TECHtonic: Trends in Technology and Services

Recorded live at the May 2026 TSIA Board Summit, this executive panel brings together technology and services leaders to explore how AI is transforming the future of customer engagement, professional services, support, sales, and education services.

Moderated by Thomas Lah and George Humphrey, the discussion dives into emerging business model trends shaping the technology industry, including forward-deployed engineers (FDEs), AI-native operating models, value realization frameworks, agentic workflows, outcome-based selling, and the evolving role of services organizations in driving revenue growth.

Panelists Kusal DeSilva of AptEdge, Prasad Sular of Certinia, Shari Cravens of HPE Digital Experience, Usman Nasir of Salesforce, Fotini Costopoulos of ServiceNow, and Kurt Kuelz of Siemens Digital Industries Software share real-world examples of how leading organizations are restructuring around customer outcomes, why services teams are playing an increasingly strategic role in the sales cycle, and the evolving skills technology professionals will need to thrive in an AI-first economy.

This candid, unscripted live discussion captures how leading companies are navigating one of the fastest technology shifts the services industry has ever experienced.

Recorded live at the 2026 TSIA Board Summit, held in May, Thomas Lah delivers a provocative and insightful keynote on why the AI era is forcing companies to fundamentally rethink their operating models, pricing strategies, and service organizations.

Drawing from nearly 30 years of experience advising global product companies, Thomas explains why today’s AI transformation is moving faster — and carrying higher stakes — than any previous business shift, including the rise of the internet and the move to “as-a-service” business models.

In this session, he introduces the “Services 2.0” framework: a practical model for navigating AI-driven business transformation while overcoming the two biggest obstacles companies face — organizational inertia and flawed business assumptions. He explores why outcome-based pricing is rapidly becoming unavoidable, how customer value delivery is evolving, and why service organizations are increasingly becoming central to enterprise growth strategies.

Thomas also shares research-backed insights into why most transformations fail, the leadership mindset required to succeed, and the specific operational capabilities companies must build now to remain competitive in the AI economy.

In this episode of TECHtonic, Thomas Lah of TSIA sits down with Michael Harnum, CEO of ESG Success, to unpack a bold idea reshaping the tech industry: Customer Success as a Service. As companies face mounting pressure to cut costs while still driving retention and growth, traditional customer success models are being pushed to their limits.

Michael shares how his experience scaling renewal operations and training services led to a broader, more holistic approach—helping organizations not just execute customer success, but design, optimize, and even outsource it. From building maturity assessments to leveraging AI for scalable success plans, the conversation dives into how companies can transform fragmented, underperforming CS functions into strategic growth engines.

If you’re grappling with churn, struggling to prove ROI, or wondering how to scale without adding headcount, this episode delivers practical insights and a fresh perspective on making customer success a true driver of business value.

In this episode of TECHtonic, host Thomas Lah sits down with Angelica Riemann, SVP and President of the CrossLab Group at Agilent Technologies, to unpack how a legacy hardware company is transforming into a modern, recurring-revenue powerhouse.

From its origins as a spinout of HP to becoming a global leader in lab innovation, Agilent is redefining what it means to deliver value—not just through instruments, but through an integrated ecosystem of services, consumables, software, and digital experiences.

Angelica reveals how Agilent is:

• Building a “flywheel” of recurring revenue across the entire lab lifecycle
• Navigating increasingly complex buying personas and pricing models
• Leveraging AI and digital tools to transform both customer support and internal operations
• Shifting from selling products to delivering outcomes and workflow solutions

The conversation also explores the future of enterprise buying—where frictionless digital experiences, self-service support, and even AI-to-AI transactions are reshaping how customers engage.

If you're in tech, services, or any industry facing disruption, this episode offers a powerful look at how to evolve your business model for a world that demands more value, speed, and flexibility.

In this episode of TECHtonic, Thomas Lah sits down with Cormac Whelan, CEO of Nitro Software, to unpack what it really takes to compete, and win, when you’re up against industry heavy weights.

As AI reshapes the software landscape, Cormac shares how smaller, more agile companies are using it as a force multiplier, enabling lean teams to innovate faster, deliver smarter products, and “punch above their weight.” But technology alone isn’t the advantage.

The real differentiator? Customer intimacy and value realization.

Cormac dives into how Nitro leverages deep customer insights to uncover massive efficiency gains, like reducing document redaction from hours to seconds, and turning those insights into scalable, AI-powered solutions. The conversation explores why traditional software models are breaking down, how pricing is shifting toward outcomes, and why proving value is now the ultimate competitive edge.

You’ll also hear:

• Why incumbents still hold power, and where they’re vulnerable
• How AI is changing product development, pricing, and go-to-market strategies
• The growing importance of trust, security, and transparency
• Why the future belongs to companies that deliver outcomes, not just software

If you're navigating today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape, this episode offers a clear message: the winners won’t be the biggest—they’ll be the most agile, customer-focused, and value-driven.

What happens when AI can do almost everything marketing teams used to own?

In this thought-provoking episode of TECHtonic, Thomas Lah chats with marketing leader Kathy Macchi to unpack a bold AI manifesto that’s challenging how CMOs think about their role, and their future.

As AI rapidly takes over content creation, campaign execution, and analytics, marketing teams face a critical crossroads: evolve into a strategic powerhouse—or risk becoming a commoditized service function.

