INDUSTRY VIEW
At the same time, the AI shift is prompting partners to rethink which vendors they want to align with. Implementing AI is expensive, as it requires training, specialisation and sustained investment in skills.
Partners want reassurance that if they commit to a vendor’ s ecosystem, the vendor is equally committed to enabling their growth, not competing with them. This is strengthening partner loyalty, but not necessarily vendor loyalty. Customers trust the partners who manage their service level agreements, understand their industry nuance and show up consistently. Relationships, not technologies, are becoming the major differentiator.
In 2026, vendors who succeed in the Middle East will be those who embrace a genuine channel-only mindset and focus on empowering partners with services, training and revenue models that help them win.
Turning AI inwards – The new engine of partner productivity
Much of the industry conversation around AI has focused on customer-facing use cases, but the biggest shift for channel partners in 2026 will be how they use AI internally. Historically, smaller partners struggled to maintain functions such as inside sales or sales development. Building pipelines, qualifying leads or keeping up with follow-ups required manpower they didn’ t have. Today, AI is rewriting this equation.
Across the region, partners and distributors are beginning to use AI tools to supercharge their internal operations. Some SolarWinds distributors, for instance, have built their own Generative Pretrained Transformer models trained on the product stacks they sell, enabling them to provide instant troubleshooting and value-added support. What once required several specialists can now be accelerated by a single AI-assisted employee. This improves customer experience, raises productivity and allows partners to differentiate in ways that previously required significant investment.
Think about something as simple as following up on leads generated at a major event such as the Gulf Information
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