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Previous think tanks at E360 only consisted of technical people, said Strohl, whose company employs about 240 people full-time. But this one has required the director of digital marketing, head of human resources, head of finance and head of security to be included due to how widespread AI’s effects are likely to be. “It’s going to be gigantic,” Strohl said. E360’s firstAI-themed offerings will likely be around security, modern infra- structure and digital workspaces, according to Strohl.An AI governance, risk and compliance framework workshop and consulting practice are top of mind to educate the solution provider’s customers so that they don’t accidentally expose proprietary data. Those early stage engagements with customers should help E360 become their trusted partner throughout the AI adoption journey, he said. “If you are a strategic security partner to your customer, then you have the opportunity to become the primary consultant all the way through,” he said. “That’s the strategy.” Chetu, for its part, is at work developing its own AI platform for employee training and development, Ewing-Shaw told CRN . AI’s Ripple Effects Kelly Ireland, founder, CEO and CTO of Orange, Calif.-based CBT—No. 472 on CRN ’s 2023 Solution Provider 500—said all of CBT’s customers, from manu- facturing to construction to utilities to health care, have expressed interest inAI. AI hype has brought a chance to put even more attention on the computer vision and video analytics specialty her company has carved out in recent years, she said. AsAI grows, customers will need solution providers to help educate them on the technology’s many flavors and nuances. AI “is a catch-all,” she said. “Let’s get more into the specifics of what you’re actually doing.” Just as when cloud and IoT began to proliferate, solution providers will need to show expertise and quality work to rise above ones that exaggerate their AI prowess. “Is there a bad side to AI? Yes, there is,” she said. “That’s where you work with reputable people who can showcase [their expertise]. … So making sure that VARs, that SIs, that solution providers invest, learn, have integrity and honesty and put the work in to be able to support this, to me, is always what’s the most critical.” As for Avanade’s Rotar, part of his responsibilities as the solution provider’s CTO-turned-chief-AI-officer is championing a school of AI to train all 60,000 people in the company. “We’re basically looking to train the entire company on topics like basic understanding of what generative AI is and isn’t,” he said. “To train them in the basics of responsible AI and digital ethics. We want to train everybody on prompt engineering because that’s going to be a skill that you are going to need as much as you, frankly, need to know how to write an email today or browse the internet.” When asked ifAvanade has ever before mandated that the entire organization learn about a technology, Rotar said no. “Not even when we went cloud-first. Not everybody had to know cloud,” he said. “But now we’re calling it ‘AI-first.’And literally everybody needs to know AI.”
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