In a market fixated on models and apps—and headlines about GPUs and shortages—it’s easy to miss where production AI is decided: infrastructure. Chips matter, but they are only one component. The foundational force that powers the entire AI economy lives deeper in the stack.

The decisive layer is the operational substrate—servers, compute fabrics, interconnects, orchestration, and data pipelines—where reliability, governance, and unit economics are made real. When infrastructure becomes invisible, reliable, and scalable, enterprises build on it. That is where durable advantage accrues.

More AI is not possible without Core AI (a.k.a. AI Infra)

This brief reframes the AI-infrastructure conversation from feeds and speeds to business outcomes and platform leverage. It outlines the stack, draws the GTM implications, and offers guiding principles for making AI Factory solutions strategically essential.

The focus here is on vendors building the physical and hybrid backbone of enterprise AI—from servers and fabrics to orchestration and on-prem deployment platforms.

Here’s a high-level perspective for AI-infrastructure providers rethinking narrative and GTM.

The Stack Everyone Sees (and the One They Don’t)

Disclaimer: The Total Addressable Market (TAM) figures presented herein are high-level estimates intended to illustrate the potential scope of the market. They are based on specific assumptions and publicly available data, which are subject to change. This information should not be construed as a factual representation or a guarantee of future results. We strongly advise conducting independent due diligence before making any business decisions based on this data.

Let’s start with the obvious. The AI stack is crowded and rapidly expanding. By the end of 2025, it’s projected to hit a $576.5B total addressable market across four major layers:

• Applications: the visible layer where AI shows up—Copilot, Jasper, customer agents, and all the rest.

• Models: the brains that power those applications—GPT, Gemini, Claude, Mistral.

• Data: the fuel models need—platforms like Snowflake, Databricks, MongoDB.

• Infrastructure: the foundation—servers, chips, networks, orchestration, and all the plumbing that holds the whole thing up.

Together, these layers form a massive market, and yet, the lion’s share of value is still flowing into infrastructure ($307 billion)—the layer that gets the least attention but carries the most weight.

What people think AI Infra is

If you say “AI infrastructure” in a room full of execs, you’ll get polite nods—and then they’ll tune out. Why? Because to many, it still means racks of servers, cloud contracts, or a CapEx problem for someone else to worry about. It’s seen as plumbing. Necessary, yes—but not strategic.

Also, much of the newfound excitement around infrastructure has been chip-driven—focused on accelerators and memory specs. But raw compute doesn’t equal real-world deployment.

AI infrastructure is the platform layer. It’s what operationalizes those chips.

It determines:

• Speed → how fast you can train and infer

• Intelligence → what kind of models you can run

• Utility → whether your enterprise use cases even work

• Scale → how far and wide your AI programs can go

And most importantly, it defines where the value pools consolidate as adoption matures. Because chips don’t make AI deployable. Infrastructure does.

AI Infrastructure demand is surging

Enterprise adoption of AI is accelerating—but success hinges on the reliability, performance, and compliance of the infrastructure stack. 1 ^&2

Industry signals suggest three converging shifts that represent a significant market opportunity for infrastructure players:

• Scale of demand: As per IDC, the AI-centric infrastructure market is expected to grow from $55B in 2023 to over $229B in 2028, driven by AI model training, inference, and edge deployments.

💡 From Dell Technologies, Q1 FY26 Earnings:

• Architecture diversification: Enterprises are moving beyond cloud-first models. According to a BCG study, 30% of companies with high AI maturity are planning to repatriate workloads from the cloud to on-premises, citing cost, latency, and data sovereignty concerns.

• Stack complexity: Infrastructure decisions now span compute, networking, storage, orchestration, model integration, and responsible AI. Decision-makers seek integrated platforms over point solutions.

These dynamics create an opportunity for infrastructure providers, especially those offering secure, sovereign, and scalable platforms tailored to AI use cases.

Re-think your GTM strategy and positioning

What does this mean for AI infrastructure vendors, especially those building servers, networking, storage, cloud, or hybrid environments?

It means letting go of "feeds and speeds" and embracing a new identity: as strategic enablers of AI value.

