Trusted Tech Exec on Microsoft Growth in AI, Cloud & More

The expansive ecosystem of Microsoft solutions touches virtually every aspect of the tech stack powering SMBs today. Channel Insider spoke with Samuel Ra, the senior solutions marketing manager at Microsoft-oriented solutions provider Trusted Tech, to learn more about the state of the channel for Microsoft partners and how AI adoption is fueling demand in other sectors.

How Trusted Tech enables SMBs through its Microsoft offerings

Before a customer even experiences the benefits of Trusted Tech’s myriad technical offerings, Ra says the first win many experience is in cost optimization. The provider examines each of its clients’ licensing agreements and tech stacks to determine opportunities in consolidation and savings.

“A lot of smaller IT teams face small budgets and don’t have the expertise to handle every tech problem,” Ra said. “We want to help our clients do more with less through cost optimization and then enable them to leverage new technologies, too.”

The provider’s array of services includes support for on-prem and cloud environments. Trusted Tech also works with its on-premises customers to make informed decisions at the right time when considering migration to a cloud environment. For many SMBs that have yet to transition away from on-premises solutions, Trusted Tech helps their customers communicate across their organizations and address technical and business issues.

As constantly changing tariff threats loom and general economic concerns prompt businesses to reassess their priorities, Ra says his team sees firms evaluating the scale and flexibility of cloud solutions with a fresh perspective.

Still, Trusted Tech doesn’t prescribe the cloud to every customer. It supports a variety of hybrid environments, enabling its clients to maximize the benefits of their infrastructure in any setup required.

“Our customers bring us their pain points, and we try to deliver the solutions that address those problems with their unique needs in mind,” Ra said.

Security & data governance: the trends within the AI trend

Like virtually all partners at this point in 2025, Ra says Trusted Tech has seen growth in its AI readiness and adoption offerings over the past year.

To Ra, AI demand has created an increase in what he calls “adjacent conversations” around how an organization manages its data and various security protocols.

“The true potential of AI is manifested through data governance and strong asset rights management,” Ra said. “You need to have strong security layers in place to get the most out of your AI solutions.”

Ra says that as a Microsoft partner, Trusted Tech has seen significant interest in Copilot. Still, his team doesn’t want to simply sell Copilot licenses to businesses that lack the necessary governance plans and infrastructure capabilities to support long-term results from AI investments.

“We say to customers a lot that we understand they want to jump on Copilot and use it right away, but that there’s a way to adopt AI in a productive manner where you can get even more out of it than you think,” Ra said. “We want to isolate the gaps and the needs across an organization to protect them and the customers they might serve from security and data problems.”

Trusted Tech’s Copilot readiness assessments, initially created with the goal of shoring up technical challenges before implementation, have also inspired what Ra calls a “myth-busting” across the provider’s diverse portfolio of customers. No matter the vertical, Ra says, his team finds that many organizations still see AI tools like Copilot as a relatively simple plug-and-play technology that requires little thought or action.

Ray also notes that he knows many customers seeking the potential promised by these tools lack an existing background in AI technology, and it is up to Trusted Tech to guide those organizations through complex implementation processes and build rapport as a trusted partner that ultimately serves the interests of end customers.

“These are topics that are still daunting to a lot of our customers. Our job is to help our customers look good to their own customers,” Ra said.

Many channel partners are helping their customers determine the best use cases for tools like Microsoft Copilot. We created a guide for solution and service providers to leverage when determining AI strategies.