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Welcome to the Opkalla IT Matters Podcast, where we discuss the important matters within IT as well as the importance of IT across different industries and responsibilities.
About Opkalla:
Opkalla helps their clients navigate the confusion in the technology marketplace and choose the technology solutions that are right for their business. They work alongside IT teams to design, procure, implement and support the most complex IT solutions without an agenda or technology bias. Opkalla was founded around the belief that IT professionals deserve better, and is guided by their core values: trust, transparency and speed. For more information, visit https://opkalla.com/ or follow them on LinkedIn.
Aaron Bock: Op Welcome to the IT
Matters podcast hosted by
Opkalla. We're an IT advisory
firm that makes technology easy
for your business. Our vendor
neutral technology advisors work
directly with your team to
assess technology needs and
procure the best IT solutions
for your organization. On this
podcast, expect high level
expertise from our hosts, plus
experience driven perspective
from the leading experts on
topics like AI, cyber security
industry focused IT solutions,
strategy and more. Now let's get
into today's discussion on what
matters in IT.
Welcome all to the IT Matters
podcast. Again, I'm your host,
Aaron Bock and we've got an
exciting episode early in 2026
thank you guys for listening,
and we've got an exciting year
ahead. Today. We're joined by
the Vice President of
architecture for Opkalla, Jeff
Garrett, and we are excited to
have him. We will be talking
today about what we saw as a
company in 2025 and some of our
thoughts, maybe some hot takes
for 2026 between myself and
Jeff, and so we are excited to
do this. We get to, we have the
pleasure of talking to a lot of
people in the IT space, business
leaders, and we feel that we
should share this with you. So
welcome to the show, Jeff. How
you doing?
Jeff Garrett: Doing great.
Excited to be on my first time
on the IT Matters podcast, so
I'm excited to kick off 2026 by
doing this.
Aaron Bock: We are excited to
have you. It would not be the
beginning of the year if I
didn't ask you, how was your
holidays? With you and your
family,
Jeff Garrett: holidays were
good. I think I had a solid
we'll call it eight days of
being able to unplug, which is
unique. So I enjoyed that, and
then right back into it this
week. So it's been a hot start
to 2026 already.
Aaron Bock: It has been and I
agree, and that's good. I hope
for the listeners out there that
you all had a great holiday
season, like Jeff said, I this
is the first time I can remember
in a while where we actually
didn't go back until Monday,
like the fifth and so this first
week back has been a long week,
and usually it's a half week, or
it's a cut week, or whatever. So
it's definitely been busy coming
back. But I'm glad you and your
family had a good holiday. So
Jeff, you know, I know you,
especially you and your team,
you guys get to, you talk to a
lot of our customers. I know we
did over 12 150 evaluations last
year, maybe more than that. And
so, you know, today, I think you
know what we want to cover, and
want to hear your perspective,
your team's perspective, and
anything else that you know you
want to share, we're going to
talk about 2025 so, you know,
what are some of the trends we
saw? What are some of the
interesting, you know,
observations that you know, you
and your team made? What are
some of the things we feel
people are struggling with? What
are some of the exciting things?
And then we'll kind of talk
about 2026 so, you know, I
guess, from, let's start with
you, you know, from, from a 2025
perspective, if you look back
January 120, 25 you are. You're
running our solutions
architecture team, which is
really advising customers on how
to do technology. What's the
best way to do it? What are, you
know, gotchas, etc. What do you
feel like changed the most for
it, from an IT perspective, in
2025 for either the IT
department or a business leader,
Jeff Garrett: yeah, I mean, I
think, I think something that
was interesting across or a
couple of things are interesting
across 2025 I think this is
something we've said a lot Over
the last, I would say maybe five
years or so, but I think we're
really starting to see it take
hold this year, for a couple of
different reasons. Was the the
IT leaders themselves are being
asked to be more responsible for
economic outcomes, not just the
technical outcomes within their
departments. And again, we've
said that for a while, but I
think we really saw it come to
fruition this year in 2025 a lot
of that was just comments I
think we heard consistently
across our calls was, you know,
asking about the ROI of things,
the you know, how it could
economically impact the
organization as a whole, how
they're how they're impacting
the business with what they're
doing in it. And I just heard
that more a lot this year than,
I think, in years past. So that
was certainly something in 2025,
and then another, another thing
that seemed to be really big
this year. And again, I think
proving, you know, going back to
the founding of Opkalla, and
what we want to try to be for
customers, and saw this come up
a lot was decision fatigue. I
think we saw a lot of decision
fatigue. A lot of a lot of that
coming from overlapping
technologies and cyber security,
driving a lot of that. And you
see a lot of tool set. Because
of consolidations having
overlapping features. And so we
got into a lot of evaluations
of, do, do I use the tools I
already have? Do I look at new
tools? Do I completely replace
tools to go with bigger tools
that have everything? And it's
just, it seemed like IT
departments, IT leaders,
businesses as a whole, were
getting themselves into a lot of
decision fatigue. Instead of,
you know, solving core problems,
it was more about which decision
do I make related to this
problem. So those are a couple,
I think, big things that stood
out to me for how teams and
leaders were having to think
different in 2025
Aaron Bock: Yeah, and I agree,
and I kind of speak for my role
is the CEO of Opkalla Talking to
fellow business leaders. I think
you mentioned decision fatigue
and just, you know, the just, it
feels like when the start of the
internet, or kind of before
the.com bubble, everyone needed
to have a strategy for their
internet strategy. You know,
we're going to get into the hot
technology topics for 25 and six
like it's be we'd be remiss in
we're not really even an IT
podcast if we don't talk about
AI within the first five
minutes. So, you know, obviously
AI is a topic that everyone is
talking about, and rightfully
so. It's moving fast. It's
creating this future of, you
know, where, where is my
industry, where's my job? Do I
need to have an AI strategy? So
it feels very similar to before
.com from my perspective, you
know, I think it's AI is moving
from, hey, it's a nice, you
know, kind of concept, to like,
we're actually implementing it.
