WWT Hits the Road with ‘AI-First’ MessageWWT Hits the Road with ‘AI-First’ Message

WWT AI DAY — World Wide Technology (WWT) is going all in on developing its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and partnerships in an effort to be known as an "AI-first" company.

This focus on AI has already seen the global solution provider spend $500 million on developing an AI proving ground.

“If you listen to our CEO, Jim Kavanaugh, he’s been describing us as an AI-first company for the last 18 months,” said Dominic Pierce, WWT’s VP of global accounts for EMEA. “He’s put a huge amount of investment into our AI capabilities, partnerships — Nvidia, and other key players in this space.”

As part of this strategy, WWT has been hosting an AI roadshow, which rotates through American cities. Pierce spoke to Channel Futures at the company’s first AI day across the pond – in London – on Wednesday.

A difference between the two regions is the level of AI investment and adoption. The U.S. has seen significant investment in generative AI (gen AI) capabilities across large enterprises, education and health care. In Europe, however, the market has been more circumspect.

“The European market is a bit more cautious in many areas,” said Pierce.

Despite the caution, Pierce has seen a shift in recent months, with more clients moving from discussions to actual implementation of AI use cases.

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“We’ve seen a lot of conversations that have been very interesting with our clients. [It's] a move from ‘We should do something’ [to] ‘We’re actually going to do something now.’

“We understand that the use case can be quite narrow, quite contained," he added. "It could only have an impact on a very small part of the business. [We take] a practical approach to understanding what that use case is, getting your data organized … through to testing how that use case performs on a technology stack in our lab, and then getting the use case up and running.”

While some initial use cases might be niche, Pierce believes 2026 will be the year when gen AI becomes more mainstream in the large enterprises with whom WWT typically works.

WWT’s ‘Serious’ Investment in EMEA

Regarding growth in EMEA, Pierce maintained that “WWT is investing in this region in a very serious way.”

This week, the firm – which boasts more than $20 billion in annual revenue – announced it would expand its logistics capabilities in the U.K. to serve global enterprise clients. Located in Coventry, England, WWT said the new U.K. Integration Center reduces delivery costs, optimizes speed of technology to market and meets growing customer demand in the region. It is the second such facility in EMEA, with the first in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

“With this new facility, we’ve extended that capability into the U.K. We haven’t had, in the part of the business I’m responsible for, a U.K. warehousing, logistics and integration facility before. And with some of the challenges that Brexit has brought, that’s meant that on occasion, we haven’t been as quick or as cost-effective to get physical equipment into the U.K. market as we would like to have been. This new facility is an emblem of our investment. It shows that we’re serious about this market.”