AI Market Matures: Partners Must Address Security, Governance, and Cost
Cisco's 2026 Global AI Partner Study surveyed over 1,700 partners across 30 countries to understand the challenges and opportunities in supporting customers' artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions.
The study highlights both value gaps and emerging growth opportunities in the maturing AI market. One significant finding is that only 29% of partners report high awareness of AI-specific security threats, down from 35% last year.
This decrease may seem concerning at first, but it reflects a more realistic understanding of security in the AI era, where nearly half of customers are already piloting or scaling agentic AI. The study emphasizes that as AI adoption accelerates, customers need help trusting what they have deployed.
Three key forces are driving the next phase of AI: customer value recalibration, governance evolution, and capability gap opportunities.