Navigating SMB Trends: Security, AI, and Consulting in IT Operations with Anurag Agrawal

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's get deep with research data talking about customer expectations, cybersecurity, and AI.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_01]: As a welcome, Anurag Agrawal from TechEil.

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Business of TechLounge, the live version of the Business of Tech Podcast.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It's Wednesday, July 31, 2024, and I'm Dave Solve.

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll be taking questions and comments throughout the show so make sure to put them

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_01]: in chat.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: In particular with a show and discussion like this, I love it to be interactive.

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So make sure you put any of your comments and questions for us in the chat window.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Now there is a dedicated question section at the end for any listeners submitted questions

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_01]: or ones that we want to cover for wrap up.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_01]: But in particular today, I want to make it interactive so if you've got something

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_01]: to say, pipe up and throw it into the comments.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to thank Sales Builder, our Patreon sponsor who support makes this show possible.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Focus on your IT sales workflow with the power of automation and visit them at salesbuilder.com

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: that's BUILDR.com.

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Anurag reminder, I'll be watching that chat.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_01]: But let's kick off with our story today.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk about some of the research and I'm going to start with tech Isles latest

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: research around security, giving some of those latest research data points.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Funding for IT security is projected to increase among high growth SMBs with 21% of rapidly

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_01]: growing SMBs and 26% of mid-sized companies expecting at least a 15% budget increase for

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_01]: 2024.

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_01]: They additionally 18% of SMBs and 21% of mid-market companies plan to boost their security

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: spending by 12% from the previous year.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_01]: However, 42% of small businesses lack a cyber incident response plan.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01]: A tech Isles survey of 600 small businesses shows that 34% expect customer reputation damage

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: and 23% for significant bottom line impacts due to operational challenges.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's welcome the man behind the research.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome, Anurag Agarwal from Tech Isles to the show.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_01]: It is great to see you.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for having me, Dave.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It is such a pleasure and an honor to be here.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Likewise, I love when you post data because you've always got stuff that is really

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: speaks to what we're seeing in the marketplace right now.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk to you a little bit about that IT budget data that you're seeing here,

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: because at first glance, I'm inclined to think, okay good, 12% increase seems good.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, if I take a quick thought and think about inflation numbers, they're

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of not too far off from that.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: We're seeing let's say 3% inflation known in the US higher outside of the US.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So in some of that's going to be eaten up by inflation and tools costs are going up to,

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_01]: where do you think this is balancing in terms of security spend?

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And what are you seeing?

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So security has always been the number one priority outside of cloud investment for the SMB customer.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And the way we defined SMB is 1,000 employees and then we cover the upper main market as well,

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_02]: which is 1,000 to 5,000 employees.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But then we are also seeing the fact that the spending on security is kind of slower than

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_02]: the spending on cloud per se.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: So in a way, your question is about inflation and so on and so forth.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_02]: But the important thing to really understand is that there is tremendous amount of spend

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_02]: on services and on consulting is going on by the SMBs on security.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And why is that?

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not about just the product because what the SMBs are literally looking for is

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_02]: our help is the help around choosing the right security technology doing the risk assessment.

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And then deploying or architecting the right security framework and then architecting the solution

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_02]: and then deploying the solution.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So there is a tremendous amount of spending on the services that is going on with this,

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_02]: which you may say that it is not subject to the same level of inflation.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But the point here is that the spending on security is kind of a big amount of money.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now you said something that is ultimately music to my ears, which is the idea that consulting

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: is actually the lead product and I'm actually encouraged to hear the cloud spending remains kind of

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_01]: the top bit of that because my basic premise for the way that I kind of think about service

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_01]: 18 services broadly is customers want to spend money on things that drive revenue most of all

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_01]: or cut costs.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Security is difficult to to pair to you know, to directly those top lines.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I know myself and most customers think that I have to spend some money on security

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_01]: but I don't want to spend infinite money particularly when most organizations that are

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_01]: selling me security services don't actually provide guarantees.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Right, I can buy infinite amounts of money, I can put an infinite amount of money but I've never

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_01]: found a security professional who will then say oh well you finally reached enough and I can guarantee

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_01]: you won't be hacked so there is diminishing returns there.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's take that quick step back tell me, do you think my promise is right that customers are

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_01]: measuring it that way?

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And what are you seeing as kind of the trend there and what they want to spend money?

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: You are 100% correct Devon I'm so happy that you actually mentioned that because

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: for the SMB customer, you know it's a hyper-entuin world right and what the SMB customer is asking

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_02]: for and looking for is tell me what is the good enough security for us.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Right and then the question is what does good look like?

