XChange Australia 2026: Partners look beyond AI hype for profitability

Expanding revenue opportunities and networking sessions were among the key focus for partners attending the inaugural XChange Australia.

The inaugural XChange Australia brought together more than 70 partners, which included managed service providers and solution providers, from the Australian channel ecosystem together to get exclusive insights on how they can navigate the rapid shifts in the Australian tech landscape as well as network with their fellow peers in the industry.

The one-day event, held at the Intercontinental Hotel Sydney, featured several keynote sessions by leaders from the tech industry as well as a research presentation from Athina Mallis, CRN Australia Editor.

In her research presentation, Mallis shared findings from the channel, with AI predominantly dominating conversations between vendors, customers and partners throughout the year.

According to Mallis, while AI is integral to every conversation MSPs will have in 2026 and beyond, customers are more concerned about the outcomes they can get from the technology. For channel partners, showing this value to customers remains their biggest challenge.

Mallis also pointed out that partners could increase their revenue through AI by focusing on AI consulting, AI integration services and infrastructure modernisation. Mallis’ research also highlighted the increasing challenges from the RAMageddon scenario partners are facing as well as the cybersecurity challenges they need to address.

For Mallis, the most important takeaway for partners is that they need to go beyond proof-of-concepts (POCs) when mapping AI journeys with customers. The ultimate goal is all about showing the value of the technology to truly convince customers on AI.

“To get the benefit of AI, you (partners) need to focus on outcomes. MSPs can monetise AI through 4 ways – consulting, integration, infrastructure and governance and risk management. They need to move past POCs to drive revenue growth,” Mallis said.

During a poll session at the summit, partners were also asked on their key areas of focused as well as the challenges they are seeing in the industry. A huge majority of the partners shared that increasing their revenue and profitability remains the most important focus areas for them.

Building opportunities

The highlight of XChange Australia is the boardroom sessions. The attendees are divided into groups of 10, based on their capabilities and focus areas.

They are placed in eight boardrooms where they listen to vendors share and pitch to them opportunities to grow their business with the respective companies.

There were eight boardrooms in the inaugural sessions. Each boardroom session lasts only 25 minutes, with a total of seven boardroom sessions throughout the day.

Some vendors shared opportunities partners can get in working with them while others used the session to get feedback from the partners on what customers want as well as how they can improve their products. The boardroom sessions were led by the XChange Australia advisory board members.

Sunny Bhatia, chief information and digital officer at Digital 61, and XChange Australia who advisory board member shared that the partners in his boardroom had a lot of questions and feedback for the vendors presenting, with many curious on how the technology can actually solve customer pain points.

Another AB member, Brad Clarke, founder and CEO of Channel Guru shared similar sentiments.

He felt that the partners in his boardroom were very open and direct to the vendors, especially in addressing some of the solutions they provided. Other advisory board members also shared similar feedback throughout the day.

For the partners, the boardroom concept was an interesting way of getting a more focused approach with the vendors. Many also felt that they were able to network and connect with their peers to discuss more opportunities as well as the challenges they are facing.

Joseph Constantine from Lanter, a partner attending XChange Australia, shared that he really enjoyed speaking to the other partners as well as to some of the vendors at the booths at the event. Constantine also wished he had more time to connect with other partners and vendors at the event.

Echoing his sentiments was Vinay Joshi from Collaborative Intelligence Group. Joshi, who had two decades of experience in sales, started his consulting business recently to work with MSPs and felt the event was a good opportunity for him to engage with more partners and vendors in the ecosystem.

Feedback from vendors on their boardrooms were also positive with many satisfied with what partners had to share with them about their products and also the opportunities they could see develop from the sessions.

AI and cybersecurity dominate keynotes

The event also features several keynote sessions with Danny Jenkins, CEO and founder of ThreatLocker discussing how organisations need to have the right tools to deal with increasing challenges of managing AI at workplace. Jenkins share that as organisations increase the use of AI, they need to be sure that their data is well protected, especially in having visibility over how the technology is used by their employees.

Other speakers included Mathew Howard, general manager channel, Crayon, a SoftwareOne company; Paul Redding, head of MSP partnerships at NinjaOne; Kenny King, XDR specialist at Barracuda; Deme Georgiou, VP and global lead MSP at Coro as well as Astrid Groves, director, distribution and commercial channel, Australia at Lenovo.

Sam Domain from Huntress presented the last presentation for the day.

Mallis also moderated a roundtable discussion between Xara Tran, founder and CEO, at Champions of Change and Lisa Fortey, general manager at Logicalis Australia on creating diverse teams that deliver in the channel. The panellists not only shared their personal experiences in dealing with the topic but also called upon the attendees to create more opportunities for everyone to have a place in the channel ecosystem.

The day ended with the Xcellence Awards, where the best boardroom and speakers received awards for their performance. NinjaOne picked up the award for Xcellence in Keynote Presentation while Concentric.AI picked up the award for Xcellence in Boardroom Execution.

XChange Australia 2026 was sponsored by Barracuda, BlueChip, Concentric AI, Coro, Crayon – a SoftwareOne company, Dicker Data, Exclaimer, Halo, Huntress, Kaseya, Lenovo, Microsoft, N-Able, NinjaOne, OpenText Cybersecurity, Pax8, Slide, Sophos, ThreatLocker and WatchGuard.