Partners need to be AI-ready to support customer needs, says Michael Dell

“It's an opportunity for us to share what's happening inside Dell but also, across our customer base so all of our partners in the room can go help their customers,” says Michael Dell.

At the Dell Partner Summit held at Dell Technologies World 2026 in Las Vegas, Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, called on partners to be AI-ready as the tech vendor expects an increase demand for AI infrastructure in the second half of the year and beyond.

Speaking to partners at the summit in a session with Denise Millard, Chief Partner Officer at Dell Technologies, Dell shared that the tech company has grown double digits in all lines of business and has an incredible momentum as it moves towards FY27. With 5,000 customers already adopting the Dell AI Factory, Dell’s predicts next year’s number to be even more.

In order to support customers in their AI journey, Dell called on partners to transform the online good market as well as have a strong viewpoint with customers around what it's going to take to get there.

“So that's a big opportunity for all of us. Absolutely. What we had a couple years ago wasn't really ready. Now there's so much more. We have almost a thousand of these Cuda-X libraries and models. You see all the on-prem models. It's a question of when they are coming. And so, there's a whole new capability that has to be built up. And the tools are there. And so, everybody's got to go embrace that,” Dell said.

At the same time, Dell believes that if the vendor and partners kept doing the same stuff for the past three to five years, they wouldn’t be in business.

“It's an opportunity for us to share what's happening inside Dell but also, across our customer base so all of our partners in the room can go help their customers,” he said.

“You've got to go do the hard work in understanding what the tools are capable of and reimagining the processes to get to the outcomes. But then, look, change is hard, right? Not everybody wants to do it. It's complicated. You've got to stop doing things you used to be doing. And you might be deleting a lot of processes that were built over time. And I think the speed element here is the advantages that will compound,” Dell explained.

Dell also mentioned that the impact of the changes is showing up in the results as the tech company sees differential results among partners that are embracing AI and building out the capabilities sooner.

“I think this is a step up to change in how business is really being done. And we hope you'll all come with us,” he said.

Maximizing the opportunity

For Dell, there is an opportunity for partners to go and reimagine, re-architect, and redesign things with customers.

“The partners that really bleed into this, I think, are going to do incredibly well. What we're seeing across our partner base is that they don't have all the skills either, but they're getting creative with partnering with each other to deliver those outcomes. So, everybody is learning as they're going. And, you know, we've all got to go build up capabilities,” he said on partners making the most of the agentic AI opportunities with customers.

Interestingly, Dell also shared that where there is a demand for agentic AI, the real agent take off hasn't really even happened in broad scale across millions of companies.

“I think it's still pretty early in all this. The models are great, but they're the worst they'll ever be. They're going to keep improving. Now's the time to make sure that you're diving in, and you're reimagining your own business, helping your customers reimagine their businesses. And we've got all the tools to help you do that, to help customers make it. So that's where you all come in. We're incredibly grateful for the partnerships that we have with all of you,” Dell added.

Looking ahead, Dell believes that the company and the partner ecosystem are set up for a fantastic second half of the year.