According to a survey by Omdia, 81% of 25,000 global partners anticipate underperforming compared to the overall market. Notably, North America is expected to lead this growth, with IT spending increasing by 12.6% to approximately $2.61 trillion, largely driven by investments in AI infrastructure by hyperscalers. However, only 61% of this spending will be delivered through partners, marking a decline from over 70% just four years prior. The shift in spending dynamics indicates that while total IT expenditure is rising, traditional revenue opportunities for channel partners are diminishing.
A recent report by Salesforce reveals that an overwhelming 94% of global salespeople now leverage partners to close deals, highlighting a significant trend in the sales profession. This data, collected from 4,050 sales professionals across 22 countries, indicates that nearly every sales team incorporates partners in their strategies, with 90% utilizing dedicated tools to manage these relationships. Furthermore, 89% of respondents affirm that partner selling is increasingly crucial for achieving revenue targets. According to Omdia, a notable 67% of the $6.07 trillion technology industry is expected to flow through partners in 2026, marking a shift away from traditional sales funnels and emphasizing the expanding role of partners in driving sales success.
Artificial intelligence is a rapidly growing market, yet it poses significant risks for channel partners. According to the 2025 North America Partner Landscape study by International Data Corporation, over 60% of surveyed partners describe their AI business as either ad hoc or opportunistic, indicating a lack of maturity in their AI strategies. Despite 78.8% acknowledging customer demand for AI and 81.9% projecting double-digit revenue growth, many partners remain hesitant to commit to specific AI solutions due to the ever-changing landscape and numerous pricing models.
Why do we care?
The channel’s economic contract with vendors is being rewritten, and most partners haven’t read the new terms. That nine-point decline in partner-delivered spending isn’t a blip. It’s vendors discovering they can capture direct revenue while still extracting partner labor for the hard parts: implementation, support, customer success.
The Salesforce stat is the tell. Ninety-four percent of salespeople use partners to close deals. That sounds like validation until you realize it measures involvement, not compensation. You’re essential to the sale. You’re increasingly optional to the economics.
And AI accelerates this. The IDC data shows sixty percent of partners are running ad hoc AI practices and projecting double-digit growth. That’s not a strategy—that’s hope with a forecast attached. Partners will absorb certification costs, failed pilots, and margin compression chasing revenue that increasingly flows around them, not through them.
Those aren’t conflicting numbers—they’re different measurements: North America delivery share is declining even as global ‘partner-influenced flow’ can rise through marketplaces, referrals, and ecosystem motions.
The specific harm I’m watching for: MSPs who see the six-trillion-dollar market and assume their historical share applies. It doesn’t. The hyperscaler infrastructure boom isn’t channel-hostile—it’s margin-hostile. Partners are still required for integration, security, and operations, but the economics are moving from resale to delivery labor and outcome-based services.
If ‘through partners’ includes marketplaces and referral ecosystems, it can rise even while MSP margin falls. So we need to track not partner participation, but partner capture. When you hear these percentages, ask: is this resale, services attached, marketplace, referral, or delivery labor?
The channel is splitting into influence partners and execution partners—and the middle gets squeezed. If you can’t price for influence or scale execution, you need productized services that create defensible margin.
The question isn’t whether the market is growing. It is. The question is whether your business model captures value from influence, from execution, or from a position that no longer exists.
The market isn’t shrinking. Your addressable portion of it is. That requires a different response than optimism.