"In 2026, software vendors are realizing that they no longer operate in a vacuum; they must choose which orbit they want to spin in as OpenAI and Anthropic construct their 'Everywhere Ecosystems.' With the AI platform market on its way to $497 billion, the battle is no longer about raw model benchmarks, but about which vendors can help the 87% of enterprises still struggling to transform their daily workflows."
By the end of 2026, enterprise software vendors will face a stark architectural and commercial choice as OpenAI and Anthropic move into gravitational centers of enterprise tech, mandating native platform integration to remain competitive on purchase shortlists. This structural shift is supported by ETR’s March 2026 data, which shows OpenAI’s GPT “o-series” models leading enterprise usage at 57%, while Anthropic’s Claude surged from 21% to 48% within a single year, establishing these two players as the primary engines driving enterprise AI adoption.
Alex Smith is Vice President & Practice Lead, Ecosystems, Channels, and Marketplaces at the Futurum Group. He is responsible for establishing and maintaining the Channels Research program as part of the overall Futurum GTM and Channels Practice. This includes overseeing the channel data rollout in the Futurum Intelligence Platform, primary research activities such as research boards and surveys, delivering thought-leading research reports, and advising clients on their indirect go-to-market strategies. Alex also supports the overall operations of the Futurum Research Business Unit, including P&L segmentation, sales & marketing alignment, and budget planning.
Prior to joining Futurum, Alex was VP of Channels & Enterprise Research at Canalys where he led a multi-million dollar research organization with more than 20 analysts. He played an integral role in helping the Canalys research organization migrate into Omdia after having been acquired in 2023. He is an accomplished research leader, as well as an expert in indirect go-to-market strategies. He has delivered numerous keynotes at partner-facing conferences.
Alex is based in Portland, Oregon but has lived in numerous places including California, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and the UK. He has a Bachelor in Commerce and Finance Major from Dalhousie University, Halifax Canada.
The vision behind everything in Futurum’s Custom Research practice is this: research should show you what is happening, what comes next, and what to do about it. It should be personal to each audience, easy for people to grasp, and structured so LLMs can reason over it accurately. And it should be fast and turnkey; you want answers now, not another project to carry for quarters.
Whether you are defining business, channel, or go-to-market strategy; evaluating vendors or justifying ROI; or commissioning research to fill an emerging market need, we have your back, with a program that answers your questions with the objectivity and credibility to drive real decisions.
To do it, we bring unmatched data to bear: Futurum research, surveys, and market projections; validated market feeds; ETR’s 15 years of insight from 10,000 technology decision-makers; G2’s buyer and user data; and what our analysts hear every day. Add leading primary collection, from AI-moderated voice interviews to surveys and analyst-led interviews, all turnkey, and every project comes out credible, nuanced, and actionable.
And we don’t just drop the results in your lap. For internal work, we provide analyst-led sessions, interactive dashboards, and a range of formats. For market-facing work, Futurum delivers turnkey activation and amplification that actually gets seen, by people and by LLMs, through our media and share of voice. This is research that moves decisions and markets.
We will meet you wherever you are, from a fast-turn brief to a multi-year program, and shape the work to your goals, timeline, and budget. The right program for your moment.
If any of this is useful, I would love to talk.
VP, Custom Research · The Futurum Group
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