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AI is more likely to replace repetitive channel work than the trusted relationships that support complex sales, implementation and customer service. That is the argument Mike DePalma, OpenText’s vice president of business development, made at the March 2026 XChange event in Orlando, Florida. His point is not that AI will have no effect on employment or channel roles. Rather, he distinguishes between automating tasks and replacing the trust, judgment, referrals and accountability that partners provide.
That distinction matters for vendors, managed service providers (MSPs), distributors, VARs and technology buyers. Marketplaces and AI tools can make discovery, procurement and administration faster. They do not automatically solve migration risk, compliance questions, multi-vendor coordination or responsibility when a project fails.
What DePalma’s claim actually means
The headline claim that AI “won’t replace” relationships is best understood as a channel thesis, not a universal prediction. DePalma reportedly acknowledged that AI could make some jobs unnecessary while arguing that relationship-building serves a different function.
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There are four separate questions:
- Can AI replace a task? Often, particularly when the work is repetitive, rules-based and based on structured data.
- Can AI replace a role? Sometimes. A sales or service position may change substantially if AI performs much of its administrative workload.
- Can AI replace a relationship? That is harder when the relationship includes trust, context, influence and accountability.
- Can AI reduce the commercial value of a relationship? Yes. Transactional relationships may become less valuable when customers can compare products, obtain information and complete routine purchases digitally.
The defensible conclusion is therefore narrower: AI may compress repetitive channel labor while preserving, and in some cases increasing, the value of relationships involved in difficult or high-risk decisions.
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CRN’s account of the XChange discussion presents the argument through comments from DePalma and channel executives including Amie Seisay of Seisay IT Solutions, Brian Miller of FusionTek and Raymond Ribble of SPHER.
Why relationships still matter in channel sales and services
A channel relationship is more than a friendly contact or an introduction. Depending on the situation, it can provide:
- Customer and industry context that is absent from a standard product brief.
- Confidence in a vendor’s roadmap and ability to support the deployment.
- Access to specialists and escalation paths when normal support is insufficient.
- Joint account planning and referrals.
- Coordination among vendors, integrators and internal customer teams.
- Commercial flexibility during a disputed renewal, failed project or changing requirement.
- A named person who remains accountable after the sale.
These functions become particularly important when the customer’s stated request is not the real problem. A buyer may ask for a new collaboration platform when the underlying issue is governance, adoption, security or an ineffective operating model. A knowledgeable partner can challenge the request, identify the risk and recommend a better route.
AI can help surface patterns and propose options. The customer still needs to decide whether the recommendation fits its business, risk tolerance and internal politics—and who will take responsibility if it does not.
Two examples of relationship-created value
A referral that expanded into broader services
Seisay described a relationship formed through the Microsoft community that led to a federal-contract opportunity. The initial work reportedly involved a SharePoint migration. After successful delivery, the engagement expanded into support and governance across the Microsoft 365 environment.
Seisay said the relationship generated just under $2 million in revenue over time. That figure is her account of the engagement, not independently audited channel data, and it should not be treated as a typical return on networking.
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The commercial mechanism is nevertheless clear:
- A trusted relationship creates an introduction.
- The partner wins a limited project.
- Good delivery creates credibility.
- The customer expands the scope of work.
- Support, governance and related services create additional or recurring opportunities.
An automated marketplace may have helped the customer find a provider. It would not, by itself, create the confidence that encourages a customer to expand a provider’s role.
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Miller emphasized a different aspect of relationships: knowing whom to contact when a problem needs attention. A partner may be able to submit a support ticket through an automated system, but difficult cases often involve competing priorities, product limitations, contractual questions or a customer facing an operational crisis.
A trusted vendor contact cannot guarantee a favorable outcome. That person can, however, help identify the right internal owner, establish urgency and coordinate a response. In channel services, that operational influence can be more valuable than another product comparison.