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Is it based on a size of the business, a small business?

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Is it based on the mid market spending differently?

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Is it based on the IT maturity?

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_02]: All that SMB customer?

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Is it based on the cloud maturity?

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Is it based on the innovation mindset?

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And the answer is all of the above because what is happening is that we are seeing

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_02]: different levels of security adoption in terms of what is good enough?

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Do I need absolutely the best?

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: There is no guarantee but we have used these I have used this many of the others.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I've used it it's not a question of if but when and this for example 54% of the SMBs

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_02]: have had security incidents in the last one year and we have been doing this research

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_02]: for the last 10 15 years you know in the last five years that number 54% has not moved.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Right it just means static at that level so the cyber industry is sprawling

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_02]: does the cyber supply chain is complex there is a vast array of attacks attackers and

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: threat vectors business imperatives pull cyber strategy in multiple directions.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's where the concept of this consulting and this always has come to the picture.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so with you there because I've been thinking that one of the things that I've been talking to

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_01]: with MSPs which seems to resonate is this idea of look I want you to be really good at the basics.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01]: You know focus on really good disaster recovery and I equip and say I want you to be able to tell

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_01]: the ransom or guys to you know f off because your plan right because you plan and you've got

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: good disaster recovery meaning not only data protection but an incident response plan

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: meaning that we're expecting to go down and when we go down we know what's going to happen

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_01]: and we're going to execute our plan and we're going to restore from backup you know and I

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_01]: sort of look and I use I'm going to use crowd strike because it isn't a security incident

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_01]: but plays out exactly the same way the reason why Delta Airlines struggled as long as they did

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: is they didn't really have a particularly great incident response plan for that study you know that

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_01]: style and if they had one they could be up faster and I think the one last bit that I've been

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: saying is a sabbjorganization might even choose to self-insure that rather than spend money

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_01]: on cyber insurance you might just put money away you know particularly in a market where I can get

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_01]: 3 to 5% on my cash sitting in a bank that I could actually put some money away for it for a

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_01]: downtime and restore that's kind of counter to like what a lot of the security vendors are

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_01]: promoting right I mean it feels a little different of a strategy than what the market

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_02]: feels like it's trending toward am I always there yeah you're right and I'm I'm sorry I

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_02]: cut you short because I got very excited by what you're telling me because of the fact that you know

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: about everybody's trying to gravitate towards this cyber insurance right because they say there's

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_02]: a sum level of guarantee but getting to talk to an underwriter, getting that cyber insurance

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: that checklist keeps on increasing right and the checklist also has got a predefined list of

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_02]: security vendors right so that means hey you have no option but to go with the security vendors

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: but I think the most important point which I think you brought up out right so what we are seeing

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_02]: in the SMBs is now that finally the SMBs are realizing that cyber security is a business risk

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: and our data of over 3000 SMBs that we did a survey that we did very recently 54% of the

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_02]: SMBs already know now that cyber attacks are a business risk so the proud strike example

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_02]: brings me to the other point now what these SMBs are thinking you know what I want to move away

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: from just cyber security aspect of security my enterprise I want to move to cyber resiliency

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_02]: which essentially means the ability to bounce back right from any type of incidents

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: where incident which happens and that is not only about does this cyber resiliency but the

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_02]: entire business resiliency in cyber security becomes one piece of it so the idea for the

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_02]: MSPs and the channel partners and the customer is to say you know let us define what business

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_02]: resiliency means for us is it operational resiliency is it digital resiliency is it cyber

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_02]: resiliency which one of these kind of bubbles to the top and then design your cybersecurity

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_02]: from their on-mords so the has that business resiliency in place then data organization

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_02]: where they bounce back you know as quickly as some of the other airlines well that interestingly leads

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_01]: me to the second thing that I kind of wanted to talk about because if we're thinking broader about

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_01]: the way businesses are spending their money I would be remiss if I didn't talk about AI a little bit

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm going to cite your data so that listeners may be catching up on this because I've found some

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_01]: data points really interesting that I wanted to dive into you point that a significant 707

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_01]: percent of small businesses and 86% of upper midmarket firms are familiar with AI PCs so that

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_01]: shows that higher awareness of the technologies benefits and interestingly 32% of small businesses

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and 64% of midmarket firms plan to purchase AI PCs and then the other data point that you

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_01]: average of 2.2 large language models and initially 36% of them are piloting within average of 3.5

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_01]: and 24% of them plan to add an additional 2.2 large language models in there and this this is

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_01]: interesting because I start thinking about the way people are going to spend their larger IT budget

