Ingram Micro’s Sanjib Sahoo: ‘Intelligence Across The Entire Life Cycle Is The Future Of Distribution’
‘Partners are telling us they don’t want more tools. They want intelligence. They want outcomes,’ says Sanjib Sahoo, president, Global Platform Group, at Ingram Micro.
Rather than pushing partners to sell AI as a stand-alone motion, the Irvine, Calif.-based distributor is focusing on AI maturity, solutioning and intelligence, meeting partners where they are and helping them build repeatable, outcome-driven offerings, according to Sanjib Sahoo, president, Global Platform Group, at Ingram Micro.
“AI solutioning depends on maturity, both the partner’s maturity and the customer’s,” Sahoo told CRN. “You can’t jump into AI without understanding where you are in the stack. It’s like trying to run a treadmill at 12 miles per hour on day one. If you do, you’ll hurt yourself.”
That philosophy is shaping how Ingram Micro is investing in its AI Factory, agent-based automation and its Xvantage platform, which Sahoo described as the “operating system for the channel.” The goal is to move distribution beyond fulfillment and toward aggregation, orchestration and intelligence across the full AI life cycle.
“We’re not building procurement technology as the advantage,” Sahoo said. “We’re building the operating system that allows partners to focus on outcomes, not complexity.”
The shift also comes as partners face growing pressure from hyperscalers, vendors and direct-to-customer AI sales models, forcing the channel to rethink its value. According to Sahoo, AI is accelerating that change by making traditional line-card distribution insufficient.
“With AI, customers are no longer asking what they bought; they’re asking what outcome they achieved,” he said. “Distribution has to evolve from sell-in to sell-with and sell-through.”
Ingram Micro believes its AI Factory, powered by 4 petabytes of data and hundreds of internally developed models, gives partners the intelligence they need to generate demand, identify opportunities and monetize AI without having to build everything themselves.
“Partners are telling us they don’t want more tools,” Sahoo said. “They want intelligence. They want outcomes.”
CRN spoke further with Sahoo about how the distributor is embedding AI deeper into its ecosystem and what partners can do now to keep pace.
When you talk about enabling AI, how is Ingram Micro helping partners not just adopt AI, but actually monetize it?
AI solutioning depends entirely on maturity, both the partner’s maturity and the customer’s. You can’t jump straight into AI without understanding where you are in the stack. It’s like trying to run a treadmill at 12 miles per hour on day one. You’ll hurt yourself.
We help partners assess their AI maturity, understand the layers such as data, compute, storage and models, and then build a playbook to take solutions to market. AI isn’t one thing. It’s a journey, and you have to meet partners where they are.
Ingram Micro invested early in cloud. How did those lessons shape your AI strategy?
The biggest lesson is simple: You have to use the technology to sell the technology. Selling cloud without using cloud doesn’t work. AI is the same.
Three and a half years ago, before ChatGPT existed, we made a strategic bet that Ingram needed to become a platform ecosystem powered by data and AI. We knew someone had to aggregate and orchestrate this complexity, and it couldn’t be done manually. Another lesson: Think big, act small. And make it the partner’s story, not Ingram’s story. Our job is to solve their pain points, like integrations and intelligence, not push technology for technology’s sake.
AI is more complex than cloud, so how does that change distribution’s role?
Cloud was mostly software and licensing. AI spans hardware, GPUs, networking, data, models, algorithms, subscriptions and compute. That fundamentally redefines what a distributor does. We’re not building procurement technology as the advantage. We’re building what I call the ‘operating system for the channel.’ Partners shouldn’t need to understand every underlying component. We abstract that complexity so they can focus on outcomes.
Ingram Micro’s AI Factory, what is it and why does it matter?
The AI Factory is our secret sauce. It’s patent-pending and powers everything we do. Think of it as a zone where you drop in data and models to rapidly prototype, train and refine AI. We’ve built more than 400 homegrown machine-learning and deep-learning models using Ingram’s data, 4 petabytes of it, across customer, vendor and employee journeys.
Data flows into our data mesh in real time, gets processed in the AI Factory and then delivers intelligence into experience layers. That intelligence improves recommendations, identifies opportunities and gets smarter with every transaction.
So how do AI agents fit into this strategy?
We think about agents in three categories. First, automation agents: prompt-based, task-oriented. Second, orchestration agents that connect systems and execute workflows autonomously. Third, supervisory agents that oversee both humans and other agents.
We’re combining Google’s Gemini models with our internal data and models to create agent-driven sales briefings, pipeline insights and opportunity recommendations. Over time, partners will access this directly through Ingram Micro Xvantage. Right now, we’re training the agents before exposing them broadly.
How do you see distribution evolving from moving products to delivering outcomes?
Historically, distribution was mostly fulfillment. But AI changes how technology is sold. Customers now ask, ‘Did this investment reduce ticket costs? Did it improve productivity? Did it deliver an outcome?’
That means distributors must provide intelligence, not just catalogs. It’s no longer just sell-in; it’s sell-with and sell-through. Aggregation still matters, but orchestration matters more. Intelligence across the entire life cycle is the future of distribution.
You’ve said partners can tap into a $260 billion-plus AI opportunity. What should they do right now to prepare?
Start simple. Build basic AI solution stacks across layers like data, infrastructure, cybersecurity and compute. Pick one or two components per layer and start having conversations. At the end of the day, AI still comes back to core infrastructure. Partners should learn how to break AI solutions into micro-layers they already understand. Education is the biggest gap today.
Many MSPs still aren’t using AI internally. How can smaller partners get started?
Lean on us. Through Xvantage integrations, partners can connect their CRM or CPQ [configure, price, quote] in minutes. Once integrated, we combine their data with our intelligence, built from 40 years of data touching 90 percent of the world, and deliver insights automatically. I hear two types of feedback: Some partners ask their fulfillment teams how the platform is working. Others tell me it’s the only platform that gives them intelligence without asking for it. That’s the shift, from tools to insights.
Mindset also keeps coming up. How should partners help customers and employees overcome resistance to AI?
Mindset drives skill set. Fear is the biggest bottleneck. People worry AI will replace jobs. That creates resistance. My philosophy is simple: Augment the winners, don’t penalize the losers. Replacement creates fear. Reimagination creates opportunity. If you excite your employees and give them a chance to learn, they’ll help you serve customers better. We’re far more open to new technology in our personal lives than in business. Partners need to help customers think big, take small steps and focus on purpose and outcomes, not fear.
Three years into this journey, where do you want Ingram Micro to be in the next three years?
We want to redefine what the channel is. To be the B2B platform ecosystem, the operating system, that helps partners capitalize on the AI era and create real value. That’s the mission. And that’s where the channel is headed.