Which channel tasks AI can automate
AI is well suited to work that is high-volume, repeatable and relatively easy to check. Examples include:
- Lead qualification and routing.
- Meeting summaries and CRM updates.
- First drafts of proposals and statements of work.
- Marketing-content variations and campaign targeting.
- Basic customer-support responses and knowledge-base searches.
- Service-ticket classification and documentation.
- Routine endpoint and security-alert triage.
- License, usage and renewal analysis.
- Internal questions about partner-program procedures.
- Routine reporting and account research.
Automation does not mean these functions can be left unsupervised. AI-generated proposals can contain incorrect assumptions, support systems can misclassify an urgent issue and prospecting tools can damage a brand with irrelevant outreach. The advantage is that people can spend less time on administration and more time on advisory work, customer success and escalation.
OpenText’s partner-network materials similarly position partners as important to implementation, secure deployment, trusted data use and broader customer guidance—not merely product resale.
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What AI cannot reliably replace
AI can generate a recommendation or rank an account. It is less reliable as a substitute for the human functions surrounding high-consequence decisions:
- Accountability: Someone must stand behind a security, architecture or migration decision.
- Judgment: Business priorities often conflict with technically optimal choices.
- Organizational context: A plan can fail because of internal politics, incentives or change resistance rather than technical flaws.
- Negotiation: Renewals, service failures and scope disputes require parties to reach an acceptable outcome.
- Crisis coordination: A major outage or breach may involve several vendors and executives at once.
- Trust after failure: Customers need clear communication and ownership when delivery goes wrong.
- Interpretation: A partner may recognize that a customer’s stated requirement conceals a different operational problem.
- Influence: A referral is often based on personal confidence in a provider’s competence and reliability, not just a ranking model.
These are limitations of substitution, not proof that AI cannot perform parts of the work. An AI system may assist with incident analysis, draft communications or recommend escalation. The human value lies in interpreting the recommendation, making the decision and remaining answerable for the result.
The channel’s “last mile” of value
Ribble said the discussion resonated because AI may move different tasks while the final customer-facing work still involves individuals working with clients. This can be described as the channel’s last mile: translating technology into a decision the customer can accept and operate.
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- Can an AI-generated recommendation be trusted without a known person standing behind it?
- Who is accountable if an automated agent selects the wrong security control?
- Does a self-service support experience preserve confidence during a serious outage?
- At what point does efficiency become customer abandonment?
For low-risk, standardized purchases, the last mile may require little human involvement. For a regulated migration, complex integration or failed implementation, it may require substantial human involvement. The appropriate balance depends on the customer’s risk, complexity and preference—not on a blanket belief that either automation or personal contact is always superior.
Why marketplaces did not automatically eliminate relationships
DePalma reportedly argued that analysts who expected marketplaces to displace channel relationships misunderstood how the channel works. That is his interpretation, not a measured industry consensus.
Marketplaces are valuable for:
- Product discovery.
- Price comparison.
- Standardized procurement.
- Digital fulfillment.
- Routine renewals and add-ons.
They are less likely to resolve:
- Architecture and integration decisions.
- Migration risk.
- Compliance interpretation.
- Change management and adoption.
- Long-term optimization.
- Service accountability.
- Coordination across multiple vendors.
Marketplaces and relationships are therefore not necessarily substitutes. A customer can use a marketplace to buy software and still need a partner to configure it, secure it, integrate it and operate it.
OpenText’s channel strategy
OpenText describes a partner ecosystem that includes strategic partners, global system integrators, resellers, technology partners and managed service providers. Its stated model emphasizes co-innovation, distribution, implementation and helping customers adopt AI and information-management capabilities.
CRN has also reported on an OpenText partner-program overhaul involving improved integrations, simpler procurement, enablement, Microsoft support, rebates, marketing-development funds and a more coordinated partner experience. Those are reported priorities and company claims; the available evidence does not establish that the changes have produced a particular adoption rate or financial return.