Winning in this market isn’t about just shipping hardware. It’s about delivering outcomes. That’s why vendors need to evolve into growth enablers—powering not just AI workloads, but the business transformations those workloads unlock.

To get there, we propose a GTM model built around flexible deployment and usage-aligned growth—across CapEx and OpEx paths.

Foundational infrastructure layer

This is the engine room—the operational heart of AI. And it’s no longer just about raw compute or static capacity. Today’s AI infrastructure must be both provisioned and programmable, supporting enterprises that want to own their deployment (CapEx) and those that want to scale dynamically (OpEx).

That’s the opportunity: infrastructure becomes not just a platform, but a pricing and deployment strategy. By offering both traditional CapEx models and modern, usage-based options—backed by real-time telemetry and elastic controls—you meet customers where they are and grow with them as needs evolve.

CapEx gives control. OpEx gives agility. Your platform offers both.

Key tenets of this layer:

• Go beyond hardware: integrate orchestration, AI-ready services, and hybrid deployment support

• Offer deployment optionality: on-prem CapEx, hybrid, or cloud OpEx

• Embed usage-awareness even in CapEx deployments (e.g., for visibility and optimization)

• Wrap it all in Responsible AI guardrails: security, compliance, and auditability

• Build trust by aligning spend with value—whether paid upfront or scaled over time

AI Builder layer

This is where innovation happens—from first fine-tune to full-scale deployment. Builders today want freedom: to build quickly, scale predictably, and avoid vendor lock-in. Whether they’re operating on a cloud budget or building on dedicated infrastructure, your GTM needs to empower both modes.

With OpEx, that means usage dashboards, credit-based onboarding, and real-time spend tracking. With CapEx, it means performance tuning tools, optimized configs, and APIs that make private deployments feel cloud-native.

Key tenets of this layer:

• Equip builders with SDKs, APIs, and model deployment frameworks

• Support usage-aware workflows even in fixed-cost environments

• Let teams optimize performance and cost across both billing models

• Remove friction: builders should be focused on innovation, not infrastructure procurement

GTM execution layer

This is where you align infrastructure with real business outcomes. And just like your customers’ workloads, your GTM model should scale across commercial contexts—whether that's a CFO signing a multi-year infrastructure investment or a business unit testing use cases on variable pricing.

Your GTM motion should speak to both finance and dev—because buying happens across both. In one motion, you might land a CapEx-heavy deal with a sovereign AI deployment. In another, you may guide a FinOps team toward usage-based scale tied to enterprise OKRs.

Key tenets of this layer:

• Position your GTM around customer choice: pay up front, or grow as you go

• Use telemetry and workload insights to expand intelligently—across both models

• Co-sell with partners, but retain visibility into usage and outcomes

• Track and measure value through adoption, not just bookings

CapEx or OpEx – Consumption powers both

Too often, “consumption” is framed as just an OpEx or cloud play. But in this GTM model, consumption is a unifier—a feedback mechanism that connects all layers and pricing models.

• CapEx customers still benefit from usage visibility, optimization, and workload observability

• OpEx customers scale naturally, with pricing that matches impact

• GTM teams use the same telemetry to drive upsell, adoption, and retention—regardless of the commercial model

It’s not either/or. It’s the power of And.

CapEx control. OpEx agility. Your infra stack delivers both—with intelligence built in.

If you lead GTM at an AI Infrastructure vendor

The opportunity ahead

This moment isn’t about faster chips or bigger clusters. It’s about repositioning infrastructure—from a cost center to a visible lever for AI delivery and enterprise value.

Smart infrastructure vendors don’t need to outscale the hyperscalers.

Instead, they’ll differentiate where enterprise buyers feel the most pain: deployment flexibility, cost predictability, data governance, and usage-aligned growth.

Because the next phase of AI isn’t powered by hype. It’s powered by usage.

And usage starts with infrastructure that flexes with the workload, the buyer, and the business.

We partnered with a leading technology provider to design and deploy a sales acceleration plan for one of their multi-billion-dollar global business units.

📖 Client Overview

A Fortune 500 technology company operating in the hybrid cloud world.

