growth through the platform.

According to the vendor, partners will benefit from published deal registration policies, teaming protections, and earned incumbency discounts designed to reward them for maintaining and expanding customer relationships.

The program also includes AI-powered training and certifications alongside a new partner portal that offers guidance throughout the sales cycle.

Elsewhere, Delinea is also providing simplified tools and automation to help reduce administrative complexity across the quote-to-cash process, allowing partners to spend more time on customer engagement.

AI adoption fuels channel opportunity

The launch of the Delinea Partner Advantage Program comes as organizations continue to adapt to identity security challenges driven by the increasing presence of AI technologies.

According to the vendor’s 2026 Identity Security Report, 92% of surveyed organizations said they expect AI to amplify identity-related threats in the coming years, while 42% said that AI expansion has already increased their non-human identity risk in the past 12 months.

Delinea said its new program will help partners tap into this growth opportunity and benefit from a new revenue stream backed by its identity security platform.

Commenting on the launch, Mark Thornberry, senior vice president of partnerships at GuidePoint Security, a Delinea partner, said the vendor’s new initiative “reflects a strong commitment” to building successful, long-term channel collaboration.

“The program provides a clear framework that supports how we work together in the market, while recognizing the value partners bring through the customer relationships we cultivate and support," he said.

Enrolment for the Partner Advantage Program is now open for selling partners, with roles for MSPs, GSIs, advisory, and technology partners to follow.

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The IBC event is back again for another year. And we’re pleased to announce that our IBC Best of Show Awards program is still open for submissions.

The Amsterdam-based event, which runs from 11-14 September, is designed to recognize the most outstanding broadcast products and solutions. ITPro's Best of Show awards aim to showcase the best of the best. Entries are open now until the extended closing deadline of 23:59 CET on Friday, Sep 4. You can enter via the website here.

ITPro is joined by other key Future B2B sites - AV Technology, Installation TV Tech, TVBEurope, Radio World,, and Sound & Video Contractor - in hosting the awards program.

Nominations are reviewed by a panel of industry experts who consider the overall quality and relevance of a given product, its design and build quality, the business/operational benefits, and other key factors such as cost-effectiveness and innovation.

It's £525+VAT per entry, but it really is worth entering to ensure your innovation gets the attention it deserves.

The benefits of entering are:

•  Fully-licensed nominee badges for all entries to use in both digital and print promotions.
• Dedicated editorial coverage across participating brands. Online, newsletter and social promotional activity for all winners from participating brands. 
• Winner marketing assets to further promote your success. You will receive an official award winner's badge, fully licensed to be used with your winning product both domestically and overseas at no additional cost in addition to a winner's social assets.
• Complimentary winner trophies to display your success. Winners will receive a trophy to display their success to IBC attendees.

So don't delay; make sure you enter today! Or certainly before the closing deadline of 23:59 CET on Friday, Sep 4.

A group of current and former Meta employees is suing the company, claiming that it used AI to target those on medical or family leave for layoffs.

In May, Meta announced it was cutting around 8,000 staff, representing roughly 10% of its workforce. According to the lawsuit, the tech giant used AI systems to identify those set for redundancy.

These systems allegedly took into account keystroke monitoring data, AI token usage

“Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work,” court filings state.

“Instead, Meta used a constellation of internal artificial intelligence systems — including a system referred to internally as ‘Metamate,’ employee-trained ‘second-brain’ agents, keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance ranking and calibration — to score, rank and select employees for inclusion on the list.”

Complainants allege this put employees on protected medical or family leave, or those whose output was reduced by a disability, at a disadvantage by penalizing them with reduced performance scores.

"The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves."

In one example, an employee was laid off while on approved pre-birth pregnancy leave – the day before her waters broke, and just two days before she gave birth.

In another, a manager’s own performance review noted that his demotion followed his return from medical leave; he was put on the list sixteen days into a second medical leave.

The 26 plaintiffs claim that Meta has violated state-protected leave laws, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

They're calling for a preliminary court ruling that would stop Meta from finalizing the layoffs while they pursue their ​claims.

“Once these separations are final, the harms are irreversible: employer-subsidized health coverage lost during pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and active medical treatment; time-bound leave rights extinguished; unvested equity forfeited; and immigration consequences triggered,” they said.

Plaintiffs are also seeking financial compensation that could include reinstatement, back pay, lost equity, benefits, and other damages.

AI in HR is a delicate balancing act

The use of AI systems in HR and recruitment has been a long-running point of contention, particularly with regard to the potential for bias or discrimination.

Workday, for example, is facing a class-action lawsuit amidst claims its AI software discriminated against job applicants. As ITPro reported in June, the company hit back at the claims, with a spokesperson insisting its AI solutions “don’t make hiring decisions”.

Ilia Kolochenko, founder of cybersecurity company ImmuniWeb and a lawyer practising in cybersecurity and data protection, noted that over-regulation of the use of AI in HR could cause long-term harm.

"With the current trend to restrict or even entirely ban AI in HR decision-making processes, most organizations will either conceal the use of AI or shift back to non-AI systems especially in those jurisdictions that have no GDPR-like protection against automated decision-making on human subjects," he said.

