Welcome to the Wild West.
That was the first thought I had while walking the show floor of the recent AI Summit with an MSP who was searching for AI products or services to add to his company’s portfolio. The experience was reminiscent of events that served the technology industry during the early days of the cloud explosion—powered by AWS and Azure—or all the way back to Comdex during the PC era, driven by Intel and Microsoft. The commonality of all those events was a proliferation of companies vying for attention, hungry for customers, eager to deliver well-rehearsed but meaningful pitches, and all aware they were part of something special.
Ever hear of AtScale, Abnormal AI, Crusoe, or 2501.ai? Interesting companies for sure, as is a company called Kognitos, which hired a former Zendesk channel executive to help drive sales of their AI software for expense management. They were all part of the more than 60 AI-focused companies showcased at the Informa-owned AI Summit. (Full disclosure: Informa also owns the Channel Partners Conference, where I work.)
After every booth visit in the crowded aisles, the same questions rattled around in my head: Who are these companies? Where is their funding coming from? Do they have an indirect sales channel? Can they survive? No matter what the answers, there was excitement around it all. This, despite persistent market chatter amplified in the media and on cable television by CNBC and Bloomberg TV, that the AI bubble will burst at any moment. Given the recent decline in stock prices of some AI-related stocks and data center build-out delays, those fears are somewhat justified.
Well, we’ve all been here before. Bubbles have burst, and we have somehow survived.
What was special about the AI Summit was the exposure to an entirely new language we all need to master in terms of fluency. Sure, many of us are comfortable talking (or faking it) about agentic AI, agency, and LLMs, but it isn’t so easy to speak in depth when it comes to inferences, semantic layers, trust, sovereignty, MCPs, or the difference between advanced automation and true agentic AI. That lingo is just the tip of the AI iceberg. The event struck home the need to understand all that and more — or be left behind — as this is one of those defining moments. Remember Andy Grove’s use of the term "inflection points"? Well, this is one of those moments that you can’t grasp until you are in the trenches, visiting booths at events, connecting with people you don’t know but who truly seem to get it, and fully immersing yourself in the experience.
At any tech conference, the main stage can be a mix of product pitches or corporate executives delivering well-rehearsed talking points memorized from PowerPoint slides. Some of it is useful, some forgettable. But those who watched what was called the “Headliners” stage of the AI Summit were treated to talks — both sponsored and independent — that featured customers who were putting AI to work across their business, along with an IT services provider positioning itself as a new-age AI partner. For instance, IBM Data & AI GM Ritika Gunnar (who will no doubt be a big star in the AI era) spoke about IBM’s offerings but quickly pivoted to an interview with Saugata Saha, chief enterprise data officer of S&P, who spoke about how his data firm is putting AI solutions to work. Then there was a talk on how to unlock the “semantic layer,” not the easiest of subjects on AI’s middleware, which was demonstrated by a next-generation AI partner, Hexaware, who took the stage accompanied by AtScale.
Lately, there have been some industry analysts questioning whether AI is having an impact on productivity. Such talk, at times, has put a damper on the outlook for AI stocks. Cold water was thrown on that argument by a group of technology leaders who are investing their company’s funds into AI projects, including Franziska Bell, chief data, AI, and analytics officer at Ford Motor Co.; Mike Shaw, SVP of engineering, data, and AI at Dow Jones; and Philip Rathle, CTO of Neo4j. The most memorable observation from those executives, who gathered on a panel moderated by JoAnn Stonier, a former Mastercard tech leader turned teacher, was that AI allows organizations to have endless resources in terms of talent — a major challenge businesses faced in the past.
The most important observation for channel partners is that at this conference, industry leaders kept driving home the importance of trust. Customers want to trust the AI solutions they are evaluating and will eventually deploy, trust the companies that are building those offerings and services, and trust the decision-making process. If there was ever a moment for channel partners to rise to the occasion and establish themselves as the source of that trust, it is now. Channel partners of all kinds have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and should seize this moment. We will be discussing this and more at the 2026 Channel Partners Conference & Expo. Register today for peer insights on AI.