Cisco’s channel partners expect artificial intelligence (AI) to drive an increasing volume of revenue over the next few years.
The vendor has quizzed its channel to gauge the reaction to AI, revealing that many partners view it as an opportunity to pitch more infrastructure, security and customer experience technologies.
The headline finding of the global study, presented in Cisco’s Bridging the customer AI readiness gap – the opportunities ahead for partners report, was that many channel players expect AI to be responsible for the majority of their revenues in the next four to five years.
Almost a fifth of those UK partners questioned believed as much as 76% to 100% of their revenue would come from AI-related technologies by 2028/29. Just shy of a third expected AI to be responsible for between a quarter and a half of revenues by this time next year.
When it came to translating that increased customer demand for AI-driven technologies into specific areas, the partners indicated it would include infrastructure, security and customer experience.
“The potential for AI to transform business operations is immense, and realising this requires a concerted effort to strengthen our partners’ practical deployment capabilities,” said Alex Pujols, vice-president of global partner engineering at Cisco.
“This study highlights the significant revenue opportunities for IT partners to lead AI deployment. By focusing on AI readiness, Cisco and its valued partner ecosystem are well-positioned to drive transformative outcomes for our customers and leverage the opportunities of the AI era,” he added.
The opportunity that’s in front of us with AI is going to change everything we know about business, everything we know about life and society. It is happening faster than any of us ever imagined
Scott Chasin, Pax8
Cisco’s UK partners also expressed confidence in their knowledge and understanding of AI technologies, and recognised the challenges they needed to overcome to deploy and support them.
Hurdles that need to be jumped include inexperience in deploying new technologies, lack of knowledge of systems and processes, and a lack of available technologies.
Partners indicated they had already started to take steps to alleviate those problems, with many investing in upskilling existing staff by providing internal training and reaching out to vendors to see what support was available.
AI has had a significant impact on the channel in 2024. For example, AI-capable PCs already account for around 14% of sales, and that is only set to rise next year.
Speaking at the Canalys Channel Forum last week, Scott Chasin, CEO of Pax8, said AI had come to the fore rapidly and partners needed to recognise the potential of the technology and get into a position to support it.
“ChatGPT was introduced to the world a year and nine months ago, and I think collectively we were all pretty blown away by it. Now it’s ‘Is that all it can do?’. We haven’t seen anything yet,” he said.
“I don’t see it slowing down at all. The opportunity that’s in front of us with AI is going to change everything we know about business, everything we know about life and society. It is happening faster than any of us ever imagined,” he added.
Chasin said market evolution meant its partners had to get ready for AI and keep up with the pace of change.
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