Monday Morning Impact – September 15
IDC: Agentic AI to Dominate IT Budget Expansion Over Next Five Years
Year-over-year spending on AI will grow by 31.9% between now and 2029, according to IDC’s Worldwide Artificial Intelligence IT Spending Market Forecast. This investment, driven by the growth of Agentic AI-enabled applications and systems to manage agentic fleets, will reach $1.3 trillion in 2029, according to the Massachusetts-based market research company.
The research reveals an unprecedented surge in Agentic AI spending and signals a transformation within enterprise IT budgets—especially when it comes to software—to investment strategies led by products and services based on an agentic AI foundation. This conversion is further supported by anticipated growth in platform solutions that enable companies to build, manage, and operate their agents more securely and efficiently.
“An important takeaway from this forecast is the clear alignment between the growth in (AI) spending and IT leaders’ trust that effective use of AI can boost future business success,” said Rick Villars, group vice president, Worldwide Research at IDC. “Application and Services providers that are behind in putting AI into their products and not extending them with agents are risking market share losses to companies that made the decision to put AI at the center of their product development roadmap.”
Among the highlights of the report, service providers will account for 80% of infrastructure spend as they support massive increases in agentic workloads through 2029. The report also anticipates a 10x increase in the number and complexity of 3rd party and custom-built AI agents used by enterprises in the next five years. Meanwhile, spending on AI-enabled applications is expected to increase faster than any segment, triggering major competitive shifts in the software industry.
The forecast also indicates that the adoption of agents and Agentic AI will accelerate innovation in how companies use technology and code to transform their business. These investments and the evolution of related products will increasingly determine the success or failure of the business and tech leaders who put them in place, and the businesses that use them. For this reason, informed leadership will be critical to success during these next several years.
“This research reveals several important issues for businesses to consider about the interconnection between labor and AI investment,” said Crawford Del Prete, president at IDC. “As an example, business leaders will need to pay particular attention to employee roles in an enterprise, and how roles change as agents become more commonplace in business. Agents will change the nature of work, making some roles highly productive, and others obsolete. Workers and enterprises will need to be more agile than ever before to keep pace.”
Coinciding with this growth in AI spending is a massive increase in the amount of underlying compute capacity required to support this agent growth. In the short term, this will require significant and complex build-out from infrastructure providers, which will be led by cloud providers. Long term, the focus on AI will likely divert funding in other areas of the tech stack. Whether from an enterprise or a service provider, spending on IT, such as servers and storage, which are not related to AI, will be driven by efficiency and consolidation, limiting growth, according to IDC.
Channel Impact®
The forecast signals an IT transformation from software to AI-Based products and services, thereby providing new opportunities and challenges for the channel.
TD Synnex Inks Deal with AWS to Accelerate Cloud and AI
TD Synnex has announced a new collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services to accelerate AI adoption, cloud migration, and marketplace growth across North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.
The new agreement provides investment resources that connect SMB and mid-market partners with an enhanced range of AWS services to be made available through the distributor. This strategy is also intended to strengthen TD Synnex’s ability to enable more partners and their customers to adopt AI by effectively scaling AWS AI services. Additionally, the agreement simplifies access to AWS Marketplace programs for ISVs, allowing them to monetize faster and reach new customer segments. The two companies already maintain a similar agreement in Europe.
TD Synnex holds multiple AWS specializations, competencies and program designations, including Migration and Modernization, Education and Government, Cloud Operations, Managed Service Provider program designation, Amazon EC2 for Windows Server Delivery and Amazon RDS Delivery. Engagements are supported through the distributor’s global cloud platform which also facilitates partners’ ability to adopt and monetize AI and cloud solutions and systematically scale their AWS AI practices with technical training, go-to-market support and enablement.
“Our partners are under increasing pressure to modernize while navigating limited financial resources, rapidly evolving AI and cloud landscapes and complex marketplace environments,” said Reyna Thompson, the distributor’s President of North America. “Through our strategic collaboration agreements with AWS, TD Synnex is uniquely positioned to help Partners overcome these challenges through service-led expertise and support.”
“Our collaboration with TD Synnex brings together AWS innovation and their extensive Partner network, creating new opportunities for businesses across the Americas on their cloud and AI journeys,” said Brian Bohan, Director, Consulting COE of AWS. “We’re focused on connecting more Partners with AWS services so customers can achieve faster modernization and the business outcomes that matter most to them.”
Channel Impact®
The multi-year agreement is intended to unlock joint investment, co-selling and solution building opportunities for partners in the Americas, ultimately empowering them to expand their cloud and AI business offerings.
Verint Agrees to Be Acquired by Thoma Bravo for $2 Billion
Verint, a Melville, NY-based CX Automation company, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Thoma Bravo in an all-cash transaction reflecting an enterprise value of $2 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Verint common shareholders will receive $20.50 per share in cash, an 18% premium to Verint’s 10-day volume weighted average share price up to June 25, 2025 (unaffected share price), the last day prior to media reports regarding a potential sale of the Company.
“Verint’s market leading CX Automation platform, enterprise customer base and talented employees position it well to shape the future of customer experience with AI as part of the Thoma Bravo portfolio,” said Mike Hoffmann, a Partner at Thoma Bravo. “At the closing of the transaction, Verint will join forces with Thoma Bravo portfolio company Calabrio. The opportunity to automate CX workflows with an AI-powered platform is significant, and the combined company will have the industry’s broadest CX platform arming brands of all sizes with strong AI business outcomes.”
The transaction, which was unanimously approved by the Verint Board of Directors, is expected to close before the end of Verint’s current fiscal year, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by Verint shareholders and the receipt of required regulatory approvals.
Channel Impact®
The acquisition reflects new opportunities in the Artificial Intelligence space.
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