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm starting to figure it say like where is the AI spend happening and how is it going to happen

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_01]: and I want to sort of thrive one of my working premise and get you a get your take on it based

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_01]: when your data reach I'm I'm always afraid of the premises because that's the fun part so

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_01]: my thinking right now is that in 2024 the big opportunity around AI is the idea of working with

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_01]: organizations in that consulting mindset of doing data preparation a bit of data inventory

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_01]: doing the part to make sure that we're ready for different security models because one of the

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_01]: big things about LLMs is you can't just necessarily let them loosen all your data because they won't

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_01]: have any concept of security and give it to anybody who asks so you have to start thinking about

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_01]: that in prepping. That's your 2024 big opportunity is getting businesses ready and I tend to think

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_01]: that it's going to be using the kind of intellectual frameworks like a nist framework or a risk

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_01]: management framework to put that together and what we're going to see in 2025 and 26 will be

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_01]: more advanced pilot programs but additionally the investment in AI that AI PC is making sure

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_01]: that enough is enough is ready in the marketplace. So how far off am I and what's your data saying

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_02]: about that that way of thinking? No I think you're absolutely right I think the way we have to

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_02]: think about AI is the fact that obviously it has taken the entire industry by my storm right

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_02]: and what I tell our clients of the fact that cloud was considered to be as a great equalizer

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: right and the reason why I bring up this topic about equalizer was that hey you know what at least

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_02]: now SMBs can compete with the enterprises because they need they can quickly adopt size they can

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_02]: quickly adopt IAS and they are at the same competitive level what AI is doing I call that as AI

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_02]: is the great mirror what it means is that basically it exposes every process, every data,

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: every asset that you've got and it allows every process to be recast using every available asset

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_02]: within the organization every data point both internal and external right and this is true for

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_02]: the SMB, this is true for the partner organization, this is true for everybody else. So yes

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_02]: there are so many different you know pilots which are going on you know at a very simple level

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean there was a company which I was speaking where the other day admit market firm there are

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: pilots that are going on and they don't know which one will succeed right so they have got this

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_02]: things so we're going on but the way we will think about this is the fact that you know what

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_02]: the partner from a partner perspective they have to orient their thinking towards opportunities

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_02]: and not products, most of the products they are saying, most of the partners are thinking about

[00:16:19] [SPEAKER_02]: you know what let us sell as many products as possible and then they're looking at

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_02]: POCs and things like that but without understanding what is the core customer priority right so

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_02]: this is the huge example of 80 different projects but then if a partner knowledgeable partner

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: comes into the picture and says you know let us understand what is your core business objective

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: and the priority let us align ourselves with you right and then and then these partners should

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_02]: really focus on deep capabilities in one area not have a broad and and shallow expertise because

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_02]: that is not going to go anywhere right so we are seeing that yes pilots are being done but the

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_02]: pilots are not coming out to to really production only out of the 96% of the SMBs that are actually

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: focused on using genuine I only 12% of the projects have actually a only 12% of the SMBs have

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_02]: actually put their projects in production as of now we expect that that will probably increase over

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_02]: the next year or so but then many will kind of fall by the way side and they will kind of give up on it

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_02]: and they will continue to experiment in a public law way okay so that is I look at that data and

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I say this is exactly like sort of the right time to strike with good consulting right because

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_01]: if we've got a lot of experimentation going on but not a lot of success out of production

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_01]: that's a really good place to be if you're in the experimental or willing to invest in trial

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_01]: but we need to be careful about pace there because obviously we're probably going to be experiencing

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of failure this is the joy of the hype cycle right we're right in the middle of the mess and people

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_01]: are figuring out what it could do I want to get your take on another so again if we're thinking

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_01]: about this and you've done some thinking on large language models one of the things that I find

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_01]: is really unique about working with them and I've done some of my own product coding against the

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_01]: large language models it is in broad strokes they're all quite good and so they're quite equivalent

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_01]: it's very much subtleties of how they work I've often talked about the wine analogy that I think

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_01]: a lot of the large language models are a lot like the various veritals of grapes that go into

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_01]: wine making right then in a high level well we just make wine and if we just analyze the video

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_01]: the output is still wine that goes with food the subtlety is the well there are certain kinds

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_01]: that go better with other kinds of food and solve solutions in a better way but if you happen to

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: a white wine with a head of a steak that's fine right it's it'll ultimately solve the problem

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_01]: of you know making you not have thirst and then go with the meal but it's the matching that's

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_01]: much more important so where I'm thinking this expertise and where I would be pushing that

