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Shane McNamara will join Opex Technologies as President on July 16, after nearly a decade at Avant, where he oversaw engineering, operations, and vendor management.

Omdia's latest analysis indicates that the US IT channel is undergoing profound transformation: partners are increasingly leaning toward services and delivery businesses, while the direct sales market is expanding rapidly, driven by hyperscale cloud providers. AI and cybersecurity have become the twin engines of growth, but the channel also faces challenges such as tariffs and talent shortages.

Customer experience and cloud contact center vendor Nice is accelerating its partnerships with global system integrators (GSIs). Its new Chief Partner Officer, Dorothy Copeland, stated that the company offers flexibility and clear partnership rules that other vendors do not provide. Over the past year, Nice's annual contract value (ACV) related to GSIs grew 3.6 times, with GSI share of ACV rising from 4% to 14%. Capgemini recently signed a $679 million contract with a major UK institution to implement the Nice CXone platform. Meanwhile, Nice is addressing an industry trend where point solution vendors deploy forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) to customer sites, encroaching on partner business opportunities.

A survey of 6,000 digital workers by Glean's Work AI Institute found that three-quarters of knowledge workers believe AI boosts personal productivity, but only 13% say technology has significantly improved company performance. Automation saves an average of about 11 hours per week, but employees spend slightly more than half of that interaction time managing tools rather than producing output. The report notes that successful enterprise AI adoption relies on a 'human infrastructure' built around AI, including context implementation, use-case training, shadow AI signal identification, and governance mechanisms.

As cyber insurance rates decline and insurers' profitability pressures rise, insured enterprises are facing stricter review in both claims and underwriting processes. The global market is highly dependent on large U.S. policyholders, and systemic risk concerns are prompting insurers to upgrade risk models and strengthen requirements for security governance. The protection gap for small and medium-sized enterprises remains significant, while new risks such as geopolitical conflicts and artificial intelligence applications are reshaping the boundaries of claims.

In a keynote address on Tuesday, Info-Tech Research Group CEO Tom Zehren stated that although agentic AI has transformative potential for enterprises, technology leaders such as CIOs still face deployment challenges. He proposed a four-step framework based on surveys and industry research to help technology leaders develop an AI strategy that measures value, and emphasized that security measures, IT budgets, AI strategy, and employee buy-in are key factors.

Investment firm Vobis Ventures acquired Optiv Security's consulting business on June 2, establishing Optiv Consulting. CEO Anup Kumar stated that partnering with Anthropic will be a priority due to similar customer bases and Anthropic's greater focus on enterprise client implementation. Kumar believes enterprise adoption of Claude will grow rapidly, but security architecture needs to keep pace, and current CISOs often get involved only in the later stages of agentic AI projects, presenting a "generational" opportunity.

Mitel announced on Tuesday the appointment of channel veteran Ben Macdonald as Vice President of Global Channel Marketing to lead its partner operations. Macdonald will be responsible for managing a network of over 6,000 partners, which was restructured earlier this year. Former channel distribution and sales leader Steve Loebrich will continue as Head of Americas Channels, and former partner program leader Steffen Kruger will also remain in his role.

Outtake's latest report indicates that AI not only enhances hackers' abilities to analyze vulnerabilities and write malware but also poses a serious threat in identity impersonation. This year, 53% of organizations have faced impersonation attacks targeting executives or frontline employees, and 47% have encountered confirmed or suspected synthetic media impersonation incidents. However, 75% of surveyed enterprises only conduct limited monitoring or post-incident response, and only 43% carry out executive identity deception simulations. The lack of oversight for AI agents also poses a hidden risk, with only 4% of enterprises fully monitoring AI agents. Governance fragmentation is widespread, with 21% of enterprises lacking a dedicated team responsible for digital trust risks.

Opex Technologies acquires Intellys Corporation, strengthening its Dallas market position and technical capabilities. This transaction marks Opex's first major acquisition following the investment from Bregal Sagemount, and will integrate both companies' consulting businesses in cloud, communications, customer experience, and connectivity.