And I think, you know, 26 we'll
get to that, but I think you're
going to going to see more
actual metrics put around, like,
okay, we're saying we're putting
in AI, in AI, or, how are we
doing it? And then I think
people, decision fatigue wise,
from a business perspective, are
tired because there's just so
many new solutions out there, AI
and genetic AI and Gen AI and
this and that. And I know your
team hears it all the time, so
like, before we get dive in on,
like, technology categories and
stuff, like, what's your take on
AI at this point where we're at?
Jeff Garrett: I mean, it is,
it's, it's, it's the wild wild
west a little bit right now. I
mean, it's, you know, how, I
think three years ago, and how
we joked about cybersecurity,
and there was a new
cybersecurity or five new
cybersecurity vendors every day
that were spinning up.
Everything is AI. Everyone's got
an AI platform. Everyone's
developing AI. You know, it's,
it's five guys in a basement at
college have developed an AI
tool, and everybody's jumping on
board for it. And I think we'll
see it go through the same, some
of those same, you know, peaks
and valleys that we've seen
other technologies go through,
where there's going to be a lot
of spread, and then there's
going to be consolidation, and
then there's going to be a lot
of spread into that. You saw
that with generative, generative
AI. You're going to see it with
agentic AI. There's going to be
a lot of things that come into
the market quoting agentic AI.
And I think where most people
are going to end up consuming
those in the long run is going
to be once they have been
consolidated into mainstream
product sets. But it is a little
feels a little bit like the
wild, wild west of you know, you
can't turn around without
hearing AI enabled or AI driven
something nowadays?
Aaron Bock: Yeah, I would agree
with that. So, so on that topic,
and maybe it is something with
AI. But for 2025, you know,
across our customers and just
general conversations you're
hearing from peers and in the
space what? What technology
category, you know, surprised
you the most this year, either
an adoption or demand. And maybe
not surprise you, but what
technology category you feel
like in 2025, was popular that
excites you, either one.
Jeff Garrett: I mean, I think
the, I mean, it is crazy as it
is, right? And you said it like
we can't talk about it now
without talking about AI. I
think that is exciting. So from
from the standpoint of what's
going on, it's, it's, that's,
that's the exciting portion of
it, that in what's going on our
market, is how that is
fundamentally changing things. I
think what's there's obviously
scary pieces of that too. But I
think the exciting piece of that
is the potential it has to make
to create better productivity
for businesses, for people in
businesses. I think once people
get over and you see this, we
see this a lot when we talk to
our customers, and one of the
things we asked them when we
talk about AI is, you know, how
is the business? How is it going
in the business for accepting AI
and your people accepting it?
And I think there's a lot of
fear from people right now that
AI is there to replace them. And
I think what's going to happen
in a lot of organizations is
there'll be some optimization in
but I think what. Go more toward
expanding in the future
intelligently for their
business, but also it's going to
be a lot about making people
more productive, right? I mean,
one of those areas that I think
was, I think was kind of a, it
was a surprise, but not, not
really a surprise, but a
surprise in a different way, was
like the Microsoft conversations
and how many people were really
diving into copilot, and what
copilot is had to offer as an
easy on ramp, and that all of
that was around employee
productivity and trying to make
employees more productive in
their day to day, not
necessarily trying to get rid of
employees and downsize.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, and I think
again, we could talk about AI
for a whole podcast. So I'm
going to spare the listeners and
just spare ourselves, since we
talked about this so much. But
you know, before I talk to you
about challenges you saw in 25 I
mean, for me, one of the things
I see across Opkalla, and I hear
this from other folks that we
don't work with, or other peers
in the industry, I think one of
the biggest challenges right now
is that, you know, like a cloud
strategy maybe seven years ago,
or the internet strategy I
mentioned. I think people are
going to conferences, business
leaders, C suite, board members,
and they're coming back and
they're saying, we need to have
AI in organization. And so, you
know, some people obviously are
more advanced than others. And
so we have customers all across
the board. Some have very
specific use cases, and they
know what they could put AI on.