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_01]: services mindset to go is to make sure that you're understanding the application of the right

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_01]: language model against the right problem and in a way I think right now my analogy of the

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Somalier really does work because what you need to be good at is pulling solutions AI solutions

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_01]: off the shelf and getting the right ones into a customer's hands do you think that's the opportunity

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_01]: and how complicated do you think it's going to be because there's a lot of language models

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and there's a lot of there's a lot of complexity there right so you know first of all I'm

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_02]: going to steal that example of yourself the wine example I like that a lot and you know I'm

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_02]: going to use that with our clients no which is the exactly to your point that this is what we say

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_02]: to are to the partner community as well right say align yourself with one cloud leader

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02]: that's it you cannot and should not spread your wings across multiple iPods care

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_02]: aren't in unless you are like a billion dollar you know partner which has got the deep

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_02]: bench and the capabilities and all that but align yourself with one partner whether we're AWS

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_02]: or Azure or GCP who says where it is and where you can build some kind of affinity right

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and use that as launching path right so exactly so you need to have that level of expertise

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_02]: and what are these these some of the savvy partners are doing whether you call it fast track you

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_02]: call it fast start you call it you know an assessment period or call it an advisory period and

[00:20:56] [SPEAKER_02]: things like that I think that's the discovery period and we are seeing tremendous amount of partners

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_02]: actually focusing in that particular area and saying you know what we will come and by the way

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_02]: it's a paid engagement and the SMB is willing to pay for it where you have a two week or three week

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_02]: or a four week assessment whether the SMB organization or the upper mid market organization

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_02]: is it even ready to actually adopt AI what is also going to happen is to your point is AI

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_02]: is actually changing how businesses are operating at all levels right it is altering

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_02]: the IT economics and the service delivery capabilities so what an AI is being driven by the

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_02]: line of business buyers right so from a partners point of view the discussions with IT buyers are

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_02]: changing pretty rapidly right and AI has made it very relevant for non-technical managers and

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_02]: expanding overall opportunity and things like that so which means that a partner should actually go

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_02]: this is the number one question we care from partners you know you know I am creating this thought

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_02]: leadership documents but I'm not getting anywhere are you reaching the right customer are you

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_02]: talking to IT because you are an MSP you are used to talking to an MSB but the buyer has shifted

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_02]: right the experimental experimentation is going on somewhere else the POCs are being done somewhere else

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_02]: have you expanded your your overview has your marketing been educating the LB on your capabilities

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and things like that so I think the rate of change the equation is kind of changing

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_01]: nothing else that you are question it doesn't but it brings up a one that I want to bring up

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_01]: because you made there you said something there that was really subtle that I want to make sure

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I examine because you talked about the partnership being important at the hyper scalar and cloud

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_01]: and I don't disagree I think that's a critically important point but what it implies is that you're

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_01]: not prioritizing the large language model then so for example if I'm thinking about the right

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_01]: so I'm saying like you think it's important to make sure it's Azure DCP AWS versus a choice of

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_01]: an AI or anthropic, where do you think that dynamic is going between the choice of the

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_01]: hyper scalar versus the choice of the large language model that? That's a great question and

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_02]: a very interesting question I'll answer that with an example as well so when you start to look

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_02]: at our data right the momentum is towards open air because obviously they were the first out of

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: it is Gemini right Google's Gemini Amazon's bedrock in Q are kind of towards the end

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: at the time of thing but the momentum in terms of the adoption level the penetration and interest

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_02]: is towards anthropic today right but then at some point in time all these LLMs are going to

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_02]: reach a parity right so you cannot be spreading yourself across multiple LLMs models yes it could

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_02]: be a use case basis so the example which I want to give is there's a company that has is all

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_02]: in on Azure Open AI working on it build some solutions on it deploying it for their customers

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_02]: so on and so forth new ox summit happened of AWS andthropic announced this cloud 3.5 model

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_02]: it has a great graphing capability all of a sudden the partner thinks you know what I made a mistake

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I need to go the end the endthropic around I said that fine go and do your assessment

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_02]: how quickly the engineer is reported this we can't do it we cannot overall change we cannot tell

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_02]: the customers we cannot you know drive this kind of change right so they went back to Azure says

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_02]: you know what don't go and worry about it we will use our fusion technology we will use power

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_02]: BI on top of it and we will give you the same level of capability so the point here is this

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_02]: once your your head you're back with one hyper scalar build your expertise in this area

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_02]: and the owners lies on the partner not on the hyper scalar to actually work with you because then

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_02]: if you are doing so well with one hyper scalar then they will also help you achieve

