TD SYNNEX's UK boss on where partners sit on the AI maturity curve and the future of distribution

How far along is the UK channel on AI? CRN sat down with David Watts in Manchester to talk AI maturity, the traits of winning partners and why distribution must ‘earn the right to exist’

The AI maturity gap is widening, but Watts says don’t panic

There is a strange tension running through the channel’s AI conversation as 2026 draws to a close.

The investment is enormous. The expectations are arguably even greater still. And yet plenty of partners and their customers are still trying to work out:

How are we going to monetise AI?

David Watts, managing director at TD SYNNEX UK&I, has a reassuring message for those worried they may have already been left behind in defining what good looks like in ROI on AI.

“I think it’s just really important with AI to recognise we are right at the beginning of something,” he says.

“The reason all the AI spending you see in the headlines are so huge is because the market is still building the infrastructure. That’s how new we are to it.”

“Even if you’ve done nothing yet, what you can do is continue to be curious and talk to your customers. And also remember, you don’t have to build the capability alone.”

Watts’ perspective is that he expects some partners to enter 2027 still grappling with the very earliest stage of adoption maturity including fundamental questions around what outcomes they hope to achieve, and whether that extends beyond the well-worn promises of productivity and efficiency.

“In 2027, in reality, some people will still be looking at Copilot deployments. Are they working? Is there value for money? Are we in control of the costs?” Watts says.

“For some that will be their principal 2027 conversation around AI and that's all they'll be talking to their customers about.

“I think there's going to be another set of partners who are more advanced and surer of what their AI proposition is for their customers. That might include some of their own IP, or it might be that they are choosing to be specialists in a vertical. And what I expect there is that we will be partnering with them technically more and more.

“Even if you are early in your journey, you’re fine. But be curious. Talk to your customers and find out where they’re trying to head to themselves.”

For those partners who are beginning to work out where AI fits within their existing proposition CRN’s global newsrooms have been covering examples across different geographies from agentic AI coding to specific case studies.

However, the reality appears to be, as Watts says, that the majority of businesses are still in a nascent stage of understanding what their business will look like in five years. And which AI products and services they will monetise to get them there.

Currently, around 35 per cent of MSPs say between 11 per cent and 25 per cent of their revenue now comes from AI-related services.

And even from the vendor side, in a sit-down discussion under Chatham House rules, a collection of top vendor marketing bosses shared with CRN that communicating the value of specific AI technologies is becoming an ever more difficult challenge.

How do you stand out to channel partners amongst the ubiquity of AI marketing? Throw in AI-generated marketing about AI and you’re really in real danger of breeding frustration.

TD SYNNEX's go-to-market strategy on AI

As the saying goes, if you want to go anywhere fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.

Watts laid out his vision for bringing resellers and MSPs to the distributor to access AI capabilities when I met him at TD SYNNEX’s Explore partner event in Manchester.

His overarching message to the channel is that knowing where to find specific capability could become just as important as owning it. And deciding what not to build yourself could become one of the more important strategic decisions a partner makes.

“In the channel we're building scaffolding for AI, but we're being held accountable for outcomes already with end users. And that's kind of where that huge gap between foundation or scaffolding building and seeing the monetisation of AI is really key.

“Don’t feel like you have to do this on your own, because very few partners are,” he says.

“Ultimately, when you’re going to market, who are you leaning on that you trust?”

Watts expects the relationship with channel partners to become increasingly technical in future due to these changes in the market being wrought by AI. And he points to helping partners enter solution areas where building the capability themselves would be prohibitively expensive.

TD SYNNEX opened a new AI Lab within its Business Solutions Centre in Bracknell earlier this year as exactly that kind of environment where resellers and MSPs have the technology and infrastructure to develop specific proofs of concept for end user customers. You can see my interview with Simon Bennett, MD Advanced Solutions at TD SYNNEX in the link above on what he hopes the facility will achieve.

Watt shares that around 50 partners have already made use of the facility since June.

“AI Labs is free for you to come and use, so take us up on it,” he adds.

“This cost doesn’t need to be in your business. Make sure you use it.

“We just want you to be successful. Remember, your success is our success.”

In a nod to the SMB heart of the UK channel, Watts says that giving smaller resellers access to technology, expertise and infrastructure it could not economically reproduce itself potentially narrows one of the gaps between them and larger competitors.

What surprised Watts in 2026

As any partner knows, delivering an outcome for a customer can require expertise across infrastructure, applications, data, security, compliance, vendor technologies and the customer’s own industry.

When asked what stood out to him in 2026, Watts singles out the agility of SMB partners in a difficult economic climate.

SMB remains a major focus for TD SYNNEX. Watts says its market share in the segment has grown by around five per cent over the past couple of years, taking it to roughly a third of its market.

“It is incredible because some of them are right at the tip of the spear with AI.

