It should surprise no one at this point that the top players in the IT channel are highly focused on GenAI adoption amongst their client base. ONE, the Ingram Micro global partner event, offered practical use cases for clients today and a peak at the vision of the future.
Building AI solutions today for scalable success tomorrow
Research from Goldman Sachs shown at the opening reception predicts nearly $2 trillion in spend on AI by 2030.
But what exactly will end user customers be spending this $2 trillion on, and from whom will those purchases be made? According to AI giant Nvidia, the MSPs, resellers and other channel partners who start their AI business practice today will be the winners of tomorrow.
“AI is real. It is happening. If you aren’t talking to your customers about AI, somebody else probably is,” said Geoff Fancher, the head of worldwide distribution for Nvidia. “There’s really two flavors of AI. You could be dealing with it in terms of embedded solutions, something like [Microsoft] Copilot offers, that’s a a game you can get into, and it’s a different investment model. If you really want to helping a customer build specific workloads, solving a specific problem, you have to invest in a much bigger way. You have to decide, what’s my strategy going to be.”
Overcoming the hype: ‘a little less talk, a little more action’
Ingram Micro’s EVP of Global Technology and Chief Digital Officer Sanjib Sahoo took to the main stage during the event’s opening session to walk partners through AI adoption and opportunity. In doing so, he was quick to acknowledge the way hype around GenAI has not translated to action.
“There’s so much talk about AI, but how does it help us, and what does it mean for the channel?” Sahoo asked the crowd before reminding attendees that artificial intelligence itself is not new and has had many iterations since the first AI model was developed in the 1960s.
This long history means some solutions providers and resellers were already positioning themselves as AI and data experts with their customers, and have now transitioned that experience to enabling GenAI adoption.
Hans Mize, the president of Data41, is one of those providers.
“Our heritage is in data analytics,” Mize said. “But markets mature over time, and eventually every space gets more competitive. As margins start to decrease in one area, you have to figure out as a business how to grow and maintain your legacy.”
Mize sees generative AI as a bit of a “wild, wild west of confusion” right now, but said that confusion translates to opportunity, if providers can build practical and secure use cases for their customers’ AI journeys.
“What excites me is that we’re really only just scratching the surface with what generative AI can do and will do in the future,” Mize said.
GenAI learning journeys, Xvantage insights and more: Ingram’s approach to AI
“This isn’t your typical distribution event. This is ONE, the innovation summit,” Ingram Micro CEO Paul Bay said in his opening remarks. The innovation coming out of the global distributor is largely tied to new capabilities within the Xvantage platform.
Sahoo told attendees that Ingram Micro has built and deployed multiple AI models to best provide partners with actionable insights and recommendations for their business directly in the Xvantage platform. The platform now offers recommendations, for example, on additional products, services and warranties partners can add to orders to increase spend from existing customers. There are also data-driven insights on where a partner might be best suited to grow into new markets geographically and vertically.
All of this is designed to address what Ingram Micro believes is the most precious of all resources: time. The company hopes Xvantage will automate routine processes enough that MSPs will see more time available to work on strategic business initiatives like growth. And when they have that time to spend, Xvantage will also give them the guide to where that growth might take them.
“Ingram Micro has such a large data set because of how many of us exist in this ecosystem,” Mize said. “I am definitely interested in taking what Xvantage gives us and using that as a component of our success.”
Ingram Micro Ultra, the new loyalty program unveiled at ONE, also includes a curated pathway to enablement and solutions selling focused exclusively on the AI market. Xvantage Enable was built to help MSPs and resellers “better navigate the evolving technology landscape with greater confidence and clarity about what to market, sell, share forward, and support,” according to the press release issued by Ingram Micro.
The program starts with an AI assessment that will be used to determine where each partner should start along the pathway, tailoring the journey to the unique business needs of individual partners within the vast Ingram ecosystem.
AI is just one of many technological areas channel partners are focused on for next year. Learn more about other key opportunities for channel growth in 2025.