Hammer moves to dispel AI confusion

Hammer has cut the ribbon on a programme that has been put together to enable channel partners to get through the complexity of artificial intelligence (AI) to understand where it translates into business value.

The distributor’s Hammer AI Works offering is the firm’s response to the ongoing confusion that exists at both partner and customer levels around the technology.

Research has been piling up that indicates there is a hunger from customers for AI, but many are struggling to deploy the technology because the use case has not been fully established and they lack the in-house skills to handle it.

Hammer AI Works will establish a community of vendors, resellers, integrators, AI consultants and ISVs that will create an ecosystem sharing best practice and establishing use cases that will result in real outcomes for customers.

The distie will enable connections via a portal that provides access to AI specialists, pre-sales solution architects and a network of data science and AI consultants.

There will also be an opportunity to link partners with ISVs that have developed vertical expertise and established clear uses cases across specific customer bases. The ecosystem will be backed by Hammer’s integration centre.

Hammer has forged links with AI experts to ensure it provides an authoritative source of enablement through its programme.

“AI has moved from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a strategic imperative, yet the complexity of the landscape remains a significant barrier,” said Adam Blackwell, director of AI, servers and advanced technology at Hammer. “With Hammer AI Works, we aren’t just distributing technology; we are providing the roadmap and the engine. Our new laboratory and ecosystem of specialists allow our partners to stop experimenting in isolation and start delivering production-ready solutions at scale.”

The AI Works Laboratory will provide access to an environment where live demonstrations and proof-of-concept sessions can run, use cases can be validated to customers, and partners will be given an opportunity to increase their confidence around pitching and delivering artificial intelligence.

It has been six months since the name Hammer remerged in the channel, after the distributor resurrected the brand, ending a period of being known as as Exertis Enterprise reverts. Since then, the channel player has set out its stall to be the destination for data infrastructure and security.

Speaking last October, Jason Chibnall, managing director of Hammer Distribution, outlined the position of the business: “Hammer has always stood for people, expertise and outcomes that make the difference. By returning to the Hammer name, we are bringing that clarity back to the market and signalling our commitment to powering the future of enterprise IT.”