The channel is unconvinced that AI is fit for human consumption, says Billy MacInnes
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There’s a saying which has always puzzled me slightly. I mean, it sounds good when someone uses it but if you stop to think about it, there’s something very weird behind it. The phrase I have in mind is ‘eating your own dog food’. We’ve all probably heard it or seen it and most of us have a good idea of what it’s supposed to mean but I am a little bit sceptical that it’s quite as neat a fit as we all glibly think it is.
You hear it quite a bit in the IT industry where it might be applied to a software company that uses its own products internally or a hardware vendor that makes its employees use the products it manufactures. All well and good, but why dog food? Companies make all kinds of things that they could eat or use themselves. Why not ‘eating your own microwavable meals’ or ‘driving your own car’? Why on earth would anybody who makes food for dogs believe that consuming something not intended for human consumption is the best way to prove the integrity of their product? It’s absurd. Using your own toilet paper makes more sense.
Anyway, the phrase came to mind when I read about the recent State of the channel 2026 report for the UK and Ireland from the Global Technology Industry Association (GTIA). According to MicroScope, a lot of the report was devoted to channel attitudes towards AI. Among the findings was that 35% of UK and Ireland IT service providers (ITSPs) were already generating between 11-25% of revenues from a mix of fresh and existing AI products and services – with 7% claiming it provided half of their revenues.
However, when it came to eating the dog food or using the toilet paper, the numbers were not that impressive if you consider remarks from Carolyn April, vice president of research and market intelligence at GTIA, that “AI hype is fast turning into AI reality, making this a crucial time for providers who must make important decisions about their business strategy”. Someone should tell the ITSPs just how crucial a time it is, because only a third said they had integrated AI into their business models so far.
According to April, the experimentation phase is over and “those who can successfully adopt and monetise AI will be best placed to navigate this sea change”. To be fair, that’s one of the big issues around AI anyway. Quite a few organisations have rushed to adopt AI or integrate it but are still working out what the benefits are. Perhaps this is why the GTIA, at its recent event in Dublin, decided to establish an interest group on AI to provide forums for questions to be asked and information to be shared by members in different stages of AI adoption.
You might be forgiven for thinking that with so much noise and hype around the ‘wonder technology’ that is AI, it would be harder to find instances of AI projects that haven’t delivered. The fact that many people are still trying to find definitive evidence of its transformative powers when deployed within their organisation would suggest otherwise.
Never mind eating their own dog food, they’re still trying to open the bag.