Artificial Intelligence isn’t just transforming industries — it’s redefining what it means to build software, embed software and white label solutions and find success as a software leader. At OpenText World 2025, Ines Piech, Regional Vice President of Sales for OEM & API, shared a powerful message for software innovators: “The landscape has changed — and the way we build software must change with it.”

This session, titled “The OEM Advantage: Building AI-ready Solutions Faster with OpenText”, brought together Independent Software Vendors, system integrators, and technology leaders from all over the world to explore how embedded software can dramatically accelerate innovation, cut R&D costs, and help businesses thrive in an AI-first world.

If you missed the session — here’s what you need to know:

The AI Revolution: Redefining the ISV Landscape

Just a year ago, many Independent Software Vendors were focused on optimizing products, improving customer experience, and integrating with cloud ecosystems. Fast forward to today — and everything has changed. AI has upended traditional models, pushing ISVs and Software Companies to rethink how they build, deliver, and monetize software. The impact is both deep and fast:

• Disruption of traditional business models – The familiar subscription-based, linear value models are giving way to outcome-based pricing and usage-driven revenue models, powered by AI insights.
• Automation is the new baseline – AI-driven internal operations are improving efficiency and cutting operational costs by up to 60%, freeing resources for innovation.
• Smarter product design – ISVs are now embedding predictive analytics, generative AI, and automation into their offerings, transforming customer experiences and boosting productivity by 50% or more.
• Data as a growth engine – AI is allowing companies to leverage unstructured data in ways never before possible — uncovering trends, detecting risks, and predicting outcomes in real-time.

The ISV market itself is evolving rapidly, with growth expected to reach US$1.56B by 2029, driven by AI adoption and embedded intelligence across industries like fintech, manufacturing, and healthcare.

Build vs. Buy: A Question That AI Has Completely Changed

For decades, software leaders have wrestled with the same dilemma: Should we build new capabilities in-house, or buy them from external providers? AI has changed this equation entirely and the benefits of both options have been disrupted by AI technology completely and the question is no longer “should I build or buy” and has now become: “how do we blend both to move faster?”. So, let's look at how Build vs. Buy have changed since last year:

The Build Side

AI-assisted tools are enabling faster, smarter development cycles. ISVs can now use:

• AI-assisted code generation, testing, and debugging to dramatically reducing time-to-market and improving quality.
• Personalization engines allowed now tailoring solutions precisely to each customer’s needs, enhancing engagement and retention via the use of smart AI tools
• Automation of QA and project management has allowed early adopters to boost up team productivity across the entire lifecycle.

But with new opportunities come new responsibilities, as managing intellectual property, ensuring compliance, and maintaining trust in AI-driven applications now sit firmly on the shoulders of ISVs, which need to ensure content used on applications does not contravene with any Intellectual Property law or regulation.

The Buy Side

On the flip side, buying prebuilt, ready-to-use AI embedded software components offers major strategic advantages:

• Speed and scalability have dramatically been expedited, as AI-ready APIs and platforms accelerate deployment timelines exponentially as ready-to-use software has automated several workflows, processes and routines.
• Smarter compliance has now become a robust benefit of ready-to-use software, as AI has allowed solutions to stay current with evolving regulations and worldwide compliance regulations in a matter of minutes by simply adding new guidelines into AI integrated solutions and having them updated immediately.
• Hybrid flexibility is integrating plug-and-play capabilities that complement existing systems without major reengineering, which means, integration of systems has now become easier and faster, removing lengthy and complex processes and speeding up convergence across all systems and applications.

The Hybrid Strategy is the new playground

So with all these changes, what is the sweet spot for Independent Software Vendors ? The answer: A hybrid approach.

ISVs are increasingly blending both strategies — buying foundational AI technologies and embedding ready-to-use components from trusted partners like OpenText, while focusing their internal resources on differentiation and domain expertise. Reality is, Buying vs. Building are no longer exclusive and independent options, as nowadays, the level of customization provided by ready-to-use solutions has pretty much leveled outcomes to in-house software building, which in turns allows Software Companies to provide highly customized solutions which in the past could not delivered, unless they build the applications from scratch.

This hybrid model provides several benefits to smart Software Companies, being one of them the option to compete with larger vendors by automating complex tasks and delivering context-rich, AI-powered solutions faster than ever before. In addition, it has allowed others to access industries where they could not compete due to knowledge and expertise gaps. This constraint has now been completely removed by plugging-in smart and ready-to-use software solutions.

As Ines Piech emphasized, today’s dynamic technology landscape demands that “every developer needs to be an AI developer.”

The ISVs that will thrive in this new era are not those who wait to see what AI can do — but those who embed it into the very DNA of their products. Whether through automation, smarter compliance, predictive analytics, or entirely new business models, the future belongs to those who can innovate fast, adapt flexibly, and scale securely.

OpenText OEM solutions offer the foundation and freedom to make that future possible — helping software innovators move beyond experimentation and truly build the future of intelligent applications.

The AI revolution isn’t coming — it’s already here. And with the right strategy and the right partners, ISVs can turn it from a challenge into their biggest growth opportunity yet.

Because in 2026, the question isn’t whether you’ll use AI — it’s how fast you’ll embed it.

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