The content team at Channel Partners Newsletter tracks stories of interest to the technology advisor and wider channel communities. Anyone selling communication and connectivity solutions will want to stay abreast of these developing stories or catch up on ones they have missed. We are tracking—with the help of ChatGPT along with AI tools our parent Informa has developed—a roundup based on story traffic, mentions, impressions, reposts, and social media engagement. All links are valid as of Oct. 15.

Salesforce Pitches Agentforce 360

Salesforce Chief Executive Marc Benioff devoted much of his Dreamforce 2025 keynote address and comments to the media discussing how Salesforce will bridge the “Agentic Divide.” Salesforce unveiled Agentforce 360, an integrated platform connecting AI agents, Data 360, Customer 360 apps and a conversational interface for humans and agents to work together using Slack. “If you don’t have your data right, you’re not going to get your AI right,” Benioff said. Read the SiliconAngle story.

Oracle Tackles AI with AI Data Platform

Oracle launched the AI Data Platform, a unified set of capabilities aimed at enabling customers to securely develop AI models and applications, including agents. Introduced during Oracle AI World, AI Data Platform unifies capabilities from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Oracle Autonomous AI Database and the OCI Generative AI service. Read the TechTarget story.

AI Startups to Watch

While big players like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft continue to dominate headlines, it’s the rising startups that are pushing boundaries. Silicon Review highlights 10 AI startups and technologies they represent. Read the Silicon Review story.

Copper Networks Under Attack

There were more than 15,540 reported attacks on communications networks over a 12-month period bridging 2024 and 2025, according to the USTelecom’s Fall 2025 “Protecting Critical Communications Infrastructure Report.” The telecom trade association said the rising market value of copper has created incentives to target infrastructure. Attacks increased from 5,770 between June and December of 2024 to 9,770 between January and June of 2025. “These crimes disrupt essential services, impose millions of dollars in repair costs, and endanger public safety by threatening emergency communications, hospitals, airports, military installations, and other public safety institutions,” according to the report. Read the full report.

NDIA Sues to Restore Digital Equity Act

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) sued the Trump administration for the reinstatement of grant funding via the Digital Equity Act. The $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act was created in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), as a companion to the then-$42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. Last week the NDIA filed suit with the U.S. District Court for Washington, DC, seeking "to challenge the unilateral repeal by the Executive Branch of the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program, which Congress required under the Digital Equity Act of 2021." Read the Light Reading story.

AI Boom Will Bust but Not Bankrupt

If you sense the AI boom will lead to a dot-com-style bust, the International Monetary Fund's chief economist agrees with you. The IMF’s Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas pointed to many similarities between the late 1990s internet stock bubble and the current AI boom in a Reuters interview. However, he said the heavy AI investment will not cause systemic failure because it is not financed by debt. Read the Reuters story.

Bezos Sees Lots of Room for AI Data Centers in Space

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told an Italian Tech Week audience that gigawatt-scale data centers will be built in space within the next 10 to 20 years and eventually outperform anything we built on the ground. He said space data centers can access energy that Earth-based facilities can’t match. Read the AI Magazine story.