“Maybe they're focused on a vertical and working with legal practices locally where they know that sector really well. When a customer comes to them and says, ‘We've got these specific needs, we want to move fast, can you help us with our business transformation?’

“From having a conversation like that some of our partners are moving from having not deployed much AI at all to very quickly moving to a well-governed, secure deployment.

“I’m always impressed about how dynamic SMB partners are adapting to a new opportunity,” he says.

“These are the traits of winning partners.”

See page 2 for short term predictions for AI revenue in the channel; why distribution also has to ‘earn the right to exist’; and why Watts spends a third of his time on culture.

Short term predictions for AI revenue in the channel

That speed does not mean the economics of AI have been solved by any means.

I put some of CRN’s recent reporting to Watts to ask his view of the market against what partners themselves are saying.

CRN recently reported Omdia research from this year’s Canalys that suggests that more than half of partners expect flat or declining revenues despite the AI boom.

Given the huge level of investment and expectation surrounding AI, does a muted near-term revenue outlook concern him?

Not especially.

“I’m not particularly surprised,” Watts says.

“One of the things not to forget in me having just spoken about AI, and you interviewing me about that, is actually all the solutions, all the problems that end user businesses had before are still here. They still need tech solutions that are bespoke to them and all those opportunities and challenges remain.”

“AI might be part of those solutions, but there’s still so much that customers are trying to work on in their businesses that don’t involve AI, which our partners are working on every day.”

Customers are still moving workloads. Some that moved heavily into public cloud in recent years may be reassessing where those workloads sit. Security, infrastructure and the wider demands of business transformation have not disappeared because generative AI has arrived.

And for some end users, AI simply will not top the priority list yet due to budget constraints.

“However, I might be surprised if the outlook does not change a couple or three years from now,” he adds.

Distribution also has to "earn the right to exist"

Longer term, Watts also spoke about not taking distribution’s place in the channel for granted.

“One of the things I talk to our teams about is the nature of distribution,” he says.

“You have to continue to earn the right to exist. We don’t make anything. We don’t have a lot of IP outside of our platforms. So, we’re always looking to see where the value-add delivery is and the value add for all distributors actually has changed a lot over the last ten years.

“Over the last 20 years, of course we have moved from the delivery of hardware to software and cloud-as-a-service models, and what that has required is the deployment of platforms. We’ve invested in platforms to bring together technology and capabilities that partners perhaps can't because it's very costly to build a platform.

He adds: “In this way then we are able to build value and enable a partner to deliver business transformation and have wider and deeper technical support, or move into new solution areas. This has been the biggest change in distribution over the last ten years, and we’ve got to continue to be aware of where next.”

Why Watts spends a third of his time on culture

In its most recent reported financials, TD SYNNEX revenue climbed 38 per cent to $21.6bn (£16.3bn) in Q3.

Part of that success, Watts says, is down to the distie’s leadership team emphasising people and culture as a core driver of growth.

Watts estimates that he spends around a third of his time on people and culture.

It has been certified by Great Place to Work for the last three years in the category UK’s Best Workplaces.

“We’re trying to empower all our teams,” he says.

“And we had 108 people promoted internally last year. The whole idea being, in the end, the reason to have this focus on culture is to drive business success and better services for our partners.”

For Watts, the ultimate test of that investment is what happens when TD SYNNEX’s people interact with partners.

“People in our partner organisations name specific individuals in our business when they talk about what and who is enabling them,” he said.

“They may say 'We love it when so-and-so comes out, they’ve got great energy, they made a difference, they really care.'

“That’s the litmus test. That’s what we want the end result to feel like.”

Watts also believes culture offers one significant advantage over another product launch or platform feature: it is extremely difficult for somebody else to reproduce quickly.

“When we get this stuff right, someone can’t wake up and try and copy it in a quarter,” he said.

“It takes years of work.”

The same could arguably be said of the wider transformation Watts sees taking place across the channel.

There is clearly no single point on the AI maturity curve where partners are sitting as we head into 2027.

Some are still working out whether early Copilot deployments are delivering sufficient value. Others are building their own IP, specialising around particular verticals or moving rapidly into more complex customer deployments.

And one thing that stood out from my conversation with Watts is that size is not necessarily deciding who is furthest ahead. Some smaller partners are moving quickly precisely because they know their customers, their vertical and the problems they are trying to solve.

There are a few useful takeaways here for partners.

You don't have to have AI figured out yet. But standing still is different from being early. Watts' advice to partners still at the beginning is simple: stay curious and keep talking to customers about what they actually need.

Don't assume you need to build everything yourself. Knowing where to find capability, whether through a distributor, vendor or another specialist, may become as important as owning that expertise internally. In some cases, deciding what not to build could be the smarter investment.

And don't forget the rest of the market. AI may dominate the conversation, but customers haven't stopped worrying about security, infrastructure, cloud, data or the wider transformation of their businesses. Plenty of money will still be made solving those problems.