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_02]: the success level that you want to achieve over a period of time which is maybe two years from now

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_02]: when the LMS become commodity then the partners can have the capabilities of to change

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_02]: the underlying components which is the LMS that I'm talking about to to to change them as the

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_02]: market evolves I think we are not there yet right and I think that's where it is important

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_02]: to have deep expertise in one area and then find that one marquee customer and then go along

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_01]: with that one one customer all right that helps a lot because in particular as we think about a lot

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_01]: of these solution providers they often have too many vendors and your approach there helps us

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_01]: make sure that we're not overextending I don't want to be respectfully retirement I'm going to ask

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_01]: one sort of last big question what's the big trend that you're watching most right now that

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_02]: that kind of has your most interest so the trend that we are seeing let's talk about it's

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_02]: vehicle in the SMB space right we're saying we talked about LLM so what comes up in the mind is you know

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_02]: are the LLM's the right way to go and what the SMB is realizing and the partners are

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_02]: realizing it's not the LLM's is the SLM's the small language model and that's the image

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_02]: trend I want to watch as to where whether that is going to take off very soon only because of the

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_02]: fact that you know what let us have smaller vents let us have smaller RY's see what a language

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_02]: model can do in my accelerating the AI adoption within my organization and that is also paratable

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_02]: for the MSP's and the solution providers to kind of build that and manage that and then

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_02]: along with this what is happening is the trend is that you know what for the last two years we have

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_02]: been talking about you know security assessment and IT's the services the manner services around

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_02]: security assessment and all in which we started to talk about this talk as well around that particular area

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_02]: we also saw a trend around cloud cost optimization but you know what the number one trend that we are

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_02]: seeing both from the partner side and from the end customer side is AI assessment and AI

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_02]: assessment has supplanted this cloud cost optimization trend it has supplanted the security assessment

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_02]: trend because that is where the market is moving and we are going to close you watch that and when

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_02]: AI PC's come out right when AMD's Ryzen based AI PC's come out when there's Intel's lunar

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_02]: lake PCs get announced which will probably next year then we will see a wider adoption of a

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: copilot plus plus PCs that's when the SLMs will probably come into real real dominance I want to

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_01]: watch that trend well I know what you and I will be talking about in roughly six months then

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_01]: because I'm going to be watching for the latest research you put out and keep an eye out for

[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_01]: for how that SLMs trend comes I don't know this has been great fun I really appreciate you joining me today

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_02]: thank you thank you for having me because great fun we should do it again we will just

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_01]: think yeah we will distinctly do it again well this weekend let's measure going to get my discussion

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_01]: with Colin Britain from Devicie Colin and I talk about AI in business operations and he's got a

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_01]: unique perspective on where he thinks it may be applicable the top of the market here's a

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_00]: preview of our discussion and I think the AI promises to go the other way which is the highest

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_00]: common denominator so in business operations you should be able to increase the productivity of

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_00]: your best players and increase the productivity of of your pool overall but from a top down perspective

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_00]: not a bottom up with the AI promise it starts to become the other way down because the critical thinking

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_00]: becomes much more important when you've got AI that I'll give you a really quick example

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_00]: of friend of mine the other day who's a better scientist super smart guy he's like working on

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_00]: some dashboards he's like I don't I don't have to write code anymore chat GPT writes my code

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and he said I don't you know you don't have to load a new language and it's like yeah it's

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_01]: gonna 95% that mine is weak and it was done my patreon supporters already have this interview

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_01]: and can watch it right away if you want to listen now it'll drop on the weekend on both YouTube

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_01]: and the podcast feed if you're interested I really do encourage you to go listen you can get it at patreon.com

[00:30:57] [SPEAKER_01]: slash MSB radio right now find it on the feeds on the weekend I want to thank sales builder our

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_01]: patreon sponsor who support makes the show possible focus on your IT sales workflow with the

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_01]: power of automation and visit them at salesbuilder.com that's BUILDR.com and vendors you too can get

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_01]: your name mentioned on the live show it's a simple monthly subscription visit patreon.com slash

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_01]: MSB radio and learn more and listeners the number one thing you can do to support the show

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_01]: is like share and follow on your favorite platforms tell the friend help us grow the audience but

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_01]: make sure you have hit that follow or subscribe button on whatever platform you enjoy the content

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_01]: and you can support directly on patreon with our give what you want model you set what you think

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_01]: the content is worth if you've got a question in your listening to the recording send it in at

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_01]: question at MSB radio.com I'll be back in two weeks for the live show we are off next week

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_01]: appreciate you joining me for the business of tech lounge and I will see you next time