Microsoft Partners are under pressure to turn AI into useful business applications. Resco CEO Ivan Stano says frontline AI needs a clear job before companies can justify deploying it at scale.
Resco develops offline-first mobile technology for field service, sales and inspection scenarios. Its platform integrates with Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Dataverse. Stano, who became CEO in August 2025, has spent nearly 18 years with the Slovakia-based company. Resco’s synchronization engine keeps mobile data aligned with back-end systems while field teams continue working without connectivity.
The mobile workloads can be substantial. Stano said Resco customer applications download about 14 billion records each week through roughly 1 million synchronizations. They also download more than 12 million attachments weekly. In one case, Resco brought almost two gigabytes of record data offline on a mobile device.
In an interview with PartnerTalks host Rick McCutcheon, Stano said customers frequently ask Resco to bring AI to field workers.
“We want AI, we want AI, we want our people in the field to use AI,” Stano said, describing a common request. When Resco asks what those customers want AI to do, he said the response is often: “You tell us what we should use, right?”
Frontline AI starts with a defined job
Stano said Resco has seen the risks of building technology before customer demand is clear.
When Google Glass emerged, Resco developed a Mobile CRM implementation for the device. Stano recalled promoting it to Gartner analysts, only to hear that customers were not asking for Google Glass.
The experience now influences Resco’s approach to frontline AI. Stano said Resco asks whether field staff will appreciate and use a feature, or whether it will become another hurdle in their workflow.
For example, Resco’s Winter 2026 release includes AI-powered, voice-activated form filling. Technicians can work through questionnaires conversationally while the system follows existing form logic.
Stano described a broader AI audio-assistant scenario in which a field worker can speak rather than navigate screens or enter information manually. The application captures the interaction and creates records behind the scenes.
However, economics remain an obstacle. Stano said Resco testing found that intensive daily use could consume $40 to $50 in token costs for a single user. A deployment covering 100 field workers could therefore become difficult to justify.
Cost could separate pilots from deployments
Resco is also exploring pre-visit and post-visit briefings. Those experiences can combine CRM history with external information to help employees prepare for meetings and reduce follow-up work.
For Microsoft Partners, Microsoft continues to push Partners toward AI-first delivery, while customers still need use cases with measurable returns. PartnerTalks has previously examined that pressure through Microsoft’s push for Frontier Partners.
Resco can build AI features for mobile workers today. But will customers use them often enough and save enough time to justify the cost?
For Partners designing frontline AI solutions, that test could determine which pilots become production deployments.
