The Hidden Industry That Controls The Tech Your Company Uses
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome, humans, to the Neuron AI Explained. I'm Corey here with my good friend and neuron writer, Grant Harvey.
How are you, man? Doing good, Corey, as always. Today, we are stepping outside the core AI research bubble and into the real-world market where AI actually gets sold, implemented, and supported. And we are joined by Victoria Durgan and Katie Bovoso from Channel Insider, our sister publication that covers channel sales, MSPs, and the ecosystem most businesses rely on, often without the public ever really realizing it exists. I'm in the latter camp, so I'm excited to chat. We'll define what channel even is, why it exists, and how AI is changing who wins and who is running behind.
So before we get started, if you haven't yet, take just a minute to subscribe to the channel. We really appreciate it.
What is the 'channel' in the context of AI services?
Helps us continue bringing you all the movers and shakers inside the AI space and the people who are actually building the tools. But now let's get down to business. Victoria, Katie, welcome to The Neuron.
Thank you so much for having us.
Yeah, long-time listener, first-time caller. I love it.
I love it.
Well, we're so glad to have you here. Just to recap, this whole thing kind of came together because we were at a company leadership retreat, and I watched Victoria give a very passionate explanation as to what channel is, and I remembered thinking, well, people should be, you know, buying their AI this way and doing other things. There are a variety of things where this could be really beneficial. And I thought neuron readers really ought to know this exists because I figured if I don't, surely someone else doesn't either. So while we can't do the four hour long late night explanation, I'd love if you could kind of explain channels.
Yeah, no, thanks, Corey. And you're welcome in advance to all listeners and readers who don't have to endure the four hours of whatever I blocked out and delivered at that moment. I'm actually going to flip it to Katie, I think, to start. She has a great analogy that I think is a great starting point that I use when I'm explaining it. So I'm going to let her do it in her own words since she's here.
I love sure this is a test. All right. Thank you so much, Victoria. Yeah. I mean, first of all, Corey, don't be one of those people who suddenly get self-conscious about knowing not knowing what the channel is, because there's also so many different words for it. The I.T. channel is just a distribution channel like any other channel that gets product to customer to the consumer.
How is AI impacting the traditional distribution model?
across the world, we're just the only ones that call ourselves the channel. And many people inside this space actually don't even call it the channel. So we can have conversations with people that we literally are in the same industry as, and they're not referring to it as the channel. So if I've already lost you, let me try to bring you back by using that simple sort of comparison that Victoria was talking about. The way that I learned it and the way that it helps for me to explain it is when you think about milk. So think about milk as you think about actual IT products, technology products, computer software. Those products are not necessarily direct to consumer at scale. So when I want to go get milk, where do I go?
I head to the grocery store. I head to a Hannaford, a ShopRite. Publix. I'm really trying to get all the regions of the country here with your grocery stores. I don't go to Hood. I don't go to Stonyfield or the actual sites in which they produce these milks and actually milk the cows. I go to a grocery store in order to purchase because if hood and stony field and i really hope i could say these names because this is going to be a lot of bleeping if i can't uh but if all of these particular milk distributors wanted to get milk directly to me and i had to go to them it would be a mess a logistical mess for them to be able to do that so they rely well we used to have a distribution for milk it was called the milkman right
Yes, yes. Grant, the milkman was maybe the AI of his time, but we can get into that at a different point.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:47
2
What is the 'channel' in the context of AI services?
0:47–2:37
3
How is AI impacting the traditional distribution model?
2:37–5:56
4
Why do businesses prefer using MSPs instead of buying directly from vendors?
5:56–12:17
5
What are the challenges faced by MSPs in the current AI landscape?
12:17–17:34
6
How are AI tools changing the relationship between businesses and their MSPs?
17:34–24:48
7
What role does verticalization play in the future of MSPs?
24:48–31:39
8
How can small businesses effectively adopt AI in 2026?
31:39–1:10:43
Speakers
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