Insight Enterprises CEO: forward deployed engineers should get client AI pilots live in days, not weeks

Insight Enterprises, the IT reseller and services firm, set up a formal forward deployed engineering practice in August, CEO Jack Azagury told Channel Dive. Its stated goal is speed: getting from a client's requirements to a proof of value that is live and running in days rather than several weeks.

Azagury, a former Accenture leader who joined Insight in April, described the FDE profile as someone who understands the client's business requirements, has deep technical skills and can turn a conversation into working software quickly. The practice is part of Insight's shift toward a solution integrator model that attaches engineering help to its cloud and hardware sales. Revenue rose 22% year over year to $2.4 billion in Q3, while the company also ran a voluntary separation program to move resources toward its fastest-growing areas.

Insight says more than 600 of its staff hold Anthropic or OpenAI technical certifications and 100 hold Nvidia credentials. For FDEs, the story is another sign that resellers and IT services firms are building FDE benches of their own, and that time-to-production, not slide decks, is becoming the yardstick they sell on.