OpenText also announced a referral partnership with Hatz AI on April 7, 2026, intended to help MSPs move from interest in AI to practical adoption and delivery. That initiative reinforces the commercial role OpenText assigns to partners: guiding customers through implementation rather than simply presenting AI features.
Prospective partners should verify regional eligibility, product coverage, rebate terms, marketing-fund rules, certifications and support obligations directly with OpenText’s partner information. No reliable public pricing for partner participation, rebates, MDF or Hatz AI services is established by the supplied evidence.
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The counterargument: relationships can also create inefficiency
“Relationships matter” should not become a defense of every traditional channel practice. Personal networks can produce gatekeeping, opaque pricing, slow responses, vendor favoritism and uneven access to expertise.
AI and marketplaces may improve the channel by reducing:
- Manual partner administration.
- Dependence on personal contacts for basic information.
- Slow response times.
- Opaque product and pricing comparisons.
- Uneven access to technical knowledge.
- Sales claims unsupported by usage or performance data.
A relationship is valuable only when it produces better outcomes. A vendor that talks about human connection but provides poor support, unclear terms or unreliable escalation will not retain trust indefinitely. Likewise, a partner with strong executive contacts but weak technical delivery does not create durable customer value.
The meaningful human advantage is not simply human presence. It is contextual judgment combined with expertise, responsiveness and accountability.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteWhat the shift means for MSPs
MSPs should treat AI as a way to redesign service delivery, not merely reduce headcount.
- Automate routine work: Start with ticket classification, documentation, monitoring summaries, knowledge searches and repetitive reporting.
- Keep named owners: Give customers a clear human contact for major incidents, security decisions and service reviews.
- Disclose AI use: Explain when customers are interacting with an AI system and how they can reach a person.
- Review high-risk output: Require human approval for security controls, compliance advice, architecture changes and customer-facing commitments.
- Redeploy capacity: Use time saved on administration for advisory work, governance, adoption and customer-success programs.
- Measure outcomes: Track resolution quality, escalations, customer satisfaction and recurring revenue—not only tickets closed or labor hours removed.
- Preserve institutional knowledge: Document customer context so service quality does not depend on one individual’s memory or network.
What the shift means for vendors
Vendors can strengthen relationships by making the partner experience easier and more accountable:
- Provide practical AI training tied to customer use cases.
- Make escalation contacts and ownership clear.
- Improve procurement, integration and configuration workflows.
- Communicate rebates, MDF and program requirements plainly.
- Reward partner-sourced influence and successful implementation, not only closed transactions.
- Offer human support when automated guidance is insufficient.
- Give partners reliable technical and roadmap information they can use with customers.
If every vendor can produce similar automated outreach, proposals and content, differentiation may shift toward credibility, customer knowledge, implementation history and transparent handling of AI limitations. That is an analytical implication of the relationship model, not a measured industry result.
What buyers should ask
Customers should not choose a provider solely because it offers a personal relationship—or reject automation simply because it is automated. They should ask:
- Which parts of delivery are automated, and which require human review?
- Who is accountable for recommendations and major incidents?
- Can the provider coordinate multiple vendors?
- How are AI outputs logged, checked and corrected?
- Can a customer reach a human quickly during a serious outage?
- What happens when the AI recommendation conflicts with business, security or compliance requirements?
- Does the provider have relevant implementation experience, or only a sales relationship?
Bottom line
OpenText’s Mike DePalma is making a persuasive but qualified point. AI may eliminate or compress repetitive channel tasks, and it may reduce the value of purely transactional selling. It is less likely to eliminate trusted relationships where customers need judgment, implementation expertise, escalation, negotiation and someone accountable for the outcome.
The strongest formulation is not that AI can never replace relationship-based work. It is that AI is likely to move the human value upward: away from administration and toward context, credibility, coordination and responsibility. Partners that use automation to disappear from the customer experience may weaken trust. Partners that use it to respond faster and provide better advice may make their relationships more valuable.
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