The pressure for the channel to master artificial intelligence (AI) is intense, and the need to develop skills has seen efforts across the industry to increase enablement and training around the technology.
Vendors have introduced certification programmes and stepped up support, while distributors have taken steps to roll out AI practices and specific programmes that provide more hand-holding for partners.
Adding to the growing list of examples is the launch by Arrow of its AI accelerator programme, which aims to help partners identify where they are in terms of skills and encourage them to share their ambitions of where they want to develop their expertise.
The distributor’s programme helps partners identify where AI would have a positive impact on their own business and establish how they can deliver the technology to customers.
The programme starts with a tailored assessment of a partner’s AI proficiency and helps identify areas where the technology could generate revenue opportunities. Once the baseline has been established, Arrow will set out a customised path to provide skills and guidance around deployment.
The programme is based on three elements: learn, use and create. For the “learn” aspect, training is provided through the channel player’s AI Academy to increase skills. This will also encourage partners with ideas of where AI could be deployed in their businesses as part of the “use” element.
The “create” element encourages partners to use the distributor’s AI Factory, which will help them develop their own AI assistants that can work across sales, marketing and other parts of their business to develop and deploy solutions, supported by Arrow’s technical and pre-sales engineering teams.
“Channel partners that leverage the AI accelerator programme can uncover unique ways to amplify their AI skills and discover additional business opportunities that can be driven by AI,” said Eric Gourmelen, vice-president of global cloud and AI for Arrow’s enterprise computing solutions business.
“AI is changing enterprises at ground-breaking speed, and this programme is a practical way to help our channel partners create immediate business impact using an AI-forward roadmap,” he added.
The Arrow programme comes in response not just to visible demand for AI, but also to the recognition that skills across the channel are not widespread, but are crucial if adoption of the technology is going to increase.
Back in February, WalkMe shared findings that highlighted how the channel is critical in providing education to customers if the benefits of AI are to be unlocked.
That was followed up by skills specialist Corndel’s 2025 Workplace training report, which exposed a disconnect between business leaders and staff over their perceptions of AI preparedness.
The conclusion was that much more work needs to be done – with the expectation that it will be delivered by a channel partner – if businesses are going to reach a position where they can take advantage of the promised efficiency gains that AI can deliver.
“While AI is transforming enterprise ambitions, its success hinges on people,” said Dan Adika, co-founder and CEO of WalkMe. “Over a decade of innovation in digital adoption has shown us one truth: technology alone doesn’t deliver results – people do.”