{"id":31634,"date":"2026-05-07T23:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/31634\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T23:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:12:26","slug":"cloud-solution-providers-find-ai-customer-success-by-drinking-our-own-champagne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/31634\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud Solution Providers Find AI Customer Success By \u2018Drinking Our Own Champagne\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By testing and innovating AI solutions in-house first before taking them to market, cloud solution providers are finding a customer-winning formula. Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"a person holding a lightbulb with a glowing, futuristic cloud hologram inside, surrounded by digital circuitry and connections, symbolizing innovation and cloud-based technology.\" src=\".\/media_111dcb30b7fdbe495e2aa9a64d771bec008355a4c.jpg?width=750&amp;format=jpg&amp;optimize=medium\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crn.com\/news\/ai\/2026\/aws-partner-innovative-uses-agentic-ai-to-crack-the-code-on-service-delivery-signs-aws-collaboration-agreement\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cloud solution providers<\/a> are finding massive success selling a range of AI solutions and services to customers if they launch and test out their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crn.com\/news\/cloud\/2026\/aws-exec-revamping-map-program-is-game-changing-for-partners\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI innovation<\/a> in-house first to make sure that the AI truly does its magic.<\/p>\n<p>From \u201cdrinking our own champagne\u201d to creating \u201cAI Jedi,\u201d solution providers say proofing out AI solutions in-house first is winning them customer mindshare.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are customer zero for our own AI services that we offer,\u201d said Sanjay Singh, CEO of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crn.com\/news\/ai\/2026\/aws-ceo-says-ai-not-taking-away-jobs-as-company-plans-11-000-software-hires\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI cloud<\/a> solution provider Onix. \u201cEverybody has to learn and certify themselves on the AI stack. So it\u2019s a mindset and it\u2019s a hard-core discipline that we design that helps us win more [AI] customers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After successfully testing its new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crn.com\/news\/ai\/2026\/sap-to-buy-dremio-and-prior-labs-to-lead-agentic-and-ai-models\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">agentic AI<\/a> platform Wingspan internally first, Princeton, N.J.-based Onix was able to prove successful use cases in-house, which Singh said helped drive Wingspan sales to clients.<\/p>\n<p>[Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crn.com\/news\/cloud\/2026\/cloud-market-share-q1-2026-aws-microsoft-google-battling-in-ai-era\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cloud Market Share Q1 2026: AWS, Microsoft, Google Battling In AI Era<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we create platforms with agentic AI and we create AI delivery solutions, we try to be customer zero for everything across them,\u201d he said. \u201cIt helps customers see that we\u2019ve done it ourselves, trust it and the outcomes work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>        Cloud AI Jedi<\/p>\n<p>For Ontario-based cloud solution provider Pythian, it was important for employees to embrace Google Gemini internally first before creating and launching AI solutions to the market.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe needed to embrace Gemini, in our case internally, for all our employees to really push them to adopt Gemini to innovate themselves first on how they can build their own agents, look at how they can change the way they do their work,\u201d said Pythian CEO Brooks Borcherding. \u201cCustomers like to see that you\u2019re using it too and you\u2019re betting on it,\u201d he said, likening it to \u201cdrinking our own champagne.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe really look at our own internal hygiene to AI-enable us first to be a better company before providing all of it to our customers,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>What sprouted from this strategy is what Pythian dubs its \u201cAI Jedi\u201d practice\u2014an AI business unit of highly skilled AI field technologists who are laser-focused on helping cloud customers adopt AI services and solutions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey focus on how we can help companies adopt AI to improve their own IT operations internally like we did,\u201d Borcherding said. \u201cIt taught us, \u2018How are we truly leaning in to embrace AI for our managed services? How do we improve ticket responses? How do we automate common responses?\u2019 And we use that to improve our own customers\u2019 infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>        Big Increase In Businesses Using AI Services \u2018Extensively\u2019<\/p>\n<p>As solution providers are kicking the tires of AI innovation and use cases internally first, customer usage of agentic and generative AI public cloud services continues to increase year after year.<\/p>\n<p>In a 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crn.com\/news\/cloud\/2026\/azure-vs-aws-vs-gcp-vs-oracle-vs-ibm-client-spending-face-off-flexera-report\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Flexera market report<\/a> that surveyed over 750 tech executives, 45 percent of respondents said they are using public cloud AI services \u201cextensively,\u201d a big increase from 25 percent in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, 36 percent of respondents are using public cloud services \u201csparingly\u201d in 2026, up from 22 percent in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, 100 percent of executives in the report said they are using cloud GenAI services in 2026, an increase from 85 percent in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>This bodes well for solution providers selling their own AI solutions and services on top of public cloud providers\u2019 products.<\/p>\n<p>        \u2018We\u2019re Able To Serve More Of The AI Demand\u2019 For Customers, Innovative CEO Says<\/p>\n<p>Cloud solution provider Innovative Solutions was able to launch its agentic AI consulting platform DarcyIQ last year after testing and co-innovating alongside AWS\u2019 AI technology.<\/p>\n<p>This month, Innovative launched its AI-powered Agentic Delivery offering\u2014powered by DarcyIQ\u2014that enables AI agents to work alongside data architects and engineers across the full delivery life cycle. Innovative initially built its new agentic delivery services in-house, CEO Justin Copie said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was walking through the halls of Innovative in Rochester, New York, and I look over the shoulder of one of our engineers. This engineer had five screens all running simultaneously. And I could tell that it was AI actually doing coding. I asked the engineer, \u2018Hey, you were just on a call with a customer. What were you guys doing on those five screens?\u2019 He goes, \u2018Oh, those five screens aren\u2019t the customer I was just talking to; those are five other customers that I\u2019m working on right now simultaneously,\u2019\u201d said Copie. \u201cWe could see customers\u2019 own use cases for this is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By using DarcyIQ internally first, Innovative was able to find successful use cases and build an outcome-based offering that is winning over clients at a rapid pace.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat used to be four or five people that we would have to put on a project we now can streamline to maybe two or three people because we\u2019re using AI to do more,\u201d said Copie. \u201cWe\u2019re able to serve more of the AI demand that\u2019s out there for our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By testing and innovating AI solutions in-house first before taking them to market, cloud solution providers are finding&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[179,7493,24,405,408,25,402,403,223],"class_list":{"0":"post-31634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-agentic-ai","8":"tag-agentic-ai","9":"tag-agentic-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-ai","11":"tag-ai-agents","12":"tag-ai-applications","13":"tag-artificial-intelligence","14":"tag-cloud-platforms","15":"tag-cloud-software","16":"tag-generative-ai"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}