💰 Annual revenue: ~$25B

🎯 Project domain: Enterprise and Channel Sales

🌎 Geo scope: Global

🔬 Situation

The client faced stagnant growth in one of their core businesses, compounded by a salesforce with fragmented priorities. Revitalizing both direct and indirect sales efforts was crucial to reigniting growth.

✍🏼 Our Approach

• Developed a comprehensive understanding of the customer value proposition and existing Go-to-Market (GTM) structure.

• Designed guiding principles to enable a seamless and frictionless sales experience.

• Identified key growth levers and implemented targeted programs to activate them.

📈 Impact

• Helped surpass annual sales targets, driving year-over-year growth.

• Improved alignment and engagement across field sales teams.

• Increased mindshare and influence within the partner ecosystem.

To know more, reach out to us at curious@ontopraxis.ai

Purpose of this document:

Webinars are no longer just one-off marketing tactics—they are powerful vehicles for customer outreach, thought leadership, and pipeline acceleration when built into a structured program. The objective is to design a repeatable and scalable webinar strategy that aligns to business priorities, fosters engagement, and generates measurable outcomes.

Guiding principles

• Business Alignment – Clearly define objectives (e.g., lead generation, customer education, brand building) and map outcomes to business goals.

• Structured Planning – Develop a taxonomy of topics (general vs. specialized) and determine what’s in-scope vs. out-of-scope.

• Cross-Functional Teaming – Engage SMEs, sales, and marketing with defined roles and responsibilities.

• Governance & Checkpoints – Establish a review council to ensure content relevance, track progress, and maintain executive sponsorship.

• Platform & Analytics – Choose the right technology platform, ensure compatibility with IT/security, and leverage analytics to measure engagement and optimize continuously.

Operating model for scalable webinars

A scalable webinar program requires structure and alignment:

• Content Aligned to Business Priorities – Curate general and specialized topics tied to strategic objectives.

• Audience Mapping – Match content to key personas (CxOs, sales, marketing, LOBs) for relevance.

• Outreach Frequency – Tailor cadence (monthly, quarterly, half-yearly) to audience needs.

• Platforms & Delivery Modes – Use the right mix of live, simulive, and on-demand formats.

• Execution Ownership – Assign clear roles across enablement, marketing, and sales, with a central lead driving orchestration.

Together, this model ensures webinars are consistent, impactful, and business-driven.

Content strategy

• Focus on thematic sessions, not just topical updates.

• Design content with clear audience mapping (CxOs, sales, marketing, and line-of-business teams).

• Blend internal and external speakers for credibility and variety.

• Incorporate live learning checks, polls, or quizzes to sustain attention.

• Define strong calls-to-action (CTAs) that are actionable within 1–3 months.

• Keep sessions under 60 minutes with dedicated time for Q&A.

Audience experience

• Develop a dedicated webinar hub/page with upcoming sessions, recordings, and resources organized by persona.

• Provide descriptive agendas with objectives, target audience, speaker bios, and session duration.

• Ensure registration-based access but avoid excessive gating to maximize participation.

• Promote actively through leadership endorsements and social sharing

Amplification strategy

• Pre-Event – Use CRM databases, opt-in practices, targeted eDMs, social posts, email signatures, and field resources. Provide 2–3 weeks’ notice and send 3–5 touches per webinar, with a final reminder an hour before the event.

• During Event – Drive interaction with polls, quizzes, and pre-submitted questions.

• Post-Event – Send thank-you emails with recording and slides, promote related upcoming webinars, reward participation, and follow up with engaged attendees.

Be Ready, Go Live, Engage

A successful webinar hinges on preparation. This checklist ensures your session runs smoothly, covering technology, speaker readiness, audience engagement, and support, so you can focus on delivering impact.

Platform choices

Key Considerations

• Organizational Fit: The selection process should align with your company’s procurement, legal, and IT policies.

• Evaluation Criteria: Beyond pricing, assess platforms for:

  • Compatibility with IT systems

  • Security and compliance

  • Participant capacity and scalability

  • Ease of use for both presenters and attendees

  • Rich feature set (polling, Q&A, breakout rooms, analytics, etc.)