But we have some people who, and
I can recall one specifically
where I know we've talked about
it before, but this person came
to us and said, Hey, we need an
AI strategy. And it's like,
okay, great. Like, you want me
to give you, you know, one, two
or three SKUs of AI like, and I
think people sort of, we're
seeing this challenge of, like,
we need AI now. But I think the
challenge is, is that it's, it's
requiring, you mentioned it
like, it's requiring the
business in it to be more
aligned. And so if you ask me,
What's a trend in 25 I think
that AI is kind of forcing an IT
Department of Business to
actually get aligned and figure
out, like, what are we trying to
do? Because you can't really go
have an AI strategy if you don't
know what business case you're
solving and how you're going to
do it. And so, you know, I think
it's an opportunity, because you
can get more aligned, and you
can be on the same page, and
people understand each other
more, but I also think it's a
key challenge. And so I would
ask you the same thing, like,
but, you know, maybe you agree
with that, and that's the
biggest challenge. But what are
some of the other challenges
that you saw in 25 that
customers are asking Opkalla
about, or just in general, that
you hear whether they're asking
or not?
Jeff Garrett: Yeah, I mean, I
think that, I think that is a
challenge. I think that's a
challenge that maybe
organizations don't realize they
have yet, but I think it's why a
lot of what we're doing at
Opkalla, and specifically on the
Opkalla architecture team around
talk tracks, we're developing
strategy workshops. We're
developing, you know, we have
larger technology strategy
workshops, not just particular
to AI, but to the whole
conversation, because that
there's the idea of you need to
bring in the business. I mean,
not in a lot of cases, it's you
need to make sure you're getting
through silos of the IT
department first, and then
getting through the silos
outside of the IT department,
because there's still, you know,
we still run into a lot of silos
in the IT department. There's
still some of the old battles
of, you know, the security guys
versus the infrastructure guys
versus the developers. And, you
know, while dev ops and Dev SEC
ops and all these, you know,
buzz words have been around, not
everybody has implemented those,
and not everybody has
coordination across departments,
so there's still a lot of, I
think, breaking down of walls
between different groups within
it and across the business to
have those conversations. I
mean, I mean, I think, you know
some of this too, that is, was a
challenge. Maybe felt a little
bit different in 2025 was when
we got into these conversations.
I think there was a lot more of
the from organizations coming to
us, not saying, hey, help me
with this particular project. I
think there was a lot of, what
do we do right? And some of that
was driven by AI, some of that
was driven by probably another
topic we can't talk about it
without mentioning now is the
name Broad com and what they've
done. So, you know, those are,
those are two big things, but I
think there was some things
going on in the industry that
were causing shifts customers
weren't expecting for and so all
of a sudden, the plans they had
laid out, you know, kind of,
kind of got thrown, you know,
thrown overboard, and now you
have to come in. And we had a
lot of those type of
conversations of, we're not sure
what to do. And that was an
interesting thing to see in 2025
and I think an interesting
challenge that a lot of
businesses faced is getting that
thrown at them in the like, you
know, in the middle of their
year, in the middle of their
plan. Plans when they thought
they had it all, you know,
mapped out correctly. Something
an external factor like a broad
com changing completely how we
do a core offering like VMware
just completely flipped these
businesses upside down with what
they had to, had to plan for and
adapt to,
Aaron Bock: yeah, and for the
listeners, if you're not
familiar with what Jeff's
talking about with broad com
VMware. VMware was acquired by
Broad com in a couple years ago,
but last year, they made a
drastic change where they
reduced the number of total
customers that they really want
to deal with, and they reduce
the number of partners. And by
doing that, which you know,
increased stock and made them
look good on the financials they
have. If you are mid market or
small enterprise, and even some
of the enterprises, you're
facing massive increases on your
renewal. We've heard 567, 10x on
a renewal. And so it's forcing
customers to, you know, you
know, decide, are we really
going to use VMware in the
future for our infrastructure,
are we going to refactor and
repurpose and and go to a new
solution, or go to the cloud,
etc? So, you know, I do think
that that's a challenge, non
specific to IT. I think in 2026
you know, you could see other
providers look at that and say,
is that a strategy we want to
take on before we go on to 26
you know, I know we talk a lot
about cybersecurity, and I feel
like cybersecurity was like this
hot topic from maybe 2021 to 24
and then it kind of got second
bested, and second childhood to
AI by a long shot. What about
cybersecurity? Like? What are
the you know, what are people
asking about now with
cybersecurity compared to what
they did before, and challenges
or opportunities, etc?
Jeff Garrett: Yeah, I think, you
know, in cybersecurity,
something we saw in 2025,
something that came to us a lot
was, it was a very repeated
conversation. Was kind of that
next evolution of MDR, we saw a
lot of conversations where I
think customers are probably on
their second, maybe even third,
purchase of a managed detection
and response platform. And that
market has changed a lot.
There's been there's been a lot
of consolidation. There's been a
lot of your kind of your core
players in the market, have
expanded their offerings. So
from where we came, let's say
maybe the first boom of that
with, you know, 2016 2017
timeframe when that really
started catching on to where we
are now, organizations have
matured and their understanding
of MDR and where it fits. And so
I think we we saw a lot of those
conversations come up repeatedly
through 2025 and I think we'll
continue to see some things
around MDR in 2026 and how that
changes, continuing, continues
to change. But that was
something we saw on cyber was,
was that that kind of new,
mature talking part of managed
security, managed detection and
response. How do I handle this
within my environment, knowing a
little bit more about the topic
now, with these platforms that
are maturing,
Aaron Bock: yeah, yeah, I think
you know, managed detection
response is certainly still an
important solution and service
that many companies it makes
financial sense to do I think,
you know, the observation I
would make is that a couple
years ago, it felt like you just
buy the next best thing that's
coming up. I'm hearing more CFOs
and CIOs pushing towards maybe
more of a platform approach. Or
can we get, you know, the best
of vendors and solutions in
certain situations that can
cover multiple things. I think
that's what we're seeing a
little bit in the MDR space as
well. Like we want someone that
is not just the next best thing.
