Looking at the time from when the need for a cybersecurity solution is identified to deciding what vendor can deliver, purchases take seven months, on average. And some outliers are skewing that number up. The majority of respondents (55 percent) said they take less than six months, while just 15 percent take more than a year, on average. An additional 15 percent claim to take less than three months. Given the complexity of the category, the level and importance of the investment and a buying circle that can include both technology and C-level decision makers, these are fast decisions being made. But buyers clearly are feeling a sense of urgency created by today’s evolving threat landscape. That sense of urgency, and the resultant compressed buying journey, may be pushing more businesses to seek the help of outside technology advisors and consultants to identify and select vendors, The Hoffman Agency surmised. Just 1 percent of buyers surveyed did not employ an outside agency – whether analysts, advisor, MSP or consultant – at some point in the buying process. According to findings from Cynet, about six of every 10 internal IT teams surveyed plan to involve an MSP when adopting new security tools. That includes 64 percent when it comes to cloud and Saas security and 61 percent in the case of agentic AI. “The preference for adopting new tools through either a hybrid approach or MSPs is becoming more pronounced, reflecting a strategic shift in how organizations manage their cybersecurity needs,” said Cynet researchers. This trend is at least partly driven by the fact that MSPs are further along the AI learning curve, with a significant portion of MSPs already integrating AI technologies into their security operations, showed the Cynet data. Indeed, MSPs had higher rates of AI usage (60 percent, on average) compared to in-house teams (44 percent on average) across every AI-related security product listed. “While running AI security in-house at an SMB will technically be possible in 2026 and beyond, strategically it will be hard to defend,” Cynet researcher argued. “MSPs have the delivery channel, are 13 to 16 percentage points ahead on every AI capability and have the scale which most in-house teams lack.” The good news for partners and providers is that businesses are not shifting dollars around to deal with an evolving threat landscape; the majority are increasing security budgets. In addition to the 60 percent of organizations that increased their budget in the last 12 months, 67 percent expect to see an increase in the next 12 months, showed The Hoffman Agency figures. Cynet, for its part, found that 78 percent of internal IT teams expect cybersecurity budgets to grow. Those estimates could even be conservative, considering that 96 percent of security professionals surveyed by Infoblox reported challenges managing threat exposure, driven by rapid expansion in cloud services, SaaS applications, IoT/OT systems and shadow IT. Cloud exposure alone is the top priority for more than half of security teams, reflecting how quickly risk is shifting beyond traditional enterprise boundaries, said the Infoblox study. Put together, research suggests that many organizations will be reviewing and rethinking their security stacks and the vendors that provide them. Partners and providers that can articulate and understand the challenges presented by today’s dynamic and morphing threat landscape stand the most to gain. o How do you currently use/plan to use AI or LLM-based technology in your security operations 2026? MSPs Internal IT Team Automated remediation and response 64% 48% AI copilots/assistant for analysis 61% 46% Customer-facing reporting or summarization using AI 61% 45% Embedded AI within security platforms (EDR/XDR/MDR) 59% 43% AI-driven threat intelligence or enrichment 58% 43% AI-assisted alert triage and investigations 58% 41% Source: Cynet Proactive threat hunting using DNS 37% Source: Infoblox How long from need identification to vendor selection? Less than 3 months 15% 3 - 6 months 40% 6 - 12 months 29% 13 - 18 months 11% 18 months + 4% Source: The Hoffman Agency; Coleman Parkes Research 24 CHANNELVISION | SUMMER 2026
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTg4Njc=