Dive Brief:
- The channel’s share of global IT spending will decrease this year as AI infrastructure investments continue to mount, according to Omdia. The analyst firm — a Channel Dive sister company — estimates that less than two-thirds of technology spending will flow through the channel this year.
- “Overall, while we are seeing the total share IT spend going through the channel declining year on year, from 69% last year to 65% this year globally,” Omdia Principal Analyst Alastair Edwards said. “We are not saying that the importance of the channel is declining — in fact partner influence is continually increasing, not reducing,” he said.
- Omdia expects the channel to account for just 63% of global tech spend next year, as hyperscaler AI buildouts continue to drive the market. The shift reflects massive amounts of capital flowing into direct sales of servers and processors from “a tiny number of very large datacenter customers,” Edwards said.
Dive Insight:
Partners are privy to a smaller share of an expanding pie. Gartner expects global IT spend to increase $13.5 year over year in 2026, surpassing $6.3 trillion as an AI building boom continues.
Raw spending doesn’t tell the full story, Edwards said at an Omdia event in London last week. The nearly two-thirds of spending that goes through the channel doesn’t include purchases where a customer contracts directly with a vendor after receiving advice, consulting or implementation support from a partner.
Omdia estimates that well over 90% of tech purchases are assisted by partners in some way.
“Looking at the transaction only doesn’t capture the advisory and consulting influence partners bring to the customer across the lifecycle,” said Edwards.
Some cloud and software vendors have taken a greater proportion of their largest customer transactions direct, while simultaneously expanding their use of distribution and indirect channels to address midmarket and small business customers.
Edwards said large vendors were taking more AI business direct because the channel didn’t yet have all the skills required to support enterprise deployments.
The trend shouldn’t be interpreted as a deliberate attempt by AI vendors or hyperscalers to remove partners from customer engagements.
The development of forward deployed engineer teams, which embed vendor specialists with customers, is a touchier subject. Edwards said there was a risk of greater competition between vendor service teams and partners. However, the more immediate challenge is a shortage of talent capable of delivering complex enterprise AI projects.
“Given the shortage of these resources in the market, and intensifying competition for these skills, the greatest competition will happen between vendors for the most capable partner ecosystems, rather than between vendors and partners,” Edwards said.
Directly deployed engineers could ultimately create more opportunities for partners by helping customers begin AI projects that would otherwise remain stalled because the necessary skills were unavailable, Edwards added.
AI companies and hyperscalers are sending FDEs to partners. It’s a practical strategy.
“It’s clear that vendors who understand the force multiplier effect of working with partners rather than against them are best positioned to win,” Edwards said.
OpenAI and Anthropic recently launched partner programs, while Google has committed $750 million to expanding its agentic AI partner network. FDEs and AI enablement assistance programs are becoming common among large vendors.
Partners that build specialist AI capabilities will have strategic value. Those that are unable to develop those AI skills face the greatest threat.
“Partners who don’t embrace this or are slow to move are at most risk moving forward,” he said.
