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In early 2026, enterprises sought to maximize the use of AI compute units to appear efficient, but after suppliers shifted to usage-based billing, cost pressures surged. Meanwhile, changes in federal and global technology policies, along with unsatisfactory employee adoption rates, have made AI deployment more difficult. Experts advise CIOs to optimize model selection, adjust workflows, and strengthen employee training to balance innovation and risk.
DataStrike announces the expansion of its Snowflake managed services practice, addressing the lack of dedicated experts after deployment for mid-market clients by offering round-the-clock operations covering architecture support, cost governance, pipeline monitoring, and query performance. The company also extends its services to implementation and AI strategy through collaboration with Snowflake partner Brainforge.
Target Corporation announced on Tuesday that it has appointed Chandhu Nair as its first chief AI officer and senior vice president, effective August 24. Nair spent more than six years at Lowe's, most recently serving as senior vice president of stores, data, AI, and innovation. At the same time, Purvi Shah has been promoted to senior vice president of user experience. Both report to Chief Information and Product Officer Prat Vemana.
As enterprise customers accelerate AI adoption, MSP providers risk being left behind. GTIA issued a warning at ChannelCon and launched multiple initiatives to drive the development of industry standards.
DXC Technology will serve as the exclusive managed services provider for Primary's zero-trust control plane, which is used to govern the access scope of AI agents within enterprises. DXC will incorporate traditional infrastructure modernization into its managed services, including the planned retirement of redundant VPNs and VDIs. DXC does not hold an equity stake in Primary, but the two parties have established a deeply aligned strategic business relationship.
At the Black Hat USA conference, Microsoft security executive David Weston stated that AI is fundamentally changing the battlefield and economic landscape of cyber attack and defense, with attackers using AI to discover and weaponize vulnerabilities at an unprecedented speed. He advocated abandoning traditional patch management in favor of secure development practices, and cited internal Microsoft data showing a surge in vulnerability handling volume, though only a minority of vulnerabilities are actually exploited.
At DEF CON, the Franklin Project announced a new initiative to fund five channel partners to provide free cybersecurity monitoring services to small U.S. water systems and share threat intelligence through the newly established Water Watch Center. The project aims to address the challenge small water facilities face in coping with cyberattacks due to insufficient staffing and resources.
Allstate is developing an agentic AI platform named Allie, aimed at strengthening its technology-driven strategy. CEO Tom Wilson stated during Thursday's Q2 2026 earnings call that the platform's architecture includes eight integrated components enabling inter-agent processing, building on the company's existing 250 analytical models and annual capacity of 100 million quotes. The company has not disclosed a specific launch timeline.
According to the latest Gartner report, global spending on AI-optimized infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is projected to grow 96% to $42 billion in 2026, with inference spending ($23.3 billion) exceeding model training spending ($19 billion) for the first time. This shift indicates that enterprise AI deployment is moving from the experimental phase to production at scale, with inference workloads becoming mainstream.
Verizon channel head Mark Tina announced his departure to join health insurer Humana as vice president of national partner sales and distribution. Tina spent 23 years at Verizon, leading the channel division for the past three years. His responsibilities will be assumed by Verizon's vice president of business sales, John Constantino.