TALKING POINT
AI DATA GOVERNANCE IS BECOMING THE CHANNEL’ S NEXT REVENUE LINE
Kurt Michael, Chief Revenue Officer, Kiteworks, tells us why AI governance, data security and zero-trust principles represent a high-value services opportunity for partners, enabling them to build trusted advisory relationships while helping customers manage the growing risks of shadow AI and regulatory compliance.
Kurt Michael, Chief Revenue Officer, Kiteworks
Gartner predicts that 40 % of organisations will experience a security or compliance incident caused by shadow AI by 2030, those unsanctioned tools employees adopt without IT’ s knowledge or approval. That isn’ t a warning about some distant future. It’ s a description of the gap channel partners can start monetising today.
Every enterprise is deploying AI somewhere. Procurement copilots, support chatbots, coding assistants, forecasting models bolted onto the CRM. However, very few have matched that pace with the policies, access controls and audit trails needed to govern it. Gartner expects that gap to force a correction. By 2028, half of organisations will adopt a zero-trust approach to data governance, largely because so much AI-generated data now moving through their systems can’ t be verified or traced.
This is where the channel’ s real opportunity sits and it isn’ t in reselling another AI platform.
Partners who build a practice around those questions are selling something a vendor’ s self-serve AI console cannot: judgment. An AI vendor risk assessment. A data-access review ahead of a zero-trust rollout. An ongoing governance retainer. These are services, not SKUs, and they scale with expertise rather than discount depth. Exactly the kind of margin the channel has been chasing for years.
The partners who move first will also own the relationship longest. Governance work surfaces every future project a customer needs help with, from access reviews to new AI deployments, long before a competitor gets a seat at the table. It’ s the same discipline good resellers already apply before any AI sale. Slow the conversation down, understand the data and the regulatory obligations attached to it, then architect toward the outcome rather than the product.
The gap Gartner and Ponemon are describing will not close on its own, and most enterprises won’ t close it internally before the incidents start piling up. Channel partners who reposition around that gap now won’ t just capture a new revenue line. They’ ll become the advisor customers call before they buy anything at all. •
That correction carries a cost today, not just a future one. The Ponemon Institute’ s 2026 Cost of Insider Risks Global Report found that negligent insiders( employees using ungoverned tools, including shadow AI, without realising the exposure they’ re creating) now account for 53 % of total insider-risk cost. An average of US $ 10.3 million annually, up 17 % year over year.
This is where the channel’ s real opportunity sits and it isn’ t in reselling another AI platform. It’ s in helping customers govern the AI they’ ve already deployed.
Too many resellers still default to product-first conversations: which platform, which licence tier, which integration. That competes purely on price, and it misses the larger, higher-margin engagement sitting right next to it. A governance and risk assessment answers three questions most customers haven’ t asked themselves yet. What data this AI system reaches, who is accountable for what it produces and what will an auditor expect to see.
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