‘We’ll Be The Lucky Ones' – Partner Leaders Clash Over AI’s Future At Oxygen 250 Dinner

AI’s likely impact on jobs emerged as the hot talking point at last night’s Oxygen 250 dinner – with one leader predicting it will “substantially reduce employment opportunities”.

Held in partnership with Nebula Global Services, the Oxygen 250 dinner saw 16 partner leaders unite for grub and gab at the 14 Hills restaurant (view the best images from the evening here and full list of attendees, bottom).

The event follows on from the publication of Oxygen 250 in late January.

It profiled the 250 largest UK channel partners on our radar by revenue, from market goliaths such as Computacenter and Softcat downwards.

Those present were invited to chip in on any of four hot-button topics that emerged from Oxygen 250, namely AI, international growth, the switch to services and the increase in female-led Oxygen 250 firms.

On that latter trend, four of the Oxygen 250 top ten now have female leaders – three of whom (Bytes Technology Group’s Sam Mudd, CDW’s Penny Williams and Bell Integration’s Manpreet Gill) were in the room.

“It will substantially reduce employment opportunities”

Those present disagreed on whether AI will take – or conversely make – jobs.

boxxe CEO Phil Doye went slightly against the grain by predicting that AI could potentially fuel mass unemployment.

“It’s really optimistic to think this [latest] version of change will not substantially reduce employment opportunities,” he said.

“If we get to the point where artificial general intelligence is clever than us – which it almost is – I think we’ll see substantial unemployment across the globe… I think a lot of us in this room will benefit from this – we will be the lucky people. But there will be a huge number of people who won’t be able to benefit from it in the same way – and that’s before you even start thinking about robotics.”

Others, including iomart CEO Lucy Dimes, took a more upbeat view.

“Will AI generate new jobs? Of course it will,” Dimes said.

“It will displace a whole bunch of tasks none of us want to do. It will displace bits of jobs, but it will generate jobs because new technology always generates new jobs.

“I don’t know about everybody around the table, but I’ve got lots of customers asking me how to deploy AI. I’m sure all of us are thinking AI’s an opportunity, and we need more AI skills in our business to talk to our customers about how they can leverage AI.”

Bell Integration CEO Manpreet Gill concurred, arguing that AI has the ability to “liberate” people from mundane tasks.

Chelsea Chamberlin, Roc Technologies — Chelsea Chamberlin

Chelsea Chamberlin, CTO at Roc Technologies, also took a positive view on how AI might impact jobs.

“We have a data and AI practice, and we’re trying to position to customers that it enables their people who were doing mundane tasks to level up and focus on actual problems,” she said.

“Applying [AI] to problems we can’t solve without it is a more positive spin than thinking it will be applied to the job I do now.”

Marion Stewart, CEO of Red Helix, said the government risks stunting AI growth if it doesn’t quickly embed it into the education system, meanwhile.

“If we don’t get ahead of that in the education sector, we will fall behind some of the advances you see coming out of other countries,” she said.

“If the government is really serious about making the UK a powerhouse in AI, that’s one of the fundamental things you need to change.”

Candice Arnold, CRO at Wanstor, argued that AI is not only about chasing innovation but also creating a foundation for everyone to benefit.

“You’re right, we are the lucky ones around the table. We have internet connections, electricity and all of the mod cons we take for granted. But 80% of the world’s population may not have that, so we need to help them leapfrog any difficulties they may have,” she said.

“We think there’s a lot of opportunity”

Asked how optimistic or pessimistic they are for the next 12 months, Advania CRO Paul Barlow replied, “It’s what you make of it – it’s that simple”.

“Everyone here has a reasonable business, but they could double it and it wouldn’t affect the overall market significantly,” he said.

“At Advania we’re very optimistic, and we think there’s a lot of opportunity. I think AI’s going to take a while to get going, but it will come and it will create opportunities for our market.”

Alastair Rudman, Natilik — Alastair Rudman

Natilik CEO Alastair Rudman agreed.

“I share the optimism – it is exactly what you make of it. For the majority of companies around the table, the opportunity is there,” he concluded.

Speaking after the event, Nebula Global Services CMO Richard Eglon, said:

“Whatever the impact AI is having, and going to have, on our industry, tech businesses are going to need to innovate at an exponential rate in order to remain relevant and seize the opportunity.

“As a guiding barometer delivering services to the channel, Nebula is focused on delivering positive disruption to the channel services market. We believe the market hasn’t evolved much in the past 15 years, as a result, we have worked closely with our strategic partners to build a suite of new outcome-focused channel services that we believe will add intrinsic value to our channel partners service proposition and go-to-market strategy. “