ISV Talks recaps The BizApps Partner Summit with Carol Livingston and Bob McAdam

The AI revolution waits for no one—and Microsoft wants its partners to know it. In this revealing conversation, Carol Livingston and Bob McAdam unpack the seismic shift happening in Microsoft's partner strategy following their attendance at the BizApps Partner Summit (soon to be renamed the AI Business Solutions Partner Executive Summit).

The urgency in Microsoft's messaging was impossible to miss. Gone are the days of gradual technology adoption curves—while personal computers took 12 years to become ubiquitous and cloud computing took five, artificial intelligence is expected to transform business completely within just two years. And as Bob pointedly observes, "one year has already gone by." This accelerated timeline has Microsoft executives sounding an alarm that partners can't afford to ignore.

A particularly striking theme emerged around becoming what Microsoft calls "frontier firms"—partner organizations that embrace AI internally before advocating it to customers. The stakes couldn't be higher, with one panel moderator bluntly stating that partners failing to adopt AI strategies might not survive beyond the next 12-18 months. This evolution isn't just about prompted AI tools that require human direction, but autonomous "agentic AI" that operates independently in the background, potentially becoming part of organizational structures. As Carol notes, "It kind of freaked me out when they said agents are part of your org chart."

The future clearly belongs to those who adapt quickly. For ISVs, this represents both challenge and opportunity as Microsoft looks to them to develop industry-specific AI solutions. Perhaps the most sobering insight came from a conference speaker who observed: "AI is not going to take your job away. Someone doing your job with AI is going to take your job away." Where does your organization stand in this rapidly evolving landscape? Are you becoming a frontier firm, or risk being left behind?