I was a distributor for 25 years. We were part of the first wave that adopted e-commerce and the company store model at a time when most of the industry thought it was unprofitable.

I watched the e-com wave split the industry in two:

  • One group grew more sophisticated at what they already did well – design, merchandising, product.
  • The other group rethought how merch worked from the ground up – orders, fulfillment, client experience, all of it.


And what we expected with e-commerce as a threat (an Amazon takeover of the industry) instead became a huge business for many of us. Boutique company stores and shops turned into a core feature for most distributors. But it took a decade for that to shake out.

AI is that kind of wave, but bigger. And the split is already forming.

What’s In Your AI Toolkit?

At The PPAI Expo 2026, I ran a live survey with 400 distributors. The headline number looked healthy: 62% use AI at least a few times a day. But the next question told a different story.

When I asked what they use it for, most ranked writing first. Not research. Not design. Not workflow or business development. Writing. Cleaning up emails, fixing grammar, generating a subject line. That’s not adoption, that’s a spell check with a bigger vocabulary.

I also put up a question I almost didn’t ask: “Have you used agentic AI or vibe coded yet?” From 400 people, 81% chose “What the hell are you talking about?”

81%.

Agentic AI – the kind that automates tasks and runs a multi-step workflow on your behalf – is where these tools are now. It’s the difference between asking AI to clean up a paragraph and asking it to research a prospect’s industry, draft a briefing doc, prep your talking points and design your deck before a meeting in one recursive prompt. The current method most use is a glorified typing assistant. The other is a business partner, a colleague, an employee.

Four out of five distributors in that room hadn’t heard the term.

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A similar gap showed up in design. Distributors ranked design as the one area AI will change the most, but 27% aren’t using AI design at all. The tools were difficult at first, but development caught up fast in the past few months – but our industry hasn’t caught up with the tools. 

We’ve seen this before. In 2005, plenty of distributors had e-commerce shops for their customers but didn’t optimize them. They saw e-commerce as a necessary evil versus an opportunity and a differentiator. Having the tool wasn’t the same as using it. Many went wide; few went deep. The companies that pulled ahead were the ones who went all-in – the ones who saw it as a revenue driver, an anchor and a new way of working.

Don’t Get Left Behind

The same split is happening now, but this time it’s different.

Every past disruption in this industry, such as the dot-com crash, the recession and COVID, was a demand shock. Revenue dipped (or plummeted) but the work stayed the same. AI isn’t that. Revenue won’t dip. How we work, will. The work is what’s changing, not the market. (Although we will see massive gains, too, more on that in a minute).

Jeff Bezos recently described AI as more like a current of electricity than a particular tool, a current that electrifies every part of the business. That makes depth (not just adoption) an urgent question, now; not a someday question, particularly for profitability.

Distributors that go deep and integrate AI into their ops, from workflow to business intelligence, will move faster and do sharper work.”

Bobby Lehew

Chief Content Officer, commonsku

And here’s the net result: the distributors that go deep and integrate AI into their ops, from workflow to business intelligence, will move faster and do sharper work. Clients notice when you’re better, smarter and quicker. They notice and give you more projects. What doesn’t start as a revenue play becomes one because now, you’re outpacing your peers with insight and performance.

So, what to do?

If you’re a larger operation with teams, this is your chance to redeploy. AI at depth compresses the production side – research, sourcing legwork, order prep, design. That doesn’t only mean fewer people. It means those people spend more time on the work that grows accounts: client strategy, creative direction and relationships. Companies that figure this out will get more value out of every person on the roster.

RELATED: Promo’s AI Opportunities And Challenges

If you’re a smaller distributor, the math is different, but the point is the same. You might not be able to hire a research team, a design department and a production team. Most smaller, growth-minded distributors are trying to structure, scale and streamline teams. AI at depth gives you a chance to build a bench without the payroll. The distributor who goes deep can potentially reach the capacity of an enterprise firm.

A year from now, every distributor will use AI. And some will use agentic AI to automate, replace and build a more robust business. The gap won’t be about who adopted AI. It’ll be about who went deep.

Which side of that split do you want to be on?

Lehew is chief content officer at commonsku, a workflow platform built for the promotional products industry and powering over $1.8 billion in annual volume across 900+ distributors. A former 25-year distributor, he hosts the skucast podcast, edits two industry newsletters – The Backpack and The AI Promo Brief – and speaks nationally on the future of merch and marketing.