Nearly 44,000 people attended this year’s RSA Security Conference, many of them channel partners, which helped shape the event’s overarching theme: “The Power of Community.”
While community was the banner message, the real star of the show was the rapid rise of Agentic AI, autonomous AI agents capable of taking independent action. For the channel, this shift signals a major opportunity to build new offerings around enhanced security governance for these emerging systems.
Agentic AI wasn’t the only major takeaway from RSA 2026. Several other themes stood out for the channel.
Passwords Are Dead
This takeaway comes from Jim Taylor, president of security at RSA Security, who told eChannelNews that traditional passwords have outlived their usefulness.
“Passwords fall short everywhere, including in critical areas like desktop logon, where organizations still rely on them because the industry historically failed to deliver better alternatives. We need to remove passwords altogether. They’re costly to maintain and create a gaping security issue,” he said.
Unaware Risks in AI Adoption
Kayla Williams, vCISO for KWC of Boston, speaking at a Checkmarx event, warned that most organizations underestimate the risks introduced by AI adoption.
“The biggest change with AI is the velocity of development, which also dramatically expands the attack surface. AI is both an opportunity and a risk,” she said.
Williams highlighted several areas organizations must address:
Security teams need upskilling to keep pace with AI‑driven development.
At least one security professional must be embedded in every AI development loop.
Ownership of AI systems remains unclear in many organizations, creating governance gaps.
AI for Both Good Guys and Bad Guys
Executives across the conference who spoke with eChannelNews agreed that AI will be used as both a weapon and a shield. The market is already shifting beyond generative AI toward Agentic AI capable of detecting and remediating vulnerabilities autonomously. MSPs will need to adopt these tools to keep pace with increasingly AI‑enabled threat actors.
Outcomes‑as‑a‑Service
The shift toward Outcomes‑as‑a‑Service is accelerating, and customers are beginning to expect it. Channel partners must transition from selling alerts to delivering validated outcomes, such as measurable risk reduction and immediate incident remediation.
Compliance‑as‑a‑Service
Compliance‑as‑a‑Service is emerging as another strong opportunity. Regulations such as NIS2, CMMC 2.0, and HIPAA are driving demand for proactive, compliance‑aligned managed security services, particularly in the SMB segment where most MSPs operate.
