01732 759725 40 VOX POP continued... Developers are now beginning to move away from petitioning code, because AI can do some of that work for them There is no doubt that AI has become mainstream, and it goes way beyond ChatGPT. PrintIT Reseller asked some of the sector’s leading vendors where will the technology go next, how is it impacting the industry and how they are harnessing (or plan to harness) AI within their own business Harnessing the power of AI Ralf Jordan, Vice President Channel EMEA, Lenovo: “Channel partners are already keen to ride the wave of AI. Everyone is talking about it, whether they are in the technology business or not. But the challenge for IT vendors over the coming year is to inspire channel partners to understand how they can use AI to solve real business challenges. “Technology vendors can give partners the confidence to unlock their imaginations in terms of what AI could bring to customers. Partners need to figure out who to work with, which solutions to use, and what business models to adopt. IT vendors can therefore help channel partners understand the answers to these problems, and in turn help customers start their AI journey. “IT vendors need to access state-ofthe-art AI solutions, allowing customers to deploy AI faster, safely, and more efficiently. Key to this is providing access to a partner ecosystem, including AI ISVs across various applications and services. “Partnerships will be crucial here. One of the major roadblocks to wider AI adoption is the fact that even if companies buy the best software or hardware, there can still be issues harnessing the technology and ensuring employees have the right skills to maximise their AI investments. It is crucial that IT vendors have initiatives in place to combat these challenges. For example, the Lenovo AI Innovators Program works closely with AI software companies, letting partners connect with AI and hardware experts to ensure everything works, helping the channel to take advantage of the opportunities of AI.” www.lenovo.com Tony Milford, Head of Business Development, Asolvi: “It’s been about 12 months or so since ChatGPT hit the mainstream and it’s amazing the progress that that on its own has made. “At Asolvi, we’re investigating and utilising various forms of AI across the whole of our business from marketing and sales through to support and operations. In terms of our product roadmaps, it will have a significant acceleration effect, across speed of development and on the quality of code with the ability to use AI for enhanced testing for example, which will enable us to do more and more quickly. “Within the workplace technology space, manufacturers are using AI in their print engines for things like image enhancement, and so on. And then you’ve got the whole area of using AI to monitor endpoints for security solutions, right through to augmented reality and AI from a product perspective, giving us the ability to put more powerful tools in the hands of engineers, and also help administration and operations people to do their jobs more effectively.” www.asolvi.com Nigel Eaton, General Manager, MyQ: “Over the last 12 months, AI has become a really hot topic and is becoming more common in the marketplace now. That’s been boosted largely by the launch of AI tools such as ChatGPT and its adoption in certain markets such as education, and equally, developers are now beginning to move away from petitioning code, because AI can do some of that work for them. “AI is not a new thing. It’s been around since the 50s, in fact the first real area of AI that came into the printing world was OCR. OCR is a form of AI in that it’s taking information from a document, reading it and then doing Ralf Jordan Tony Milford
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