  • Availability of training and support

  • Market adoption (how widely the tool is used, which impacts familiarity for participants)Playbook - B2B Webinar strategy…

Additional Options

• Third-Party Agencies: Some companies opt to partner with event agencies that host webinars on their proprietary platforms, offering white-glove support.

• Analytics: Ensure the platform provides granular engagement data to help measure performance and improve future sessions.

Success metrics

Short-Term Metrics

• Registrations, attendance, conversion rates, time spent, and feedback.

Long-Term Metrics

• On-demand views, repeat participation, downloads, engagement scores, and sales follow-ups.

Success depends on a combination of content quality, speaker effectiveness, experience design, and audience engagement.

Webinars, when designed with strategy and structure, go far beyond being one-off marketing activities—they become engines of engagement, education, and growth. By aligning content with business priorities, identifying the right audiences, and ensuring readiness through disciplined execution, organizations can transform webinars into a repeatable, high-impact channel.

Purpose of this report: Understand the IT opportunities driven by accelerated digital transformation in SMBs and key considerations for sellers/marketers in the IT channel ecosystem.

Why focus on SMBs?

Small-and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are the world’s most powerful growth engine^[1]:

• Representing ~90 percent of all global companies

• SMBs contribute to half of global GDP

• Over half of the world’s employment

Worldwide IT spending by SMBs is expected to reach USD 684 billion in 2021 and is increasing at a rate faster than the GDP growth rate.

SMBs were forced to change the way they interact with customers during the pandemic^[2]

COVID-19 accelerates the shift to digital^[3]

SMBs rethink how they operate and engage with their customers.

• 97% of SMBs provided support for employees WFH during COVID-19: WFH is not right for all employees, but SMBs must provide the right tools to support productive remote working where necessary.

• 48% of SMBs expect to increase spend on broadband after COVID-19: SMBs’ demand for reliable connectivity services is set to rise post COVID, both in the office and to support remote/home workers.

• 63% of SMBs expect to increase use of public cloud in the next 12 months: Driven by different ways of working and interacting with customers, demand for packaged cloud & security solutions will increase.

• 47% of medium-sized businesses are using online employee training: The shift to online sales & operations drives demand for a wide range of business intelligence, analytics, e-commerce, and digital services.

Digital-forward SMBs are better equipped to handle market volatility^[4]

Actions SMB leaders have taken to prepare for future crises

It has been a whiplash moment for the SMBs:

• The pandemic has shaken local economies around the world to the core, and SMBs are at the epicenter

• 60 percent of SMBs experienced sales decline during COVID-19^[2]

• 18 percent of medium businesses laid off workers, and 40 percent furloughed some^[2]

  Recovery will be Digital, driving rapid technology adoption for building business resiliency^[4]

What do SMB leaders look for during technology investment?

52 percent of SMBs are planning to increase investments in Digital Transformation^[6]

IT vendors should become the lighthouse to guide the SMBs to navigate through their digital transformation journey safely.

Preferred Routes-to-market for SMBs

The SMB market is highly contested; none of the service providers addressing it can afford to be complacent^[7]

SMB Market Opportunity in APJ^[8]

Digital maturity of SMBs in APJ^[8]

Nine out of 10 SMBs in the Asia Pacific are more reliant on technology to sustain their business during COVID-19.

Also, over 80% believe that digitalizing their businesses will help them become more resilient and adaptable to market change or future crises.

SMBs need the most help in rightsizing digital technologies to drive growth.

The Next Normal for Sellers & Marketers

It’s not about hitting your numbers. It’s about hitting theirs.^[9]

Only the relevant will thrive^[10]:

• SMBs today are typically 72 percent through their buying decision before they contact a sales rep or partner.

• Differentiated content must be created. This needs to be personalized, easily shareable (ROI calculators, mixed reality demos, and portals), and designed to create internal evangelists.

• Research indicates that the right dimension to personalize content is less about an SMB’s geography and its revenue, and much more about the age of the SMB, its FTE headcount, and industry sector.