We want someone that's here to
stay, that's consistent, that
will allow us to follow a
process. You're shaking your
head, so I'm curious your
thoughts,
Jeff Garrett: yeah, yeah. I mean
exactly right. I mean I think
you could be wrong, but I think
gone are the days in
cybersecurity now, of like the
pop up vendors that become that
jump into these organizations
and get bought. You know, people
are looking for that stability.
I think we see that it kind of
goes to, this is not all cyber,
but something else, another
conversation we saw a lot in
2025 with our customers is
Microsoft, and there was a lot
of conversation, and we did a
lot of work with customers
around optimization of Microsoft
in their licensing stack. But
most of the time those
conversations came down to the
cyber platforms within Microsoft
and the other tooling within
Microsoft, like, like, in tune,
like teams and, you know,
communication platform, you
know, using as a communication
platform, using the cyber
security tools. And that's back
to your point. I think Aaron of
the organization's looking for a
consolidated platform that that
they feel like is stable, rather
than one off. Off one off
products to come in and serve
one particular niche need.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, yeah, I agree
with that. Last, the last thing
I would mention on on technology
trends that I think I'm curious
what you and your team are
hearing. But, you know, I feel
like, because of, we go back a
little bit in our conversation,
AI, because it is such a hot
topic. You know, I think, yes,
there are people on all
different spectrums and levels
of like, where their AI strategy
is, and if, if they can really
implement it, I do think it's
forcing businesses to really
address, like, do we have
quality data? Do we have a plan
for our data? And so, you know,
even within, you know, Opkalla,
we're 50 employees plus at this
point, so we're still fairly
small. But like, even with our
reporting and our data, when we
look at our information, it's
becoming more and more important
for us to have a single source,
or a source of data that we
know, we trust and we know is
legitimate. Because if we're
going to use AI in the future,
we're going to, you know, make
decisions off those data sets.
We need to make sure they're
accurate. So just curious like,
what are the conversations that
that people are having with us?
And what are you hearing around
the data conversation? 25
Jeff Garrett: Yeah. I mean, I
probably heard the term fabric
more in the last six months than
in the last year and a half, for
sure. You know the that the data
lake. The new thing is the data
lake house. You know, these,
where do, where do we put our
data? Where is our data? Is our
data ready? And some
organizations, I think, have
thought about that. I think
something, you know, maybe
getting a little a little bit
ahead when we think about 2026,
is probably thinking more about
that. Ai strategy is that even
if you're doing productized
offerings, you still need to
think about where, ultimately
this data, right, my data's
data, has never been further
stretched out from the center of
our organization than it is now.
We have SaaS based applications
everywhere we have, you know,
applications are AWS and Azure,
these public hyperscalers, we
still have stuff on prem data.
Data is everywhere. And I, you
know, I think that's going to be
one of those hurdles that a lot
of organizations find
unintentionally, is when they
try to do AI and they haven't
really thought about data
centralization a data lake
house, how we pull this in and
structure it correctly to be
used by AI that you might get a
lot of incorrect information out
of your first AI initiative and
in house is you're trying to get
the data right and massage your
data to actually give you what
you need. Yeah.
Aaron Bock: Yeah. I agree. And I
think, but I do think that one
of the, you know, in and again,
I keep referencing, we're going
to go to 26 I promise, folks, we
will go to 26 but I do think
it's important to talk about,
you know, where we're at in 25 I
think one of the interesting
things with which is happening
right now, maybe it's forced by
the AI conversation, or maybe
it's just we've been maturing in
it, and having it and the
business kind of align more and
more data is a is a perfect
example where you have to have
alignment between the two
departments. And I think, you
know, a successful IT
department, they support the
business, they understand the
business, they work with the
business, and they're producing
data. I think something that
that's going to happen, and is
happening now in 25 you know, if
we talk about how our IT people,
and how are IT departments doing
and being measured, I think that
this is one of the first times
where you can truly say, Look at
look at the automation. Look at
how much data we're being at
we're pulling in the shorter
amount of time, and look at the
time savings we're creating for
the business. I think that it's
a cool opportunity in it right
now to produce true business
ROI, and so, you know, I at
least see more leaders talking
about, you know, praising their
IT teams and their technology
teams, because they're improving
the speed at which they can go
to market, they're improving
this decision making speed, you
know, you you were in the it
before you talk to a lot of IT
departments like, what do you
think that?mYou know, the bit,
how does, how's the business
looking at it? Leaders now in
2025 and going into 26 like, how
are they measuring them? What's,
you know, what's changing? Like,
where do you feel? Like, if
you're talking to an IT
director, like, how do you feel
they're being measured these
days.
