CEO Outlook 2026: Sumit Dhawan

The one thing nearly every major tech CEO is putting at the top of their 2026 agenda? AI.
Their message is clear: Partners and customers that embrace AI now will be best positioned to capture the massive opportunities on the horizon.

The one thing nearly every major tech CEO is putting at the top of their 2026 agenda? AI.

Their message is clear: Partners and customers that embrace AI now will be best positioned to capture the massive opportunities on the horizon.

Find out where CEOs are placing their bets in 2026 and how they are relying on partners to help them tackle emerging technology opportunities this year.

‘We see 2026 as a big year of adoption for AI for our clients and we are preparing for that,’ says Luis Alvarez, CEO of Alvarez Technology Group.

Nutanix CEO Rajiv Ramaswami explains his plans to win the ‘decade of platform wars,’ along with Nutanix’s AI strategy and partner investments slated for 2026 as part of CRN’s CEO Outlook 2026 project.

‘We expect global compute demand to increase by roughly 100X over the next five years. That’s why we are investing across our CPU, GPU, NPU and networking road maps to deliver higher performance and better efficiency [in 2026],” AMD CEO Lisa Su says as part of CRN’s CEO Outlook 2026 project.

‘As customer environments become more complex and AI becomes more embedded in day-to-day operations, partners play an increasingly important role in how security is delivered, operated and scaled,’ says Darktrace’s Jill Popelka.

“In 2026, we’re investing in technologies that move our customers forward, starting with expanding AI capabilities at every layer—including next-generation PCs, scalable, secure compute, and storage,” said Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell.

Many of the world’s foremost networking leaders agree that AI won’t just be a workload in 2026, but rather, the backbone of the entire networking ecosystem.

From agentic-powered security to emerging AI opportunities for partners, here’s what the CEOs from 10 leading cybersecurity vendors are expecting this year.

From infrastructure players to cybersecurity leaders, the world’s highest-ranking executives say AI is driving the biggest wave of innovation that the industry has seen in decades.

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About Author

AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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