[1] Powering SMB Resiliency in a COVID-19 world, Accenture

[2] Rebuilding business, Accenture

[3] Rebuilding business, Accenture

[4] Small & Medium Business Trends Report 4th edition, Salesforce Research

[5] Responses of (Growing – Stagnant/Declining) / Stagnant/Declining

[6] SMB Techaisle Take, April 27, 2020

[7] Small and medium-sized businesses: technology buying behaviour and channel preferences, Analysys Mason

[8] 2020 Asia Pacific SMB Digital Maturity Study, IDC/Cisco

[9] Build Your Sales Team for 2025, Salesforce

[10] Think big in a small world, Accenture

📝 Purpose of this report:

1. Share the latest trends/research around digital selling/marketing
2. Help drive sales acceleration through digital best practices

This document is a compilation of publicly available reports from  McKinsey, BCG & Bain published over the last few months of the pandemic.

Executive Summary

• Preference for digital now ~2X more than traditional sales interactions; self-serve, digital ordering methods now prioritized.

• Remote selling is now the norm and perceived to be effective: 96% of B2B companies have shifted their GTM model during COVID-19; 64% believe the new model is just as effective or more than before.

• Sales model changes are expected to stay: 80% are “very likely” and “somewhat likely” to sustain these shifts 12+ months after COVID-19.

• Suppliers should over-invest in partners that will likely make strong contributions to future growth, such as those building cutting-edge capabilities.

• Inside sales will become more prevalent for many B2B companies, as they realize complex products can be sold through virtual interactions.

• Commercial leaders who equip their channel partners to thrive during the pandemic stand a better chance of maintaining growth during the downturn and well into the recovery.

The importance of digital sales has doubled over that of traditional sales interactions since the onset of COVID-19

E-commerce revenue is up more than 20% since the onset of COVID-19

• 💬 Live chat rates as the top channel for researching suppliers

• 📈 250% increase in mobile-app ordering

• 📱30% increase in customer preference for placing orders on mobile apps

Digital channel are now seen as the most beneficial for researching suppliers

Actions to improve buyers’ digital experience

• Improve the self-service options you already have: For example, on websites, ensure buyers can readily find information, compare options, make purchases, and receive service without live support from sales reps for less complex needs.

• Rapidly fix what's broken on websites and mobile apps: Watch for technical issues in real time and resolve them as they appear. Such no-regrets moves could deliver incremental revenue and improve the digital experience in ways that promote increased loyalty.

• Keep the human touch for complex interactions: Have your sales reps on call to support buyers by phone, videoconference, or webchat, whenever they need it; a 24/7 or 24/5 live presence can be especially meaningful when remote interactions are the only options.

• Think like a consumer: Ensure any e-commerce channel provides a B2C-like experience for every product or service, whether a new purchase or a repeat order. Link e-commerce sales goals to your overall sales targets and incentives systems. Be willing and able to double-count credit when customers interact both digitally and with sales reps.

• Measure your progress: Are you a primary or secondary supplier? What is your churn rate, loyalty score, rate of customer satisfaction? Does your performance vary between digital and in-person interactions?

The four Rs of the B2B sales response

Reinforce discipline in sales cadence

• Too many sales forces have grown lax or inconsistent in maintaining a disciplined sales cadence, such as weekly one-on-one sessions and team meetings between frontline managers and sales representatives (refer to the screenshots below).

• With reps working remotely and strong customer relationships being key to stable revenues, this discipline needs attention—though in new formats.

More than 80% of B2B companies have adjusted incentives in response to the effects of COVID-19

Many of the behavior shifts we are seeing today are expected to persist beyond the crisis

The next-normal sales model

How can B2B sellers adapt?

Sources:

1. McKinsey & Company:

• COVID-19 B2B Decision-Maker Pulse#1 3/30-4/9/20 (n=3,619)

• COVID-19 B2B Decision-Maker Pulse#2 4/20-4/27/20 (n=3,755)

• COVID-19: Global Briefing – Global health and crisis response, July 2020

• How B2B sales have changed during COVID-19

• The B2B digital inflection point: How sales have changed during COVID-19

• The COVID-19 recovery will be digital: A plan for the first 90 days

2. BCG: Leading Sales through the COVID-19 crisis

3. Bain & Company: Keep the Sales Teams Reassured and Humming