Jeff Garrett: Yeah, I mean, I
probably told the story too many
times now, but it, it's going
back to when I started in it,
and it was, you know, it was the
knob Turners, the button
pushers. Like, that was the go,
you know, rack the servers.
Manage the data center. You
know, look at the eyes on glass.
Watch, all the watch, all the
performance. Make sure that
product is shipping those type
of things. And, you know, it
was, it was viewed mainly as a
call center. And how can we run
as lean? As possible and still
get this out and kind of a
necessary evil. You know, some
of us have been told that at
times in our IT career by, you
know, people we report up
through that that's what it was.
And that's, you know, hasn't com
that. I'm sure that hasn't
changed for everybody. And
there's probably some people
listening would say that, yeah,
that's, that's still the case,
but I think for the most part,
right? It's, it's, it's it
sitting at the decision table of
the organization. Now it is that
strategic initiative. It is
trying to find more efficient
ways to do things so that they
can take the people that we used
to say, Where are the button
pushers and knob Turners?
Because they need to be looking
strategically at what's going on
within the environment and
helping drive innovation forward
in these business because it is
to kind of use a, you know,
maybe a little bit of a cliche
saying and a buzzword. We are in
a digital age and everything is
being driven and talk about the
generations that are coming
along that are driven by, you
know, smartphones and apps on
the smartphones and everything's
at the touch of a finger because
of that it and the value they
bring and the data they bring
has never been more important.
And to your point, I think we
probably hear the phrase, well,
what the data is saying more so
now than we ever have before.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, and I think
that's a good thing, because I
think it's helping people, you
know, again, I think it's
forcing people to question, do
we have good data work together
instead of working silos? And
so, yes, there's still silos,
and not everyone's perfect, but
I think it is getting better. So
all right, well, let's, let's
move on, kind of, to 2026 now,
you know, we're, we've started
with a very busy first week, and
I busier than I expected, at
least. And so, you know, I think
let's kind of, you're a CIO,
you're sitting across from you
in the Opkalla solution
architecture team, and you're
planning your 2026 roadmap. What
are you all talking to? CIOs,
directors, CISOs, etc. What are
you talking to them about? What
should they prioritize?
Prioritize? What do you think
they need to care about going
into 2026
Jeff Garrett: Yeah. I mean, I
think the one and again, we'll
harp on it a little bit longer
and we can, and then we'll talk
about some other things but AI
strategy, and really looking at
AI strategy. And we've already
had, I had three conversations
this week alone, just on through
our AI talk track, you know,
starting off the year of 2026,
of looking at that strategy.
And, you know, we've kind of
come into this, and we talk
about it the phases, and try to
help our customers figure out
where they are in the phase.
What's, what's missing from
that? And it covers a lot of
areas. It goes back to what
you're talking about with, you
know, do we have a centralized
data location, a centralized
data lake house determine, do we
have the appropriate even going
back to, like, the pre kind of,
the pre work of do we have
guardrails in place? Do we have
proper governance in place? Do
we have the right security
tolling in place? I think a lot
of people are trying to get into
the operationalization of things
and find those, those, those
good product wins. You know,
that's where copilot comes in.
That's where a lot of the
customer experience. Cx side of
things comes in as these
productized offerings, they can
put in quickly, but maybe
missing some of the pre steps.
So that's, I think, going to be
important thing that I think
shop should look at for 2026 is,
let's get that AI strategy in
place, so now we're plugging
into it, rather than trying to
go back and change something
foundationally after we're
already, already halfway down,
halfway down the path. So I
think that i ai strategy is a
big one.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, I agree with
you, and I think a prediction I
have. And sure, maybe this is a
hot take, but I think that if
you fast forward to the end of
2026, so 1231, 2026, and we're
six, and we're having this same
conversation about, you know,
what happens in 2026 I think
you're going to see, you're
going to see a lot of AI
implementations and strategies
being executed. I also think
you're going to see a lot of
failures, I think especially
some of these agentic AI
solutions that are being
purchased and implemented. I
think you're going to see a lot
of them. Fail unless there's
true data maturity and people
actually have a plan and a
strategy. To your point, because
I think a lot of organizations
are are pie in the sky, but
haven't really thought through
the use cases super well. And so
I wouldn't be surprised if
that's sort of like a slowdown
in AI. So it's slow down to
speed speed up. You're going to
have people taking a step back
and saying, Hey, what are we
spending money on? This agentic
things, not saving the amount of
money and time that we thought?
So I think you're going to see
that, and I agree with you that
you got to have a strategy. But
I think you're going to see some
of the strategies fall apart
that haven't been you.Don't
have, like, a backbone to them
on the data side,
Jeff Garrett: yeah, yeah, it's,
it's strategies that are built a
little bit on sand, right,
rather than a firm foundation.
And some of that goes back to, I
think that because organizations
are pressed to get things done,
because, similar to the cloud
conversation, somebody went
somewhere heard AI, everybody's
talking about AI, and that they
think they have to get it done
and they have to get it done
now, yeah, I mean, a couple
other things that I think people
should be looking at is, they
may seem like old conversations,
but I think in the new light,
they need to be considered this.
