AI is the “biggest challenge” for partners over the next five years

Dean Attard, managing director at Crash Technology discusses what he thinks about AI and how it will impact channel leaders.

As AI has become the biggest trend in the tech sector, and some partners believe it will also be the biggest challenge for the IT industry.

Dean Attard, managing director at solutions provider Crash Technology told CRN Australia that there is uncertainty around AI and no one knows if AI is going to be good or bad.

“It's a challenge, because how do you keep up with artificial intelligence?” he asked.

“It's designed to be quicker, faster, smarter than everybody. It's the biggest trend, and I think it is the biggest challenge.”

He explained why AI will be a challenge for the IT channel.

“In our space, especially when we are looking at protecting customers and protecting user’s data and how do we protect against a machine with a machine? That's definitely going to be the biggest challenge we're going to see in the next five years,” he noted.

Right now, Attard highlighted that there is a lot of “trepidation” around AI.

“One minute I can be so excited about it and think ‘this is just going to open doors for so many different things’, and then in the next five seconds, I can look at Amazon's getting rid of 1400 staff because they're now using AI to do those 1400 jobs,” he said.

“From a technical brain, I look at and think the capabilities of AI are endless, but the ramifications of AI are also endless.”

In 10 years, the technology trend might be something else, but right now, Attard highlighted it is AI.

“It's almost going to get rid of our level one techs because it can pretty much read a ticket, see what the ticket is,” he said.

"The reason [AI is] so big is it covers the whole spectrum. It is great. It is excellent. It is bad so I think right now, that's the thing, it drives the excitement and the trepidation, the whole spectrum.”