Sage puts partners at the center of its shift toward AI

Sage has brought together more than 600 partners —76 of them from the Iberian region— in the opening session of Sage Future for Partners, a meeting held from November 9 to 11, 2026, which serves as the starting gun for a new fiscal year. The message the company wanted to make clear is simple to state and complicated to execute: the channel is not an add-on, it is the piece on which its transformation toward artificial intelligence rests.

A change of stage, not a continuation

Derk Bleeker, Sage's global chief commercial officer (CCO), was explicit when presenting the new course: this is not about extending what came before, but about opening a different stage. The company has set itself the goal of reaching $5 billion in revenue and, to achieve it, it will concentrate investments in strategic products, modernize its technology portfolio, and change the way customers and partners work with its solutions.

The choice of Amsterdam was not accidental. Bleeker drew a parallel between the founding of one of the first major modern business structures in 1602 and the current moment, in which AI and automation are once again reordering the rules of the game. The word that underpins the speech is trust: the trust that Sage says it builds for SMBs and the finance teams that need to do things right.

Five strategic decisions and two destination platforms

The first of these decisions involves a much more defined product portfolio. In the midsize business segment, Sage Intacct and Sage X3 will be the two main protagonists: according to Bleeker, they already account for 80% of new customer additions in that segment globally. The message for partners is direct: anyone who wants to build a sustainable business in the midmarket will need to progressively orient their sales, technical, and consulting capabilities toward those two platforms.

That does not mean abandoning the rest of the catalog. Each market is at a different stage of maturity, and traditional solutions retain a relevant customer base. The strategy consists of designing evolution paths that make it possible to modernize those platforms and facilitate the leap to the cloud and AI.

For small businesses, especially in EMEA, the key name is Sage Active. In Iberia it will be one of the keys to the business in the coming months, as confirmed by the company executives present at the event. The intention is for it to occupy a prominent place within the investment strategy and also to help expand presence among current customers through new solutions and services.

Where it wants to grow

• Human capital management (HCM).
• Expense management.
• Financial automation.
• Integrated banking and payments.

Bleeker announced that some of these solutions, with performance he described as especially positive in the United States, will reach other markets over the course of fiscal year 2027, which has just begun. They are joined by Infinio, a call recording and analysis solution integrated into Next Three, and new AI features aimed at improving productivity and facilitating self-service for finance leaders.

The other notable announcement of the day was the collaboration with Mastercard to incorporate integrated banking services, payments, and cards directly into Sage solutions. The rollout will begin in France and expand progressively.

What this means for an SMB and its IT team

Beyond the event's showcase, the news has a very concrete reading for Spanish companies that work with Sage or with any of its partners. The first is that the vendor is reorganizing its catalog: if an SMB uses traditional solutions, it is worth knowing now what the planned evolution path is and what it implies in terms of costs, migration, and training. There is no urgent need to run, but there is an urgent need to have the map.

The second is that AI stops being a talking point and becomes packaged functionality: financial automation, call analysis, self-service for the finance leader. That forces a review of two things that in many SMBs remain unresolved: data quality and access permissions. An AI that automates financial processes on dirty data or with overly broad access does not accelerate anything; it multiplies risk. As we already discussed in the blog regarding AI in the company, technology without control is a guest that stays to live in your house.

The third is the banking integration with Mastercard. Payments and cards within the ERP simplify reconciliation, but they also expand the exposure surface: credentials, tokens, and access to financial data become critical assets. Here it is advisable to apply the same discipline we demand of any vendor, as we recalled when analyzing the Web3Auth flaw: review who has keys, how they are rotated, and what happens if an employee leaves the organization.

Our recommendation from ForgeNEX

1. Take inventory of your Sage stack. Identify which solutions you use, in which version, and whether they are on the path toward Intacct, X3, or Active. Ask your partner for the timeline, not the promise.
2. Ask about AI specifically. What functionality, on what data, at what cost, and with what permissions model. If the answer is vague, wait.
3. Organize the data before the tools. Financial automation only works on clean information and defined processes.
4. Strengthen identity and access. Especially if you are going to connect payments and banking to the ERP. MFA, role reviews, and activity logging are not optional.
5. Plan the training. The platform change affects accounting, administration, and financial management; without support, the project remains half-finished.

Sage's bet on the channel is, at bottom, good news for SMBs: it means there will be local support and not just a global catalog. But that support must be demanded with judgment, with concrete questions, and with a written plan. Trust, in technology, is built the same way as in accounting: with verifications.

Source: Computerworld. Analysis and adaptation: ForgeNEX.