“A year ago, it was all about education. What is AI? What’s generative versus agentic?” says Josh Dinneen, Blue Mantis CEO. “Now customers want to move from learning to doing. They’re asking us, ‘How do we launch this safely and prove value?’ That’s a big shift.”
Blue Mantis CEO Josh Dinneen wants customers to not just become AI-aware but rather AI-enabled. And to assist clients with their AI enablement, the solution provider has launched a new portfolio aimed at helping midmarket enterprises overcome the complexity of AI adoption.
The AI Readiness and Enablement portfolio is a suite of services addressing challenges in data governance, security and operational deployment and is aimed at helping companies that are ready for AI implementation gain confidence.
“AI is moving faster than most organizations can keep up with, and midmarket companies are feeling it the most,” Dinneen (pictured) told CRN in an interview. “They’ve been using AI through SaaS platforms like Salesforce and ServiceNow often without realizing it, but now they’re asking, ‘How do we take control of this and use it strategically?’”
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The portfolio provides an end-to-end approach to adoption from strategic advisory and use case development to data readiness, implementation and ongoing optimization.
According to Dinneen, many AI projects fail to deliver ROI not because the technology lacks promise, but because companies aren’t structurally ready.
“A year ago, it was all about education. What is AI? what’s generative versus agentic?” he said. “Now customers want to move from learning to doing. They’re asking us, ‘How do we launch this safely and prove value?’ That’s a big shift.”
Services in the portfolio include AI strategy and vision readiness, which align strategy and internal preparedness; use case development, which helps identify and prioritize business value opportunities; and data foundation assessments, which analyze infrastructure, governance and data quality to ensure safe and scalable AI execution.
For Blue Mantis, No. 136 on CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500 list, its “assess, modernize, manage and secure” approach underpins the entire offering. “We’re not just throwing tech at a problem,” he said. “We’re helping clients operationalize AI in a way that aligns to their goals, delivers ROI and protects their environment.”
To begin, a thorough process of understanding a client’s strategic objectives and existing tech landscape is performed.
“We need to know what their North Star is, 12, 24, 36 months out,” the CEO said. “From there, we look at critical path blockers like outdated infrastructure, data silos or compliance gaps. We define what success looks like up front, set the gates, track outcomes and adjust if the ROI isn’t there. This is about enabling business strategy, not just deploying tech. And we’re not just delivering point solutions. We own the entire value chain from advisory to deployment to managed services.”
Strategic vendor partnerships also play a key role with Blue Mantis collaborating with Arctic Wolf, Microsoft and Oracle, according to Dinneen.
Looking ahead, he said there will always be continuous evolution for the portfolio.
“We’re preparing for a world where quantum computing and AI combine to further accelerate that velocity,” he said. “So we’re always evaluating how to keep our clients ahead without overwhelming them.”
