Survey finds technology partners predict major revenue shift to AI, citing infrastructure, cybersecurity, and customer experience as key drivers

Cisco released findings from its new Cisco Global AI Partners Study. The study, titled Bridging the Customer AI Readiness Gap – The Opportunities Ahead for Partners, revealed that IT partners around the world are anticipating a transformative wave of AI technology demand that will drive the majority of their revenue over the next four to five years. According to the study, (40%) of the partners surveyed in APJC believe that over 50% of their revenue will come from AI-related technologies during this period. 

The study highlights that 44% of partners believe the demand for AI-related technology investments will grow by more than 75% in the next four to five years. The Partners surveyed for the report, highlighted infrastructure (31%), cybersecurity (17%), and customer experience (9%) as the top three drivers of AI technology demand in the coming years.  As AI demand surges, partners also foresee a significant shift in their revenue mix. In the short term, 35% anticipate AI will contribute to 26-50% of their revenue a year from now, while in the long run that contribution is expected to become even higher.

“The potential for AI to transform business operations is immense and realising this requires a concerted effort to strengthen our partners’ practical deployment capabilities,” said Alex Pujols, VP, Global Partner Engineering, Cisco. “This study highlights the significant revenue opportunities for IT partners to lead AI deployment. By focusing on AI readiness, Cisco and its valued partner ecosystem are well-positioned to drive transformative outcomes for our customers and leverage the opportunities of the AI era.” 

The Cisco Global AI Partners Study, a double-blind survey of over 1,500 IT partners across 29 markets, assesses partners’ capabilities in the age of AI. These findings align with the Cisco AI Readiness Index, which found that companies globally lack readiness for AI adoption, revealing gaps in infrastructure, data management, governance, and talent. Built on the insights from the Index, the Cisco Global AI Partners Study reinforces the crucial role partners play in helping customers achieve AI readiness.

Partners show confidence and invest in overcoming challenges

The findings indicate robust confidence among partners in their knowledge and understanding of various aspects related to AI technologies. The assessment focused on several specific solutions and capabilities for AI deployment across the four pillars of infrastructure, data, governance, and talent. 

These capabilities include:

• Building scalable and adaptable AI-ready infrastructure;
• Ensuring sufficient GPU resources for ongoing projects;
• Assessing and maintaining latency and throughput of data centres;
• Understanding data sets, data sovereignty, and privacy laws across different regions/countries.

While partners show strong confidence in their knowledge and understanding of deploying AI technologies, they also understand the challenges they need to address to maximise the opportunities ahead. The biggest ones are inexperience in deploying new technologies (64%), lack of knowledge of systems and processes (54%), and a lack of available technologies (52%). To address these challenges, partners are already heavily investing in upskilling existing employees in AI-related competencies, with 80% conducting either internal training or inviting external vendors to provide specialised training.