"Compared to AI-powered HR systems, their non-AI homologues are quite primitive, fail to consider the relevant context and often provide incorrect metrics or data,” Kolochenko added.

“For instance, a poor performance of a delivery truck driver will not be correlated with extreme summer heat or winter snowfalls, sudden family loss or simply a technical issue with the vehicle. Eventually, innocent persons are wrongly punished.”

ITPro approached Meta for comment, but did not receive a response by time of publication.

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British companies have doubled spending on AI, but they need to also invest in the basics to ensure real results.

That's according to research from ServiceNow, which ranked the UK 51/100 in terms of overall AI maturity despite companies spending 102% more than they did in the year prior.

ServiceNow pinned that on a failure to invest in the foundations needed for AI, including data management and governance processes, and updating legacy systems.

According to a service by the company, 73% of UK executives said they were finding inadequate data accuracy, access, and management a major barrier to rolling out and using AI.

Just 20% of UK businesses had implemented testing, auditing, and risk assessment for AI, for example. Under one-fifth (17%) of businesses surveyed in the UK had also replaced legacy systems with integrated platforms.

"UK organizations are investing heavily in AI, which tells us the challenge is not ambition," said Damian Stirrett, Group Vice President and General Manager for UK and Ireland at ServiceNow.

"It is connecting that commitment to the operational infrastructure that makes AI work across the enterprise."

The ServiceNow results follow similar research from Cisco earlier this year that found nearly all companies are expanding privacy and governance work in response to AI adoption.

Not ready for AI

While two-thirds of UK companies polled had used agentic AI, just 6% did so to create autonomous workflows, highlighting a lack of maturity in AI roll-outs.

That was echoed by findings showing that 15% of UK organizations have streamlined or integrated workflows using AI, which ServiceNow said showed a gap between AI investment and operational readiness

"Too many businesses are bolting AI onto fragmented systems, disconnected assistants and workflows that have not yet been reimagined," said Stirrett. "The next phase is about moving from isolated pilots to trusted, end-to-end workflows that can deliver at scale."

ServiceNow said improvements will require getting the right data, governance, and workflow foundations in place to scale AI.

You can't spend your way out of trouble

Despite the challenges, UK spending is largely on par with that across EMEA, which saw AI budgets leap by 113% over the last year. By 2027, AI spend will make up 20% of IT budgets, ServiceNow predicted.

However, the company noted that organizations that are succeeding with AI aren't necessarily spending more, pointing to 21% that are seeing strong returns.

Instead, they have the "most mature governance", including data management and risk controls, and that's helping to deliver a 164% return on investment now. The company predicts this could climb to a 199% return on investment within two years.

Governance, the company argued, doesn't slow innovation but is "operating discipline" that enables it, in particular when it comes to scaling quickly and ensuring systems are trusted and auditable.

That echoes comments earlier this year from Tenable co-CEO Stephen Vintz, who said enterprises need to consider the "responsibility gap" with regard to AI governance.

Speaking at RSAC Conference 2026, Vintz pointed to the fact that 90% of organizations had adopted AI and half have already had a related cyber incident.

"There is a fundamental mismatch between the exponential speed of AI adoption and the linear speed of traditional corporate governance, and things will only move faster and things will only become more complex," he said at the time

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European small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are bullish on generative AI, according to new research from SAS and IDC, and some are setting an example in how to nail adoption.

Analysis conducted by IDC on behalf of the data management firm shows SMBs across the region are executing AI deployments in a far more efficient manner to global counterparts.

In North America, for example, SMBs scored strongest in terms of planning and building, but many aren’t reaching full deployment.

This contrast suggests European organizations are making “stronger progress in operationalizing AI and embedding it into day-to-day operations”.

A key factor in European SMB successes lies in readiness, according to the report. IT leaders across the region are prioritizing areas such as governance before diving head long into adoption projects.

“Organizations treating governance as a foundation rather than an obstacle are often the ones best positioned to execute,” said John Carey, Senior Vice President of Global Channels at SAS.

“The findings suggest European SMBs are taking a more operational approach to AI adoption – focusing not just on experimentation, but on putting the right structures in place to scale AI effectively.”

Notably, Carey suggested that “stronger execution performance” among European SMBs may be due to regulatory considerations such as the EU AI Act.

Simply put, IT leaders at small businesses across the region are accelerating preparation to ensure compliance with the legislation.

It’s perhaps no surprise then that governance, risk, and compliance for AI has emerged as the top priority for SMB leaders, cited by 26%.

Progress on this front is easier said than done, however. The study noted that uncertainty is rife with regard to compliance, risk management, and security.

Nearly one-quarter (24%) identified this as their biggest execution barrier with AI adoption.

Still a long way to go

Despite positive signs for European SMBs, on a global scale the pace of AI adoption is still slow. SAS noted that many are “still struggling to move from experimentation to meaningful business impact”.

Nearly three-quarters (70%) of SMBs worldwide either remain in ‘experimental’ or ‘opportunistic’ stages of AI maturity, for example. Similarly, only 9% have fully embedded AI into daily operations or decision making.

