‘I genuinely believe providers who can turn cloud into a platform for governing AI agents is going to be what leads in the next decade,’ says Caylent CEO Valerie Henderson.
Solution providers that turn cloud computing into a platform for governing AI are going to lead the market over the next decade with a healthy dose of fear and uncertainty expected from customers along the way, according to Valerie Henderson, CEO of AI channel standout Caylent.
“I genuinely believe providers who can turn cloud into a platform for governing AI agents is going to be what leads in the next decade,” said Henderson.
“I do have this belief that dystopia versus utopia is very normal, and often we will always land in the middle,” she said.
The Irvine, Calif.-based cloud AI-focused company is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner and Anthropic Preferred Services Partner, becoming one of the first North American systems integrators with an official Anthropic partnership. Caylent now has 1,400 Anthropic certifications.
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Approximately 40 percent of Caylent’s business comes from applied AI, which ranges from helping customers develop evaluations to building and integrating AI platforms. The company is also investing heavily in turning much of its workforce into forward deployed engineers (FDEs).
The Caylent CEO said solution providers that can show customers how to govern AI within the cloud are driving sales.
“Giving them the right guardrails, the right security, the right operating model—in terms of where humans are in the loop, when they’re in the loop, and what they do when they’re in the loop—is going to be really key,” Henderson said.
Early on in the AI era, businesses saw very quickly that simply installing AI was not going to give them a business outcome.
“People saw very quickly just doing that is not going to drive results. You’ll spend a lot of money, and you won’t see a return on that. So you really have to be thoughtful around the platform and the governance,” she said.
‘I Love The Idea Of An Irreducible Minimum’ That Drives Compound Growth
The AI era is filled with fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) from customers.
Henderson said customers’ fear of AI innovation is “OK” because much of the technology and business outcomes that stem from AI have never been done before.
“It’s uncharted territory, and that’s OK. So I love the idea of an irreducible minimum of like, ‘What is the one thing you can get done today and change and improve that will compound the next day?’—that works for customers,” she said.
“Taking that approach and breaking things down to drive outcomes quickly works,” she said. “And then it compounds on each other. It’s going to compound faster than it did in the previous five years.”
As every major wave of AI has created a seam between business and technical teams, solution providers need to bridge that gap if they want to succeed in today’s market.
“I feel like Caylent is needed more than ever to help bring those two things together by leveraging AI. It’s just not something that you can press a button and do,” she said. “It’s not easy, but it can lead to amazing [growth and results].”
Successful AI Partners Will Be ‘Truth Tellers’
In regard to public backlash around AI such as consumer AI and AI data centers, Henderson said solution providers need to be the “truth tellers” of how beneficial AI is for businesses and people.
“To your point around the fear and hatred, I see my role as how can we be truth tellers about what is actually happening and where we see this technology changing things for the better,” she said. “There are so many cool stories out there.”
From AI innovation helping patients with Alzheimer’s to saving clients millions of dollars in productivity gains, solution providers need to lead the way in positive AI success stories.
“We need [solution providers] to tell more of these success stories. Because unfortunately, I often think negativity gets more clicks and views,” Henderson said. “If people like us can say, ‘Hey I get that fear, but we are going to be truth tellers about the amazing things that are happening and the cool things that are happening’—that helps.”
Customer-Obsessed Works In AI Era
Lastly, Henderson said solution providers that are customer-obsessed will win in the AI era.
Caylent serves customers from startups through Fortune 100 companies, with nearly half of its customer base in the technology sector.
Caylent combines deep AWS expertise, proprietary accelerators and an agentic delivery system to move customers from ideas to impact as quickly as possible. The company was recently named a “Major Player” in research firm IDC’s 2026 MarketScape for Worldwide Cloud Professional Services.
“The thing I see for us continuing to grow is continued obsession about our customers and being able to help our customers evolve as this technology evolves,” she said.
“As long as we do that, and we do not lose sight of that, we exist for our customers—we will continue to be successful, to grow, to continue to drive change in the market, and to raise the bar and actually set the bar in some capacity,” Henderson said.
