Why This Matters to Distributors: Join Distribution Strategy Group’s live Best Practice Series webinar on Tuesday, July 14, at noon EDT, to see which wholesale distributors have moved beyond AI pilots into production. The benchmark identifies companies delivering measurable business results with artificial intelligence and offers practical lessons for distributors looking to accelerate their own AI strategies.
Every wholesale distributor says artificial intelligence is a strategic priority. Few have demonstrated production deployments.
That gap is the focus of Distribution Strategy Group’s inaugural Top 25 AI Distributors, an evidence-based benchmark the DSG will unveil during a live Best Practice Series webinar on July 14. As AI announcements become increasingly common across wholesale distribution, the research is designed to distinguish companies with verified operational deployments from those still in the pilot stage.
According to DSG’s State of AI in Distribution 2025 survey of 233 executives, including 57% from the C-suite, 93% of distributors consider AI a strategic priority. Yet only 16% have moved beyond pilot projects into production. Every company recognized in the Top 25 falls within that group.
“The industry has entered a new phase,” said Brian Hopkins, DSG’s chief operating officer. “The question is no longer whether distributors should invest in AI. It’s which companies are generating measurable business value, how they’re doing it and what others can learn from their experience.”
Hopkins will present the findings alongside DSG co-founders Ian Heller and Jonathan Bein. The webinar will reveal the Platinum, Gold, and Silver honorees, explain the research methodology and highlight the characteristics shared by the industry’s AI leaders.
Rather than ranking companies from one to 25, DSG grouped them into recognition tiers. The organization said a numerical ranking would suggest a level of precision that is difficult to support across distributors operating in different industries, product categories, and business models.
The benchmark began with an evaluation of 58 wholesale distributors. DSG said the methodology was designed to recognize verified AI deployment rather than reward marketing claims.
Each distributor was evaluated through three independent scoring models measuring production deployment, AI maturity, and breadth of implementation. Researchers then assessed each company across eight research categories and 34 data points, including earnings call transcripts, regulatory filings, investor presentations, executive interviews, trade publication coverage, and patent filings. A second independent review followed before editors sought confirmation directly from participating distributors.
Each company also received a confidence rating based on the strength of the available evidence. Vendor-reported performance metrics were identified separately rather than presented as independently verified results.
Every Platinum, Gold and Silver honoree reached DSG’s “Integrated” stage on its five-level AI maturity model, which progresses from Emerging to Functional, Integrated, Agentic and Native. DSG concluded that no wholesale distributor has yet reached the Agentic or Native stages.
Despite differences in size and market focus, the leading distributors shared several common characteristics.
They assign a single executive responsibility for AI strategy rather than relying on committees. They deploy AI across multiple business functions instead of isolated pilots. They invest consistently over several years rather than funding one-time initiatives. They build AI on strong enterprise data foundations. And they publicly report measurable business results supported by documented evidence.
The research also identified six AI applications appearing most frequently among the Top 25: AI-powered search and product discovery, dynamic pricing, demand and inventory forecasting, order automation and document processing, warehouse robotics and computer vision, and early agentic AI systems capable of performing defined operational tasks with limited human intervention.
The benchmark’s most significant finding is that the competitive gap continues to widen.
DSG identified four structural advantages separating AI leaders from the rest of the market: organizational alignment, modern data infrastructure, specialized AI talent, and executive commitment. Based on its analysis, the organization estimates the practical lead held by today’s AI leaders is closer to five years than the commonly cited 18-month technology cycle because investments made several years ago continue to generate compounding operational advantages.
For distributors still developing AI capabilities, DSG recommends focusing on execution before expansion. The roadmap begins with assigning a single executive accountable for AI strategy, followed by investments in enterprise data management and customer information. DSG argues that building clean, connected data is not separate from AI deployment but one of its essential building blocks.
From there, distributors should focus on delivering one measurable production use case before expanding into additional applications. According to DSG, successfully deploying a single production AI application is enough to move a distributor beyond approximately 63% of the industry into the Functional stage of AI maturity.
The July 14 webinar will introduce the Platinum, Gold and Silver honorees while recognizing the Bronze candidates and watch-list companies. DSG plans to expand the research with a Top 50 benchmark and accompanying white paper later this year. The submission deadline for the 2027 benchmark is March 31, 2027, allowing distributors to submit both public and confidential evidence documenting their AI deployments.
DSG said the benchmark is intended to become an annual measure of AI maturity across wholesale distribution, giving executives, investors, and technology providers a common framework for evaluating AI adoption based on verified deployment rather than marketing claims. As AI becomes more deeply embedded in distribution operations, the gap between leaders and followers is expected to become one of the industry’s defining competitive differentiators.
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