OpenAI reportedly spent $5.73B on sales and marketing last year - 44% of revenue. Why OpenAI is spending Salesforce-like money to sell AI and still invest $150M in partners?

Palo Alto Networks posted a record quarter last week: $3B revenue (+31% YoY), RPO $18.4B (+36%). It’s striking how closely they now work with AI labs that many expected would disrupt them just months ago.

39% of LucidLink’s revenue now runs through channel partners. That’s a number you would expect from an infrastructure or security vendor, not a media collaboration company. For LucidLink, that is exactly the point.

Zscaler transacted $900M through cloud marketplaces in 9 months. That’s $100M/month. Marketplace TCV more than 2X (doubled) YoY, making it the fastest growing GTM channel.

Elastic just told investors that hyperscaler partnerships are part of why they win. It posted an excellent quarter. Cloud revenue reached $837M for the year - 48% of total.

~45% of Snowflake’s revenue now runs through AWS Marketplace: $2B+ in 2025 alone, $7B+ total. They just committed $6B more to AWS and raised their full-year growth outlook.

Zoom is one of the few software stocks that is up 22% YTD. Just raised full-year guidance. On track to cross $5B ARR. The standout growth segment? Contact center. And 10 out of 10 top deals were channel-driven.

Last week Cisco added ~$70B in market cap in a single day — its biggest move in ~20 years. The AI infrastructure numbers grabbed the headlines. What’s underneath them is an important signal for the cloud ecosystem. Three takeaways from Cisco’s Q3 FY26 print and Chuck Robbins’ CNBC interview:

ServiceNow just crossed $1B in AWS Marketplace. It is one of the fastest ramps to $1B on AWS in just ~2 years. This milestone matters even more because of what ServiceNow is now selling through AWS marketplace.