I think connectivity,
advancements, and this is, you
know, more so than just what's
become the Sase conversation,
and kind of the buzzword of
sassy that we talked about, but
it goes out into it touches a
lot of things, like SAS security
posture management and AI
security posture management. And
it's, it's really this new
frontier of how expansive our
networks really are, when you
sit down and think about it. Of
you know, my average employee in
my organization, what all are
they connecting to? Where are
they working from? How far
outside of our four walls are
they and so I think that's
something that needs to be
looked at in 2026 is because,
you know, with a continued push
towards SaaS based, SaaS based
tooling, cloud usage, and just
the hybrid way we're going to
continue to approach it and in
business going forward,
organizations need to think
about, are we managing our
networks how we used to? Are we
managing our networks in this
new way based on how everyone's
working, and kind of in that
same vein is identity security.
I think there's going to be a
big push around, how are we
managing identities now? And
it's because it's not saying
like we're, you know, since
2020, we've been more hybrid.
That's driving forward, but with
automation becoming huge in
environments, more so than it's
ever been, with AI becoming big
with these tool sets out there,
with different SaaS tools out
there that are outside our four
walls, there's all these non
human identities that are out
there. So I think you know the
idea of putting better scoping
around identity, life cycle
management around identity,
understanding, you know, are you
who you say you are within my
environment? The you know, true,
true idea of least privilege
that we've been talking about
for a while, I think, really
starts to take hold in 2026
Aaron Bock: so, so let me ask
you a question around. So I
already asked you about like, if
you're sitting in front of CIO,
what are you telling them to
prioritize? You just brought up
a topic that I think you know.
Again, Opkalla, at our core, we
advise customers, help them
build roadmaps. You mentioned a
talk track. So for folks that
are not familiar, we have these
talk tracks for value added
meetings we run where we'll sit
down and try to understand our
customers environments and help
them plan and strategize and
consolidate or or digitally
transform, or whatever the case
is. You meant, we we've been
talking about AI and data. We've
been talking about security,
connectivity, etc. SAS, there's
all this stuff in it, right? So,
like, you know, say that, let's
go a level up. CFO, CEO is
asking the IT team, hey, what's
our priority? What's our
strategy going to 26 like,
what's your advice to these
teams on, on how to prioritize
and, and what's, what's maybe,
our methodology that we're
sharing with customers around,
like, prioritizing these
different projects, because it's
hard to do them all at once, but
you do have to figure out which
one goes first,
Jeff Garrett: yeah. I mean, so I
think one of the things we we
start with in in all of these
conversations, right? And you
mentioned, like, you know, our
talk strikes, our workshops,
these things that we're trying
to do with customers, where,
yeah, I think we're trying to be
a little bit different and and
come in, and not have a product
conversation is have the
strategy conversations. And
pretty much every single one of
those strategy conversations
with the IT team or or the large
organization starts with, what's
the business alignment, right?
What's, what's the business
case? What? How are we aligning
with each other here in the
business, what goals are we
trying to solve? And I think
that's one of those important
steps, because once you
understand what the business is
trying to solve, and what's
more, what's the most impactful
things to what the business is
trying to do, then you can start
looking at your projects and
saying, Here's a priority we can
set. Because if I accomplish
this, it's going to have the
most impact to the business. And
I think it's something, I mean,
we we talk about that even
internally to Opkalla, right?
Is, what are the things that you
know? Am I working on something
that's going to be impactful, or
were we spinning our wheels on
something? Yes, that's
important, but does it carry
impactfulness? Is it something
that can can take a lower
priority? And if we, if we did
that in the silo of our teams
across any organization, then
then we may say, Well, I believe
this is to be, this is the most
important thing. But going back
to I think some of that, what we
talked about earlier is we're
breaking down silos. We're
talking more as a business.
We're strategizing more as a
business, understanding what's
my business what's my business
use case, what's the why behind
this for the business? Then I
can start setting more
appropriate, you know, in those
projects, setting more
appropriate timelines and what's
going to have impact. And so
that's one of those things I
think, is core to start with in
the conversation, is start with
the true why to the business,
not just to the siloed
organization of, you know,
wherever you may be working
within it,
Aaron Bock: yeah, and you've,
and we've, we've said this a
million times, and I don't want
to use a cliche phrase, but
like, know, your crown jewels.
Know what's really important to
the business? To your point, I
think if you can put $1 amount
on things. You know, how
important is this to the
business, either from an
opportunity perspective, a risk
perspective, a a process time
savings and cost savings
perspective. I think if you can
do that, you can make better
decisions. And I know it
depends. Every organization is
different, so we can't give like
a standard answer here, but I do
agree, like it has to start with
the business. And again, it's,
it's, we're an IT company. We
work with IT departments,
mostly, but it's hard to do if
you don't have a business
strategy. I would advise all
listeners you know, whether you
work with Opkalla or not. I you
one of the things Jeff mentioned
earlier in this podcast, I think
is really relevant, is we're
seeing a lot of companies pop
up. It's five, five people in a
garage, and they've got this AI
SaaS company that looks like
it's been around for 20 years.
It's branded Well, it's got
great content. It's got great
copyright. It has theoretically
a cool product. I would advise
anyone who's making decisions
for an organization of size, of
some maturity, if it's not
Opkalla, talk to someone in the
space about who they're working
with, and validate that the
providers are who they say they
are. I think a 26 I think a
trend that we're going to see is
you're going to see heavy
consolidation, because there was
a lot of providers that were
started last year. There's a lot
of money in the private equity
space that needs to be deployed.
