The Global Technology Industry Association (GTIA) recently released its 2026 State of the Channel report, offering key insights and trends for IT service provider (ITSP) leaders. The report highlights how ITSPs are balancing near-term business execution with longer-term transformation as AI shifts from experimentation to a business imperative.
If you’re an MSP, copier dealer, or broader IT services provider, the headlines won’t shock you: AI is real, complexity is rising, and the macro environment is just volatile enough to keep everyone a little nervous. But buried in the data is a more uncomfortable truth: the channel isn’t drifting, it’s splitting in two.
Healthy, yes. Comfortable, no.
Let’s start with the good news. Almost nobody in this study thinks the channel is becoming irrelevant. Global IT spending is projected to hit 6.15 trillion dollars in 2026, and services remain the biggest slice of that pie. For MSPs and service-led dealers, technology is still a strategic line item, not a discretionary purchase.
But ask providers how they see the channel’s relevance playing out, and the story changes. GTIA finds a durable 50/50 split: roughly half of IT service providers say the channel is “relevant and holding steady,” while the other half say it’s “relevant and changing rapidly.”
The dividing line here is scale. Larger firms skew toward “steady,” smaller and micro-sized firms overwhelmingly report that the ground is shifting under them. If you run a regional MSP or independent dealer, that probably sounds familiar: your customers still need you, but the way they want to buy, consume, and measure value is clearly in motion.
Complexity is the new fuel
When respondents were asked what’s actually keeping the channel healthy, no one pointed to a clever promo or a new rebate program. The top answer, by a wide margin, was “technology’s growing complexity creating demand for expertise.” Right behind it: the availability and adoption of generative AI tools and increased demand for cybersecurity services.
For MSPs and dealers, those three together are essentially your job description in 2026:
- SMB and midmarket buyers are staring down multi-cloud architectures, SaaS sprawl, AI pilots, and a threat landscape they can’t staff for.
- Many still have gaps in basic cyber hygiene and governance, even as regulators, insurers, and customers raise the bar.
- Internally, you’re making the same journey — trying to apply AI and automation to your own operations without breaking what already works.
In other words, the demand side is not the problem. Complexity is a structural tailwind for anyone who can turn that complexity into something customers can actually consume.
The catch? The report is equally clear that we’re not staffed for the world we’re walking into. Workforce and skills shortages sit near the top of the “diminishing” factors for channel health, right next to concerns about macroeconomics and regulatory churn. Complexity drives demand, but it also exposes every weakness in your bench, your processes, and your pricing.
The uncomfortable part: operational discipline
If there’s a single through-line in GTIA’s data, it’s this: operational discipline is now one of the most reliable differentiators in the channel.
Only about a third of ITSPs rate their business acumen as “expert.” Most put themselves in the “intermediate, with room to improve” bucket. That alone isn’t surprising. What matters is what happens when you segment the
- Larger and higher-revenue firms, and those with a CFO or equivalent, are far more likely to sit in that expert tier.
- Firms with 70% or more recurring revenue skew heavily toward “expert,” yet they still represent a relatively small slice of the ecosystem.
- The MSPs that are ahead of their annual business plans look different across the board: more strategic with AI, stronger cybersecurity revenue, better vendor satisfaction, and healthier growth expectations.
Here’s the part most owners don’t like to hear: very few providers are tracking the basics with the rigor you’d expect from a “mature” business. Just over half monitor cash flow and working capital. Only about a third track gross margin by service line. Fewer than a third track MRR growth and churn. Fewer than one in three monitor three or more key financial KPIs in combination. High-performing firms track more of these; the laggards track fewer.
You don’t have to be a 200-person MSP or a mega-dealer to act on that. But you do have to move from “we kind of know our numbers” to “we measure the things that matter and adjust ahead of the curve.”
AI: almost everyone is using it, few are using it well
On AI, the report puts numbers around what most of us suspect. Ninety-seven percent of providers say they’re using AI internally or are about to, but only around a quarter describe their AI engagement as truly strategic and revenue-producing.
GTIA’s AI Maturity Spectrum splits the market into four camps, with “AI Driven” at the top: companies that generate AI revenue, have formal AI leadership, and treat AI as an integrated, organization-wide initiative. That group is not yet the majority, but it’s already overrepresented among the firms that are ahead of plan. Forty percent of the “ahead of plan” cohort identifies as AI Driven, compared with only 8% among firms that are behind.
MSPs and dealers also expect AI services, along with cybersecurity services, to be among the biggest revenue growth categories over the next two years, even if they’ve pulled back a bit from last year’s exuberance. That’s a healthy correction. Most of the high performers in this study are building internal AI competence first and productizing second, instead of chasing every shiny object.
Hybrid isn’t failure — it’s strategy
Finally, it’s worth calling out what the report doesn’t say: it doesn’t declare the death of hardware, projects, or one-time services. Most providers still describe themselves as hybrid businesses, with a roughly balanced mix of recurring and project revenue. Pure-play, 70%-plus MRR MSPs are still the minority.
For those operating in the enterprise, that hybrid mix may be expressed in complex project and consulting work layered on top of managed services. For those in the SMB space, it may be a combination of managed environments, workflow or security services, and a still-meaningful print and device business. In both cases, the pattern is the same: one foot planted in the business that pays the bills today, one foot stepping into AI- and security-led services that will matter tomorrow.
So what do you do with this?
If there’s a single message for MSP and dealer leadership, it’s this: 2026 is not asking you to bet the company on AI. It’s asking you maintain a disciplined business that monetizes expertise in a world that’s getting more complex, not less.
The opportunity is there. The complexity can be leveraged. The question is timing — to tighten your operations, formalize your AI strategy, and get intentional about the numbers that actually determine whether you’re one of the firms pulling ahead, or one of the ones wondering what just happened.
Patricia Ames is president and senior analyst for BPO Media, which publishes The Imaging Channel and Workflow magazines. As a market analyst and industry consultant, Ames has worked for prominent consulting firms including KPMG and has more than 15 years experience in the imaging industry covering technology and business sectors. Ames has lived and worked in the United States, Southeast Asia and Europe and enjoys being a part of a global industry and community.