FDEs help vendors maximize the product’s value within enterprises that don’t always have the skills readily available to scale AI, he added. Palantir is credited with originating the forward deployed engineering model, but other tech providers quickly followed suit. “Why it became a fact in enterprises today is because many organizations, especially enterprises, realize AI is not just one more technology,” he said. Before pursuing vendor FDEs, Coqueiro issued a word of caution, noting that CIOs will need to be strategic about bringing them into an organization. The FDE model is here to stay as AI evolves and continues to get more complex for enterprises to deploy, Coqueiro said.