AI plans gather pace - but expert partners are the key to success

Enterprises and growth firms are certainly doubling down on an AI future but what will be their practical path to operationalising these tools? What are the implications for channel partners?

The data certainly show that company leaders view AI as a priority for their business, even a transformational opportunity:one recent study suggests that UK organisations will up their AI investments by more than 25% in 2025. Nasuni’s own research of 1,000 purchasing decision-makers in the UK, US, France, and DACH regions has found a staggering 92% of companies have carved out an annual budget to support their AI projects. 

 And companies are planning a leaner operation with AI: almost half (46%) of our survey expects their AI implementation’s key outcome to be cost reduction, appreciably ahead of workflow automation (39%) and better customer experience (36%). 

That’s the enterprise AI vision, but what about the practicalities of bringing it to life?

Lasting obstacles to AI adoption

Despite companies’ ambitions and highly-focused budgeting, research studies identify deep-seated security, infrastructure and talent challenges that will pose real obstacles to their AI implementation plans. 

Our research found that one in three (34%) organisations believe that security and privacy concerns are roadblocks to successful AI adoption and worse, only one in five companies believe their data has been consolidated effectively for AI’s demands; these are endemic security and data management weaknesses that global-level research has already highlighted.

Tellingly for the prospects of integrating these sophisticated tools across their business processes and workflows, more than one quarter (27%) of companies we talked to believe they lack the skilled people to successfully manage it. 

Expert guidance needed from the channel 

Given these gaps between firms’ AI aspirations and their teams’ ability to deliver on them, there will be growing demand for strategic partners and integrators that can help ambitious organisations make the leap to AI adoption and greater business efficiency and innovation – while resolving complex infrastructure consolidation and cloud migration tasks that will underlie AI programme success. 

This preference for expert and trusted advisors also has its roots in today’s customers moving away from volume approaches to technology acquisition and instead seeking strategic, forward-looking vendors and insightful channel partners: VARs that can support an executive team to make a robust business case for AI investment, while derisking such projects with a channel marketplace approach that helps leverage corporate budgets more intelligently.

A C-level as well as an IT decision 

Companies’ openness to external input is strengthened by a stand-out factor revealed in our research: C-level executives' growing role in setting their organisation’s AI vision. Our data show that decision-making for AI projects is equally balanced between the C-suite (38%) and the IT department (39%). This “shared” C-level and IT leadership in the business as well as the technology priorities of transformation will drive demand for wider strategic perspectives as well as wider options in channel support.  

Demand for insights

Our survey found organisations across all verticals are committed to readying their tech stacks for AI. We found that on average organisations are already spending 18% more on modernising their cloud infrastructures to facilitate their AI initiatives. Even cash-constrained sectors like healthcare (14%) and the public sector (11%) are also stepping up their investment, largely because many AI services are available in the cloud or via the major cloud providers. 

Right now though, company leaders’ focus is on understanding AI’s potential. Our data show only one in four company AI projects demands measurable ROI, suggesting the starting point is investigating and derisking AI tools’ capabilities, rather than driving for early implementation at scale as the way to deliver transformative business outcomes.

Opportunity beckons 

With senior executives prioritising their AI plans, research suggests there will be exciting, long-term opportunities for channel partners that help organisations access global technology providers’ AI offerings, and resellers that have adapted their offerings to companies’ strategic needs and the flexible economics of a rapidly-evolving AI era. This is good news for VARs that are truly putting the “V for value” back into helping their customers - especially the challenging but crucial task of consolidating infrastructure and data platforms for the game-changing capabilities of AI.