TBR Insights Live session: TBR’s ecosystem intelligence experts discuss how AI-driven sales and marketing will reshape ecosystems, how AI alliances will impact operational technology and what will challenge the scaling of sovereign AI.
2026 will be a transitional year defined by technology ecosystem expansions — multiparty alliances spanning IT, OT, devices, edge and silicon; industrial/physical AI acceleration, especially at the edge and in manufacturing; and strategic bottlenecks as skill shortages and infrastructure gaps slow sovereign AI adoption. TBR expects significant changes in how technology vendors collaborate and compete, which lays the groundwork for broader, more integrated AI ecosystems. This is an optimistic prediction. Multiparty alliances require exceptional leadership, shared understanding of commercial models and transparency among partners, and AI aids only the last of these. The human component remains the most significant roadblock. IT-OT convergence and a surge in connected everything have been a TBR (and broader market) prediction for years, and while “signs point to yes,” as the Magic 8 Ball says, 2026 could be another year of disappointing progress, as hype around physical AI could far outpace reality.
The speed of technology change and challenges adapting to business model changes drive the importance of platforms. The rapid developments in AI, most recently with agentic solutions, illustrate how being a platform company enables vendors to maintain a solutioning role even as technology evolves, and new participants become critical in the eyes of customers. Agentic solutions have also created myriad ways for companies to sustain their business models, acting as a conduit between end customers and the changing vendor landscape.
Join TBR for a discussion on the most critical elements of a successful hyperscaler partnership and partner perceptions of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google Cloud
Rolling pockets of chaos and an overall cloud of uncertainty may be the best way to describe the first two months of the new Trump administration. One upside to federal contracts is that they tend to be long-term in nature, which provides some stability for all types of vendors with existing contracts. However, the current transition has been rocky, to say the least, as contracts are getting canceled, agency staffing is reduced, and the existence of entire agencies is called into question.
Learn how to place strategic ecosystem bets on alliance partners that are well-positioned for the next growth wave, how competitors are gaining ground with common alliance partners through sales programs, go-to-market motions and training, and how to create unique value with alliance partners that resonates with end customers.
Learn how GenAI will offset some of the slowdown in cloud revenue growth; how Microsoft will challenge Amazon Web Services’ leadership in IaaS and PaaS; and how SaaS vendors will monetize GenAI in 2025
In 2025 IT services companies and consultancies will refine their alliances, winnowing lists of 100-plus technology partners to the handful that drive more than 90% of their business, articulate a clear joint value proposition, and align at both the leadership and sales force levels. A technology- and partner-agnostic approach was always a bit of a fiction and in the coming years will become a relic of the past. To make all that happen, IT services companies, cloud and on-premises infrastructure vendors, and consultancies will invest in ecosystem intelligence and elevate alliance management within their organizations.
The revenue generated from generative AI (GenAI) offset some of the impact of cost-saving and expense-reduction efforts that defined the IT and cloud market in 2024. We expect some of that luster to fade in 2025, however, as the lack of a clear ROI from GenAI solutions will be a sticking point that slows investment in the coming year.
In this TBR Insights Live session, TBR’s Cloud team gives a deep dive on AI’s impact on the cloud industry and highlights key findings from TBR’s newest cloud research report, AI & GenAI Model Provider Market Landscape, including examples of technology companies’ activities in 2024 as well as what to expect across the GenAI landscape in 2025.