Slow progress in AI maturity is, at least in part, due to traditional data-related problems such as silos and visibility. Nearly half (45%) of SMB leaders said their data remains “scattered across systems with no clear ownership”.

A similar number (46%) said AI tools are often still used in isolated environments across the business, preventing teams from aligning workflows.

Notably, 90% of those in experimental phases report having no formal AI strategy in place, which is impeding progress for IT leaders.

“To actually make something of their AI strategy, SMBs need to move from disconnected pilots to true alignments of their data, people, and resources,” said Daniel-Zoe Jimenez, VP of research at IDC.

“Experimenting with the technology is one thing. Deploying it strategically and sustainably is quite another.”

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The memory market continues to reel from shortages created by the diversion of resources to the manufacture of higher-margin AI infrastructure memory. DRAM (Dynamic Random-Access Memory) and NAND flash memory used in mainstream devices are now in such short supply that prices have been pushed up by 130% leading to PCs increasing by an average 21%.

While device shortages were also apparent during the COVID pandemic, prices then remained stable. Instead, today’s situation is more akin to the shortages in new car production which saw a spike in demand for second-hand cars with prices rising accordingly. OEMs are experiencing similar issues with respect to stock availability which means they are struggling to fulfil contracts, with shipments expected be down by between 6.6% to 23%, resulting in lead time slipping.

To make matters worse, geopolitical events are further compounding matters. The war in Iran is now disrupting the production of helium, which is essential for chip manufacturing, for example, with around a third of the world’s supply of helium comes from Qatar. The war is also seeing the oil needed by chipmaking nations such as South Korea and Taiwan delayed or rerouted. Consequently, there’s no real way of knowing when production might normalize.

Lack of supply chain resilience

What the shortages have revealed is a considerable lack of resiliency in the supply chain. Rigid procurement and device refresh strategies now seem woefully out of step and stockpiling inventory is not a viable option because it risks purchasing at the peak and saddling the organisation with too much stock. Instead, we need to look at how we can plan, buy and manage technology to accommodate these kinds of events.

Some organizations are playing for time by delaying device refreshes. They’re moving from a proactive three-year cycle to a “replace on failure” approach, with average life cycles then stretching to 4.3 years. But this can have a knock-on effect on efficiency and productivity, not to mention higher break-fix support costs. Others are considering second-hand devices or switching to vendors with more available stock, but they don’t necessarily have the market knowledge or the capability to put those devices through their paces.

Then there’s the software issue. The memory shortages are also forcing organizations to look at how and where they run their software and whether they can make changes to compensate for hardware shortages. For example, some are looking to load-balance servers to use capacity more effectively.

It’s these kinds of issues that Channel partners are ideally placed to help with. Their knowledge of the market can prove indispensable, as they can draw on their relationships with manufacturers to lock down shipment schedules and pricing. They can also provide flexible financing to ease budget constraints and source or even road-test equipment from alternative suppliers on behalf of their customers. That makes it more likely that organisations will end up with a ‘mixed estate’ of devices that those partners can then help to manage.

How the channel needs to adapt

But to fulfil those roles, the channel must adapt. Rather than continuing to focus on the same sourcing strategies, partners need to begin looking at where they can create efficiencies by offering advice, lifecycle management and ‘intelligent refresh’ strategies. The latter is particularly interesting because it steps away from the cyclical nature of the traditional refresh approach. Instead, it seeks to stagger and prioritise deployments by assessing device health, performance and user requirements.

Intelligent refresh uses a data-driven approach to lifecycle management. Tools such as benchmarking and Digital End User (DEX) solutions are used to assess device utilization and map personas and workloads, for example. Potential devices from different OEMs can then be tested to see if they will align with the performance requirements of the organization, and financial options explored such as CAPEX, leasing or DaaS. Once selected, the devices can be configured according to those personas, secured and asset tagged. Then DEX tools can be used to track health, usage and UX, ensuring high uptime and devices remain matched to the needs of the employees.

Taking a data-driven approach enables partners to utilize real-time performance data, which can then be used to help with planning for refresh. Because this forecasting is based on utilization, it sees blanket refresh cycles replaced with smaller strategic waves, making it easier to fulfil those orders and maintain a consistent inventory.

In addition to assisting with the sourcing of hardware, partners can also offer device lifecycle management. They can provide a range of support, from security covering patching, policy enforcement and endpoint analytics, through to rapid break-fix support such as field-based repair to keep employees productive, and device management by tracking warranties, managing spare or loaned devices and extending asset value. They can even help claw back revenue by assisting with the resale of second-hand components.

In this way, partners can step up to help their customers adapt to this new normal. The memory shortages, initially expected to last into 2027, could now last years, according to Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang, which means organizations will have to become more strategic in how they manage, maintain, and replace their end-user devices. That will drive an uptick in demand for partners who can advise on the optimization of hardware and software to improve utilization and longevity, who can manage a mixed estate, and draw upon data to devise intelligent refresh programmes that then forecast exactly where and when new devices are needed.