Three partners on the opportunities AI, hybrid cloud and data sovereignty bring

How these three trends are helping partners discover new ways of working.

As AI adoption, hybrid cloud and data sovereignty impact the partner landscape, several leaders are taking advantage of these trends.

Fresh CRN Australia research reflects these trends where organisations are seeing a shift with AI experimentation shifting to investing in infrastructure and partners are finding that their customers want AI-based solutions.

Hybrid cloud is becoming more of the norm as partners find the balance between cloud and on-prem offerings. This still gives partners a competitive advantage.

Where and how data is stored is becoming a bigger factor in purchasing decisions not just for partners, but customers.

Speaking with several Australian partners, they divulged their thoughts on how these trends create new opportunities for them within the channel.

Secure by design services

For Jeremy Nees, CPO, Virtual IT Group he sees three major opportunities from these trends.

He told CRN Australia, “Changes like this come with opportunities simply by listening to the customers.”

The first trend is secure by design services, Nees noted that the old ways of working of one team building and operating a service.

“Then a separate security team or company monitors it, this isn't working,” he said.

“Response times increase every year, and CIO's cite turf wars as a considerable effort. Our services are being design to incorporate secure design, implementation and then monitoring. ZDR is a good example of this.”

As more customers want AI, data and cloud in their operations, Nees said will need services that enhance and maintain their key platforms.

“We developed our own AgileOps to bring continuous improvement and operations together in a structured way,” he said.

What surprised us most is that customers then wanted to apply this to traditional IT. We ended up creating a specific "Evergreen" service variant based on this feedback.”

Finally, Nees noted that it is all about the data.

He said, “AI and the current geopolitical climate have driven data protection to a new level.

“AI tools can be plugged into our current browsers, productivity suites and users have been quick to adopt non-corporate sanctioned tools like ChatGPT.”

Add to this board level interest in driving AI initiatives, and all of a sudden data protection has become critical, Nees explained.

“The world of zero trust is moving from just ‘least privilege’ to ‘least information’. It's important to know what data is going where, and then be able to control this,” he said.

“Thankfully, AI is also helping us understand this like never before - we can dynamically classify and understand what's in data rather than relying on laborious labelling approaches.”

Nees ended noting that this issue is “forcing the point on a problem that's existed for a long time”.

Safe AI

AI adoption is accelerating faster than governance frameworks can evolve, according to Jo Salisbury, regional director, APAC, at LevelBlue.

“Organisations want to innovate. However, they also need confidence that these technologies are secure and well governed,” she said.

Salisbury said this creates an opportunity for security partners to help organisations introduce AI safely while maintaining strong cybersecurity practices.

“Technology alone is not enough. Effective security still depends on experienced professionals who can interpret signals, respond to threats, and integrate new capabilities into existing operations,” she said.

But, one emerging risk, Salisbury noted is the rise of autonomous or agentic AI systems operating inside enterprise environments without clear visibility or governance.

“These agents can interact with enterprise data, trigger workflows, and make decisions independently,” she said.

“Using discovery tooling and telemetry from existing security platforms, organisations can identify AI workloads, validate AI inventories, and assess governance maturity against frameworks such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) AI Risk Management Framework.

“This helps organisations adopt AI innovation while maintaining oversight and accountability.”

Secure adoption

The biggest opportunity is in helping organisations move from experimentation to structured, secure adoption, Vito Rinaldi, managing director, Blue Crystal Solutions said.

“There is strong demand, particularly across government, defence, and regulated industries, for partners who can deliver AI in a way that aligns with sovereignty, security, and compliance requirements,” he explained.

Rinaldi is also seeing increased collaboration with other partners who may have strong customer relationships but require support in delivering secure, sovereign AI capabilities.

“Ultimately, the opportunity is less about AI as a standalone technology, and more about helping organisations build the right foundations,” he said.

“Those foundations, data, infrastructure, governance, and security, are what enable AI to deliver real, long-term value.”