Techaisle Blog

The high-volume SMB and midmarket channel will experience the AI-driven transformation just as profoundly as the enterprise space, but in fundamentally different ways. While enterprise-focused partners will be defined by their ability to create bespoke, complex IP and governance services, the winners in the SMB/midmarket segment will be defined by a different set of virtues: ruthless efficiency, service model automation, and the art of "packaged" (not custom) intellectual property.

The following 10 predictions detail the shift away from a "billable hours" model to one built on scalable, repeatable, and automated value. These trends are organized into three core "Mega-Trends" that define this new, efficiency-driven landscape.

Mega-Trend 1: The Autonomous Service Model

This mega-trend details the shift from human-led, manual service delivery to a new model built on automation, AI-driven platforms, and operational efficiency at scale.

1. The "Zero-Touch MSP" Becomes Reality.

The "Autonomous Partner" concept manifests differently in this context. It is not a custom-built agent fleet, but the mastery of a vendor's AI-native RMM/PSA platform. The winning MSPs will achieve a "Zero-Touch" service model where AI handles 90% of all tickets, patches, and provisioning, allowing them to scale to thousands of endpoints per human technician.

• Implications for Vendors: Your platform's AI automation is now your single most important feature. The vendor that provides the best AI-driven, self-healing, and auto-remediating platform will consolidate the MSP market.
• Implications for Partners: Your core competency is no longer service delivery; it is automation management. Your most valuable employee is the one who can train your platform's AI to handle more tasks.

Techaisle’s 2025 SMB predictions captured the critical first-wave adoption of AI-driven capabilities within the SMB and mid-market. Themes like Agentic AI, Embedded AI-aaS, and AI-First Workplaces set the stage for transformation.

For 2026 and beyond, our analysis evolves from this foundation to focus on the inevitable consequences. The central strategic challenge for SMBs will no longer be if they should adopt AI, but how they will manage the resulting complexity. This new landscape will be defined by the economic realities of AI ("AI-nomics"), the orchestration of autonomous AI workforces, and the critical need for sovereign data intelligence. The following 10 predictions detail this next wave of opportunity, organized into three strategic mega-trends. To illustrate this evolution, each 2026 prediction is accompanied by its corresponding foundational 2025 trend for context.

They are here - Techaisle's annual SMB and Midmarket Top 10 IT Priorities, IT Challenges, and Business Issues infographics, 12th year of Techaisle tracking at a WW level, and is sought after by IT vendors, channel partners, and media. Techaisle surveyed a total of 5850 SMBs, quota sampled to ensure adequate coverage of four small business (1-9, 10-19, 20-49, and 50-99 employees), three midmarket (100-249, 250-499, and 500-999 employees) and two upper midmarket (1000-2499, 2500-4999) segments. As a result, the data represents a robust and reliable sampling of the market segment for IT products and services.

Compared to previous years, for 2022, Techaisle expanded the lists of the technology areas, business, and IT challenges studied. In addition, this year, we have also added a fourth column in the infographic – Highest Planned Adoption.

Please scroll down/read more to view and download the SMB, core Midmarket, and Upper Midmarket infographics.

One of Techaisle's SMB surveys' annual highlights is exploring top business challenges and IT priorities for small and midmarket organizations. They are here - Techaisle's annual SMB and Midmarket Top 10 IT Priorities, IT Challenges, and Business Issues infographics, 11th year of Techaisle tracking at a WW level, and is sought after by IT vendors, channels, and media. In all sectors, 2020 was a challenging year – and as a result, 2021 is challenging from a market planning perspective. The disconnect between 2020 and 2019 was so severe that it rendered forecasts effectively useless: IT suppliers reacted to shifting market trends in real-time. As we enter 2021, IT product and service suppliers look to create a context for understanding the range of outcomes that the new year may bring. Techaisle's "2021 in Focus" research series illuminates issues and requirements in the vast SMB market to support that effort.

Techaisle surveyed a total of 5720 SMBs, quota sampled to ensure adequate coverage of four small business (1-9, 10-19, 20-49, and 50-99 employees), three midmarket (100-249, 250-499, and 500-999 employees) and two upper midmarket (1000-2499, 2500-4999) segments. The data represents a robust and reliable sampling of the SMB market for IT products and services.

There is an ongoing trend – in both the buy-side and supplier communities – towards positioning IT initiatives and expenditures in a business context. By providing insight into the most pressing business issues, IT priorities, and IT challenges faced by small, midmarket, and upper midmarket businesses, Techaisle's research helps readers position their go-to-market strategies and offerings with core market drivers.

For 2021, Techaisle investigated 30 technology areas, each with several sub-technology categories, 30 IT challenges, and 30 business issues.

View and download Top 10 SMB Business Issues, IT Priorities, and IT Challenges
View and download Top 10 Midmarket Business Issues, IT Priorities, and IT Challenges
View and download Top 10 Upper Midmarket Business Issues, IT Priorities, and IT Challenges

In 2021, data shows that hybrid/remote work enablement is either the 2nd or 3rd top IT priority depending upon the segment. Collaboration, which Techaisle researched as a discrete category, is the 2nd top priority within SMBs, 3rd in the midmarket, and 6th in the upper-midmarket segments. Collaboration is already an established framework in most midsized businesses, hence a lesser priority in the enterprise-level mid-sized firms. There is a wide-ranging trend towards seeing collaboration as part of the fabric of business activity, rather than merely a means of enabling connections between discrete tasks. It is a core component for midmarket firms' digital transformation. For these firms, VDI and analytics are a greater priority.

The 2021 business challenge findings depict a wide range of objectives: expansion of the customer base, improved top-line, and bottom-line results, cost control (within IT and across the organization), competitiveness, improvement of existing operations and processes, product and process quality, workforce and regulatory issues, and (perhaps as a nod to the pandemic) a need for enhanced ability to manage the unknown.

It is a diverse list. But what is remarkable is that analytics solutions can help address all of these issues – and that, indeed, SMBs are using analytics to manage each today, which gives marketers who sell analytics solutions an enormous advantage. They can position their products as addressing strategic business priorities.

By far, within the SMB segment, the highest adoption growth rates will likely be in 5G, SD-WAN, containers/Kubernetes, UCaaS, VR/AR, AI, HCI, Customer experience tools, and Open-source solutions.

View and download Top 10 SMB Business Issues, IT Priorities, and IT Challenges
View and download Top 10 Midmarket Business Issues, IT Priorities, and IT Challenges
View and download Top 10 Upper Midmarket Business Issues, IT Priorities, and IT Challenges