ePlus President on AI Market Trends and Security

Technology solutions provider, ePlus, is coming off a strong financial year in 2025. As a partner to more than 4,600 customers, the company is in a unique position to help organizations operationalize AI securely and at scale.

According to a recent ePlus AI Industry Pulse Poll, 72.7 percent of customers have increased revenue through AI, despite only eight percent reporting having fully integrated, mature AI deployments.

Channel Insider spoke with the president of ePlus, Ken Farber, to discuss AI implementations and ePlus’ role in the market.

ePlus’ role in market trends and investment priorities

According to Farber, ePlus is always keeping in touch with its customers by soliciting feedback, attending events with them, and collecting information to help set direction for those customers and help them achieve their business cases.

“We do something a couple times a year called a Pulse Survey, where we survey our customers on brands that we believe are going to be impactful for them,” Farber says. “Obviously, one of them this year was AI. We had spent a lot of time in the security arena as well over the past year and a half with them, and then working with our partners on what they’re doing directionally, from a development standpoint. There’s a lot of factors that feed into that model.”

Why Farber thinks modernization and future-proofing are likely goals for 2026

Farber highlights that, for customers, it’s important to modernize environments alongside security and AI investments. Going into 2026, Farber predicts that customers will be focused in the right areas, including future-proofing environments.

“A lot of legacy technologies require modernization, so emphasis is being placed there, and emphasis is also being placed on data normalization,” said Farber. “You have modernization of the infrastructure, you have security, and then you have the AI investments. Those are the three areas that we’re seeing.”

Drawing on results from his company’s recent survey data, Farber sees an incoming shift from cost reduction to revenue generation through AI. He also mentions that 80.7 percent of the survey respondents express concerns that their current infrastructure may be insufficient to support AI.

“We’re seeing this shift in terms of where they’re trying to go. We’re also seeing that there’s a talent pool issue, and that’s a significant concern for enterprises,” said Farber. “And then obviously the security aspect of that with AI and keeping up with all the technology and everything that’s occurring there creates more security concerns.”

AI’s impact on aspects of IT

From hardware to software, AI is affecting every aspect of the IT ecosystem. The number of companies born into the space is staggering – similar to the explosion the IT ecosystem saw with cloud.

“If you look at the fabric of technology, networking, infrastructure, collaboration, security, data center – it’s hitting every architecture and there’s use cases within every architecture,” said Farber.

When used appropriately, implementing AI and AI security in your organisation can yield several benefits. There’s an enormous amount of data that people haven’t gotten the opportunity to dive into and get the insights that they need, Farber notes.

“Whether they be for healthcare and clinical trials to predictive analysis to problem solving – significant issues that we face, both as individual companies or as economies go – it’s just endless opportunities,” said Farber.

Why innovation and disruption present opportunities for ePlus and its customers

What’s happening in the landscape of security and AI is going to change the complexion of how companies do business in the future, Farber says.

The technology and disruptive speed of development are creating opportunities for ePlus customers and for ePlus itself.

“What’s next is working with our customers on their business journey and helping them achieve and succeed in the goals that they have – to provide a consultative set of solutions to help them ideate their dreams and help them get to their business outcomes,” said Farber. “And then help them design, architect, manage, and build those environments for our customers.”

Organizations will have to look at their security posture, data posture, and infrastructure posture to see success, Farber notes.

“Those three elements are going to be necessary for you to be successful, be able to move and grow as an organization, and, you know, fail fast, right?” said Farber. “Experiment with a competent solution service provider, hopefully, but pilot what’s going to be best for your organization and move in that direction. It’s okay to have a fail-fast strategy in this one.”

The ePlus Industry Pulse Survey highlights emerging trends, including uneven AI integration, gaps in AI expertise, and uncertainty surrounding agentic AI. Learn more about the survey insights and how AI is seen as a driver of revenue growth.