Cisco study: AI will drive massive channel sales by 2029
The channel expects a strong wave of demand from AI by 2029. According to the Cisco study "Bridging the Customer AI Readiness Gap", partners and system integrators see AI as a key revenue driver. Swiss partners identify infrastructure (31 %), cyber security (14 %) and customer experience (9 %) as the most important demand drivers.
Due to the enormous demand for AI, partners expect a significant change in their sales mix. Looking ahead to 2025, 36% of European respondents and 31% of Swiss channel partners assume that AI-related solutions will already account for between 26% and 50% of their turnover. This share will increase in the long term. 29 percent of partners in Europe believe that the demand for AI-based solutions will increase to 76 to 100 percent in the next four to five years. Swiss partners are more cautious on this point, however. Only a fifth (20 %) of companies in this country share this view.
"The potential of AI for transforming business processes is immense. This opens up new sales opportunities for the entire Swiss channel," says Niema Nazemi, Channel Leader Cisco Switzerland. "In order to leverage this potential, the deployment skills of our partners must be further strengthened. Cisco is doing everything it can to support Swiss partners in the introduction, implementation and use of AI so that Switzerland can take the next big step in AI."
Required AI skills for IT system houses and channel partners
The results of the Cisco study show that partners have strong confidence in their knowledge and understanding of the various aspects of AI technologies. The study looks at specific solution areas and skills in the fields of IT infrastructure, data management, governance and AI expertise that will be required on the market in the future:
- Development of a scalable and adaptable AI-capable infrastructure;
- Ensuring sufficient GPU resources for ongoing projects;
- Evaluation and compliance of data center latency and throughput;
- Understanding of data sets, data sovereignty and data protection laws in and across different regions or countries.
An important finding of the study is that the partners are not already optimally positioned in all of these areas. European partners see the biggest barriers as a lack of experience in using new technologies (55 %), a lack of knowledge about systems and processes (60 %) and too few available technologies (51 %).
However, in order to overcome these challenges, partners are already investing heavily in employee training in AI skills. 70 percent of partners in Europe conduct internal training courses or use external providers for AI training.
