AI & AUTOMATION By Chris Torbit A Question of Advisor Value Artificial intelligence has officially gone mainstream. Tools such as ChatGPT are no longer experimental. They are embedded in how businesses research, evaluate and make technology decisions. Procurement teams are using it. IT leaders are using it. Even your clients’ CFO is likely using it. For technology advisors, this raises an important and uncomfortable question: is AI making you more valuable or quietly making you less necessary? The short answer is both. And if you don’t understand the difference, you may be putting yourself out of business without realizing it. For starters, your clients now have the same starting point as you. For years, technology advisors built their value on access to information. Clients relied on advisors to answer key questions such as what solutions exist, which suppliers are credible, what a customer should expect to pay, or how a deal should be structured. That advantage was built on information asymmetry. You knew more than your client. Today, that advantage is shrinking. A client can now simply open ChatGPT and quickly discover a list of the top UCaaS providers, what a telecom RFP should include or even the “fair market rate” for internet service. Within seconds, they receive structured, confident answers. Are those answers perfect? No. Are they good enough to influence decisions? Increasingly, yes. And that, in and of itself, is a significant shift. 18 CHANNELVISION | SPRING 2026
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