And so you're going to see a lot
of acquisitions. And so I think
for mid size enterprises,
businesses, organizations of
size, and recommendation and
advice I would give that I would
be prioritizing is make sure
that you have someone you trust,
that you can talk to about who
you're working with, third party
risk. You know, do they, do they
have, have they been around
longer than a year? Do they have
any kind of security report that
you can see? Is there any
validity to what they're saying?
Do they have references, just
basic things that we've talked
about for years and years in it?
It's just more relevant now. So,
you know, I guess that would be
advice I would give Jeff. I
know, one of my favorite things
that you share with our team and
our customers is, you know,
know, where the company, the
solution started, you know, I'd
love for maybe you to share that
and re emphasize that, because I
think it's even more relevant
going into 26 like, what is the
concept of that that you advise
people on when it comes to
solution providers,
Jeff Garrett: right? So there's,
there's so much again,
expansion, consolidation
companies, you know, offer, you
know, having new offers, day in
and day out. A lot of what I've
always said is, I try to look at
what was the foundation of the
company. Where did they start?
And you can go from there, and
how did they try to expand?
Because if you know the
foundation of an organization
was in, you know, data center
storage, and now they're trying
to do MDR, you might say, Well,
wait a minute, how did they get
here? Right now, you start
asking questions. How did they
get here? Did they something?
Did they try to develop this on
their own? Did they expand by
acquisition, you know? How did
they get here into this new age?
And I, I think it helps just it
helps begin that inquisitiveness
to to really seek the truth of
what you know. What is this
organization? How well do they
do it? How do they execute on
it? It seems that more often
than not, you know, those
organizations that have a deep
foundation in in technology that
they're they're not trying to
represent now, they've tried to
shift maybe too much. You know
you're gonna you're gonna see
that play out and then the same
in the same vein. You're gonna
see organizations who have come
along and developed in the right
way, maybe into those stacks
recently, or organizations who
have expanded the right way into
some of their core offerings and
their core beliefs and their
core. Tenants as an organization
are, you know, are going to show
better, and you're going to see
that show better, and you're
going to see that align better,
you know? And I think it's, I
mean, it's true. I mean, it's
even true to us, right? Is
that's the hope for Opkalla,
that people see us is a
different way to interact, as an
advisor today, right? Then, then
the traditional reseller they've
dealt with in the past, and I
think some of those traditional
resellers are trying to make
that change, but if you look at
the foundation of of what they
were built in how they operate,
you know, vendors are tied to
those type of things, it makes
it hard to shift. And you know,
that's why I think we've been
successful in this. And that
same, same thing that applies to
us, applies to almost every
organization out there, when you
look at the foundations.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, I agree. As we
wrap, we got a couple minutes
left here. I want to kind of get
into your predictions for 2026
so, you know, we talked about AI
and what happened in 2025 so
kind of, you know, for 2026 How
do you expect AI to kind of show
up with infrastructure security,
etc. And then, you know, what
are some of your predictions for
it? And business leaders going
into 26 that that you were
talking about, that you think
are relevant.
Jeff Garrett: So, I mean, I
think some of the things for AI,
right, good, good in the bad. I
think we have to keep a close
watch, and organizations need to
be aware of how AI is impacting
infrastructure cost. I mean,
there's a lot of talk right now
about, you know, Ram sorted
shortages and the pricing of RAM
because it's needed in these AI.
So the kind of the same thing we
saw in graphics cards is now
it's impacting RAM. Graphics
cards may have not had, you
know, a shortage of graphics
card may have not hit everybody,
but a shortage of RAM and
pricing on RAM is going to
impact a lot more organizations,
a lot more data centers. It's
going to impact about how we
think about infrastructure going
forward. You know, the
combination of infrastructure
costs potentially going up the
actual physical infrastructure,
plus changes like, you know,
VMware pricing, that's going to
that's going to make cloud
workloads look a lot closer in
pricing than they have in the
past. So I think that's going to
change. I think AI is going to
have an impact there. I think
it's going to have an impact on
how we think about security.
We've thought a lot about, you
know, our data over the last
couple years, and where's data
going. I think it's we're going
to think about AI or security
around our AI. How are we
securing our prompts? How are we
securing our actual llms? You
know, it used to be, you know,
we worried about SQL injections
and somebody attacking our SQL
database, we're going to have to
worry about the same things with
with our AI models. And do we
have prompt injection? And are
people trying to attack our our
language models and get
sensitive information out of our
business that way? And then the
other thing I think is going to
be a little bit more innovative
for organizations, is thinking
about how they privatize. AI, I
think that's been something
that's been there for the higher
end, but I think it's becoming
more commercial, becoming more
productized for mid enterprise
businesses, where they can take
the work that other large
organizations have done, like
Google, with Gemini, like chat
GPT and privatize those models
more, more effectively, more
easily than they have in the
been able to in the past, where
that's kind of been limited to
select enterprise organizations
who are starting to see that
productized offering in the AI
space, so that that's kind of
specific to AI.
