The cybersecurity vendor’s new Ascent Partner Program is aimed at helping partners to ‘embrace AI fully’ with key updates including enhanced enablement and incentives, Vectra AI CEO Hitesh Sheth tells CRN exclusively.
Vectra AI is rolling out a major overhaul of its channel program that aims to accelerate the adoption of AI-powered security in categories such as NDR (network detection and response), while helping a broader range of partners generate recurring revenue from the shift to AI, executives told CRN exclusively.
In an interview, Vectra AI President and CEO Hitesh Sheth (pictured) and Global Channel Chief Chad Reese said that the new Ascent Partner Program brings key updates including enhanced enablement and incentives along with sharper requirements, in an effort to increase the business it’s doing with the most-committed solution and service providers in its partner base.
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The launch of the revamped, three-tier channel program ultimately represents a “significant evolution of the programmatic approach to how we’re dealing with the partners,” Sheth said.
The company had a traditional metal tier structure in the past, “but I don’t think we were as tight about the qualification to get into those,” he said. “This time we are being very methodical about what it takes to qualify for any of those tiers.”
Meanwhile, Vectra is seeking to expand its AI-native cybersecurity platform with partners through training, enablement and incentives that are specifically geared toward differing partner types—including VARs, MSSPs and system integrators, executives said.
All in all, “for the partners to really monetize [in the current environment], we are enabling them to embrace AI fully,” Sheth said.
The launch of Vectra’s new partner program comes as threat actors are increasingly utilizing AI and agents to move more rapidly across IT systems, leading to faster compromises and greater security risk, executives noted.
The new program seeks to enable partners to move just as quickly through a range of joint engagements including co-selling, co-marketing and co-delivery, according to the company.
For Vectra AI, the program seeks to move beyond transactions and resale to recognize the different types of value created by partners, said Reese, who is also a senior vice president at the vendor.
“The goal will be [that] every partner has multiple opportunities with every customer— from the resale, yes, but also advisory services, the implementation, integration, managed services, ultimately expansion—but a recurring business where they can continually add value to the customer over the lifecycle,” he said.
Partner Perspective
Without a doubt, the new program launch constitutes a major leap forward in terms of Vectra AI’s channel efforts, according to Matt Tomlinson, sales director at Dublin, Ireland-based Integrity360, which serves customers in Canada and the U.S. from its office in Calgary, Alberta.
Integrity360 has been partnering with Vectra for the past two years, and has “found them [to be] an extremely channel-friendly organization,” Tomlinson said. “We built up and established a lot of trust with that organization. But this is really them maturing that program now—launching a proper channel program.”
Among the crucial advantages of the new program for partners such as Integrity360 are recognition for investments with the vendor and protection for opportunities, he said.
The recognition aspect matters because Integrity360 allocates substantial employee time in training, accreditations and knowledge-sharing—and the resulting badges and certifications can provide a major area of differentiation, Tomlinson noted.
“For us as a business and for my staff, it’s important to get the badges, to know the effort is worthwhile, to know that we’re a Vectra AI-accredited [top tier] partner and that my engineers have achieved that as well,” he said. “So I think that recognition is very important—recognition of the effort and the focus you put in.”
Likewise, protection for opportunities is critical because Integrity360 is not a partner focused on transactional deals and fulfillment, Tomlinson added.
By contrast, the company hunts for opportunities and develops them over a sales cycle that can last four to six months—and then ultimately deploys services around the technology, he said.
“It’s a long process that we need to go through with the client,” Tomlinson said. “The program now is very clear about the different margins that you receive, at the different partner statuses—but also the deal registration protection you will get in that program if you build that opportunity. And obviously, that’s what the channel—that’s what I—look for. I look for partners that will protect us, that will recognize us, that will support us in that enablement program.”
The bottom line is that “I think it’s very important now that they’ve reached this maturity level,” he said. “Recognition and protection is crucial as we now build momentum.”
Improved Partner Enablement
One major component of the revamped program is a formal roadmap around enablement for partners, which aligns to the typical journey a customer will go through, Vectra AI executives said.
The roadmap proceeds from identifying an opportunity and demonstrating the technology to producing proof of value and deploying the platform—and ultimately, to operating the platform as part of a managed service for customers, according to Reese.
While Vectra had offered enablement in those areas previously, the training was largely provided on an individual basis rather than through a clearly defined progression, he noted.
Now, without question, the cybersecurity vendor is offering a “formalized process and roadmap” in this regard, Reese said. “We built out an extensive enablement piece to this program, and it follows the actual customer journey.”
At the same time, a top goal for Vectra is to equip partners to help address the types of security issues that have become relevant to nearly all customers, according to Sheth.
These include providing protection amid the arrival of frontier AI models such as Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, which have been shown to be ultra-powerful at discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities.
In addition to boosting protection in the “post-Mythos world,” many customers are also focused on how to defend against autonomous AI attacks—as well as on using agents to transform security operations, Sheth said.
Vectra AI is seeking to enable partners to provide better solutions to all of those issues for customers, he said.
“This is where we can play a very significant role in helping our partners deliver differentiated services,” Sheth said.
Looking ahead, Vectra is only doubling down on its channel-driven growth strategy as the AI era continues to unfold, executives said.
As a “partner-first company,” Sheth said, “we are heavily, heavily dependent upon our partners being successful. That’s the only way we can scale successfully. And so there’s a lot riding on this.”
