Preparing Customers For The Agentic Future: The Channel Opportunity

AI aspirations and agentic AI adoption are growing rapidly with use trending steadily upwards. Companies once in an AI holding pattern are now actively exploring how AI agents can automate workflows, accelerate decision-making and improve employee productivity.

Research from The Channel Company in 2026 found that 77 percent of organizations are running AI pilots projects or are scaling AI across multiple use cases, while a separate study found that more than three-quarters of respondents are implementing AI in select areas or actively using AI across business operations.

“This is the most consequential technology innovation that we will likely face in our lifetime,” said Todd Gustafson, president HP Federal LLC & U.S. public sector for HP Inc. “The analogy that I draw is it’s very similar to the horse and buggy and the automobile. It’s that transformative.”

The Agentic AI Readiness Gap And Rising Risk

Amid this acceleration, AI readiness is in doubt at many organizations, with 1 in 5 enterprises reporting a lack of maturity in AI agent governance in the Deloitte survey referenced above. The biggest areas of AI readiness shortfalls include:

IT leaders can underestimate the role of endpoint devices in AI readiness. While conversations often focus on data center capacity and cloud infrastructure, employees increasingly interact with AI through PCs and end-user devices. Without AI-capable endpoints, organizations can struggle to realize the productivity, performance and security benefits of agentic AI.

Deliver Agentic AI Guidance From The Data Center To The Desktop


Companies have long turned to solution and service providers for support through technology transformation, and this holds with the shift to AI transformation today. Many organizations understand the potential of AI but remain unsure how to prioritize investments, balance workloads, establish governance and identify the right use cases.

According to Gustafson, end users often approach partners with a predefined idea of what they want and ask whether it can be supplied. However, he says that dynamic is shifting.

“What I see is a script reversal in how they engage industry and the partner community in a very proactive manner asking for help defining what it may look like,” Gustafson said. “It allows partners to be just that, partners. Part of the mission, part of the acceptance. When our customers write the book about how they embraced AI and how it was a success formula, those partners that were part of their achievement will be in the first paragraph of that book.”

As organizations evaluate where AI workloads should run, endpoint devices are becoming an increasingly important part of the strategy. HP’s AI PCs for business equipped with NPUs and advanced CPUs and GPUs enable AI workloads to run locally and reduce latency while improving performance, strengthening privacy, driving energy efficiency and increasing workforce productivity. For more demanding AI development, engineering and data science workloads, HP Workstations provide the additional performance and graphics power required for these tasks.

“This is the perfect opportunity for the partner to come in, consult on an overall budget and say part of your AI budget should be AI at the PC level,” said Jason Mooneyham, corporate vice president, global commercial channel & North America channel chief, AMD. “You get all the benefits of localized security on the client and the capability—now and into the future—to run everything you plan to implement.”

Establish AI Governance And Identify AI Workflow Opportunities

Strong governance helps organizations scale AI while reducing operational, security and compliance risks. Partners can help clients establish responsible AI frameworks, security controls and policies governing access to AI tools. Customers also need support identifying workflows where AI agents can improve productivity and automate routine tasks.

AI PCs support both goals. Device-level AI capabilities give employees opportunities to experiment, innovate and work more efficiently, while enterprise-grade security and manageability features help organizations maintain greater control over data, access and AI usage.

Organizations are increasingly shifting from "bringing data to AI" to "bringing AI to the data" models, Gustafson noted, making localized AI processing and governance around sensitive business information even more important.

AI PCs: The On Ramp To Agentic AI Success

Intelligent AI PCs provide a practical on-ramp to agentic AI adoption, helping organizations bring AI capabilities closer to employees while establishing a foundation for broader AI transformation.

HP AI PCs powered by AMD RyzenTM AI PRO processors give solution providers a compelling entry to conversations about enterprise-wide agentic AI readiness and adoption. AI inferencing at the endpoint enables enhanced productivity and accelerated innovation, while keeping sensitive data local and reducing reliance on cloud-based processing for everyday AI processes.

Move client conversations beyond PC refresh cycles to AI readiness with AMD and HP business PCs. Learn more.