Aaron Bock: And then, before you
go into the other thing, I want
to just say one thing on AI you
mentioned, like the
infrastructure getting more
expensive. I think something
that I would advise, that I
think is going to be something
that is a decision that people
are having to consciously make,
is the buy verse, build concept.
You know, organizations,
everyone thinks we all think
we're unique. Every company
thinks we're so unique that no
one's like us. Well, yes, we
are, and hopefully we are very
differentiated. But the when you
look at the data side and the
architecture, a lot of it's
similar. And so, you know, I
think something you're going to
see is there's been so much
money spent on building AI
companies in 2024 and five, and
I would advise any CFO CEO, you
know CIO as well, but like
anyone who's looking at the
money side, well, we should just
build this. It's way cheaper. I
would, I would question that,
and I would look really hard to
see if there's a solution
already built, because people
have spent millions and billions
of dollars getting the hosting,
getting the hardware, getting
the infrastructure, building the
AI models out, if you can use
one that's built as a model
versus trying to build it
yourself. I think that's, you
know, there's going to be cases
where it does make sense to
build it in house, but I also
think there's many cases where
people should be looking to buy
the model in a.Going to be less expensive?
Jeff Garrett: Yeah, I agree. I
I've said this a lot over 2025 I
would advise anyone so from real
gear heads out there, I would
advise anyone who's thinking
about in this conversation to
build versus buyer. Remember the
Big Data craze and how everybody
was like, Oh, we're going to go
build our own Hadoop cluster.
We're going to do all this big
data analytics, and this turned
into Frankenstein projects of
that never went anywhere, half
baked designs. And what ended up
happening is big data analytics
was really just kind of
productized into some of the
SaaS based applications, or the
in house applications that we
bought off the shelf and used
today. So I think the same thing
for most organizations, right?
We will have outliers. We always
do. But for most organizations,
especially in mid enterprise
organizations, they're going to
use productized offerings, and
that's going to be the most
efficient way to do it before
you don't want to it may look,
from a cost perspective, cheap
on paper, but the capital of
people you sink into it, and the
man hours you sink into it, I
think, in the end, are going to
show that it was really a
negative investment to try to
build it out yourself.
Aaron Bock: 100 100% agree.
Before we go last, last
question, I know you talked
about AI, and I think you were
getting ready to talk about
other technologies, like, what
are some of your other
predictions for 2026
Jeff Garrett: Yeah. I mean, I
think a couple other things.
Well, I will say so three, maybe
three predictions for 2026, one
of them is around AI. I do think
I'll start with this one,
because I don't want to end on
doom and gloom. I think AI will
make us AI usage will make
organizations more vulnerable.
First, you know, I think that's
something to think about and
consider. It's kind of going
back to cloud. And as cloud
became popular and caught on,
and more people jumped in the
cloud, and they're just
deploying things. You know, we
heard all these stories about
publicly facing IP addresses and
storage buckets being open and
people being able to go in and
just pull out sensitive data,
because it's just somebody's you
know, Glacier storage is wide
open on AWS. I think initially,
the wide adoption of AI will
make us more vulnerable, and
then we'll have to, you know,
make sure we're dealing with
that from a security standpoint.
So I think that's something
we're just ultimately going to
face going into 2026, a couple
of other things, maybe not so
doom and gloom is that is
finops. I finops is something
that's been around. It's not a
new topic. But I think it takes,
I think it takes a little bit
more center stage for some
organizations, and maybe
organizations who wouldn't have
seen themselves worrying about
finops and cost optimization. Is
because, again, all these
changing models of
infrastructure prices by SaaS
based applications shadow IT and
SaaS finops is going to have a
wider breadth than just where it
started, which was kind of in
cloud optimization. It's going
to have ramifications across all
of it about, how are we
optimizing our spend? Again,
going back to IT leaders, you
know, being asked to have
economic, you know, produce
economic outcomes for the
business. So how, how are we
doing cost savings in that too.
So I think finops is going to
have a wider reach across
organization sizes in 2026, and
then the last thing, you know,
kind of, in the cyber security
world, we talked about, MDR, I
think the age, as we move into,
you know, there's the age of
more agentic MDR, I mean, it's
just staying ahead of the threat
actors and the way they're using
I think we're going to see that
security, cyber security
landscape and those platforms
continue to advance, and so I
expect to see a lot of the non
human assisted the rise of non
human assisted MDRs in 2026 and
that being adopted by organizations.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, well, thank
you for joining us today, Jeff.
We're at the end of our time,
and thank you for sharing what
you and your team have seen in
25 and excited for 2026 for
those of you out there, if you
are not you know, if you've
never heard of a value added
meeting or talk track that Jeff
is referring to, I encourage you
to reach out to a technology
advisor on our website today,
and you can have one of these
strategy conversations with your
organization, with Jeff and his
team. So I wish you the best of
luck, Jeff in 2026 you and your
team. Thank you for all that you
do, and for those of you out
there that are interested in in
having a more detailed strategy
conversation, please reach out
to us and thank you for
listening to the IT Matters
podcast. We wouldn't be where we
are without all of you listeners
out there today supporting us.
So best of luck in 2026 and I
hope you have a great rest of
the day.
Thank you for listening, and we
appreciate you tuning into the
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assessing your technology needs.
Book a call with one of our
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