Kathy breaks down:

• Why most marketing work is quickly becoming “context”, and what remains truly “core”
• The dangerous trap of over-automation (and how it can quietly erode your brand)
• How AI is reshaping roles, workflows, and even org structures
• Why “more content” actually makes it harder to stand out
• The rise of “Move 37 moments”, when AI forces professionals to rethink their value overnight

This isn’t just about marketing. It’s about how professionals stay relevant in a world where AI keeps raising the bar.

If you’re a CMO, marketer, or a business leader navigating AI disruption, this episode will challenge how you think about strategy, value, and the future of your role.

AI is everywhere. So where is the real business value? In this episode of TECHtonic, TSIA’s Thomas Lah speaks with Sofi Elfving Hallberg, CEO and co-founder of Substorm and a machine learning pioneer who has worked in the field since the early 2000s. Sofi shares how the AI landscape has evolved from the early days of limited data and computing power to today’s generative AI boom, and why many companies are still struggling to move beyond experimentation.

They discuss why much of today’s AI investment may be chasing hype rather than solving meaningful problems. According to Sofi, the biggest opportunities lie not in generic generative AI tools, but in vertical, industry-specific solutions that tackle complex operational challenges—like quality control, document management, and other “boring” enterprise processes that can deliver massive ROI when optimized.

The conversation also dives into what it actually takes to make AI succeed inside organizations. From avoiding endless proof-of-concept projects to prioritizing change management and business ownership over IT-led initiatives, Sofi explains why delivering measurable value from day one is critical. For leaders trying to cut through the noise, this episode offers a practical roadmap for turning AI potential into real results.

Net revenue retention is under pressure. SaaS growth has slowed. Sales and marketing budgets are shrinking. And AI is forcing companies to rethink everything, from seat-based pricing models to how they engage, retain, and grow customers.

In this episode of TECHtonic, host Thomas Lah welcomes back Brent Grimes, CEO of Reef.ai, for a direct and timely conversation about what’s actually happening in the AI revenue landscape.

Since their last discussion, AI capabilities have advanced rapidly, but the bigger shift isn’t just better models. It’s how companies are using those models to survive and win in a far more demanding market. With declining net revenue retention across public SaaS companies and mounting pressure to “do more with less,” leaders can no longer rely on intuition, last-call sentiment, or broad segmentation strategies. The era of guessing is ending.

Thomas and Brent explore the rise of model-driven revenue management, where predictive AI doesn’t just improve forecasting accuracy but identifies churn risk months in advance, pinpoints expansion opportunities with statistical precision, and helps teams prioritize their time where it matters most. They discuss how upsell intelligence may actually unlock more upside than churn reduction alone, and how organizations are beginning to move from dashboards and insights toward autonomous workflows powered by renewal and expansion agents.

The conversation also dives into the practical realities of making this shift—from solving data quality challenges to building trust with revenue teams who must learn to work alongside models and agents rather than rely solely on instinct. As AI adoption compounds quarter over quarter, the gap between early adopters and laggards is widening, and 2026 may mark the moment when that divide becomes unmistakable.

If you own revenue, lead customer success, or sit in the CRO seat, this episode will challenge how you think about forecasting, expansion, resource allocation, and the future of go-to-market execution.

AI is no longer a distant promise, it’s actively reshaping how work gets done. But the biggest differentiator between companies that thrive and those that fall behind isn’t the technology itself. It’s how leaders guide people through the change.

In this episode of TECHtonic, TSIA’s Thomas Lah sits down with 2x best selling author and strategist Alison McCauley to explore what it really takes to move a workforce from fear of replacement to mastery of augmentation. They unpack why early AI gains compound so quickly, how invention, not just efficiency, drives long-term advantage, and why subject matter expertise is more critical than ever in an AI-powered world.

The conversation dives into practical realities leaders face today: managing shadow AI, balancing centralized governance with decentralized experimentation, measuring progress beyond ROI, and creating habits that make AI a natural part of daily work. Alison also shares a powerful framework for helping teams break out of “paralysis by possibility” and reimagine what’s newly possible for their business.

If you’re a leader wondering how to turn AI from a source of anxiety into a catalyst for growth, this episode offers both clarity and a roadmap.

In the AI era, enterprise technology companies face a hard truth: generic platforms no longer win. Profitable growth now depends on delivering specific business outcomes, and that requires going deeper than ever before.

In this episode of TECHtonic, TSIA Executive Director Thomas Lah speaks with Mari Cross, Chief Customer Officer at Infor, to explore how micro-vertical strategies, AI-driven services, and outcome-based solutions are reshaping enterprise software.

Mari breaks down what micro verticals really are, and why speaking the customer’s exact language is now table stakes. She shares how Infor invested billions to rebuild its platforms around industry-specific processes, how AI enables faster value realization through packaged use cases, and why “secret sauce” often turns out to be best practice in disguise.

The conversation goes deep on:

• Why AI is forcing a shift from platforms to outcome-based solutions
• How micro vertical expertise transforms sales, implementation, and customer success
• The rise of AI-powered service models, and why services are becoming more strategic, not less
• How Infor uses AI to drive adoption, customer health, and proactive engagement
• What enterprise leaders must do to govern AI, scale ROI, and prepare their teams for what’s next

If you’re navigating AI disruption, rethinking your services model, or wondering how to actually deliver value, not just promise it, this episode is a must-listen.