As AI coding assistants race from novelty to default, application security teams are feeling the strain. StackHawk, a company positioning itself at the intersection of modern AppSec and AI-driven development, is responding with a decisive strategic shift: a full commitment to channel partners.
The company this week unveiled the StackHawk Alliances & Resellers Program (SHARP), marking a 100% channel-focused go-to-market model. Led by Jim Torson, Senior Director of Channel Sales, the program is designed to arm security-focused resellers with tooling, training, and economics tailored to an AppSec landscape that’s changing faster than most organizations can adapt.
It’s a notable move at a moment when AI-assisted development is no longer optional. According to a recent StackHawk survey, 87% of organizations are already using AI coding assistants such as GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or Claude Code—and keeping up with that velocity has emerged as the top AppSec challenge looking toward 2026.
AI Has Changed the AppSec Math
For years, AppSec struggled with a familiar problem: too many alerts, too little signal, and development teams that ship faster than security can keep up. AI coding assistants have amplified that tension.
When developers can generate production-ready code in seconds, traditional security approaches—manual reviews, static analysis with high false positives, or legacy DAST tools that run too late—start to look dangerously out of step. The attack surface grows, release cycles shrink, and the cost of missing real vulnerabilities climbs.
StackHawk’s core argument is that AppSec needs to be rebuilt for this reality, not bolted onto it. Rather than scanning abstract code patterns or flooding teams with theoretical risks, the platform focuses on runtime testing that surfaces exploitable vulnerabilities and business logic flaws—the issues attackers can actually abuse.
By pairing runtime testing with attack surface discovery from source code, StackHawk aims to answer three questions security leaders increasingly care about: what applications exist, what is exposed, and whether security controls are keeping pace with AI-accelerated development.
Why the Channel, and Why Now
StackHawk’s decision to go 100% channel-first is as much about trust as it is about scale. As organizations grapple with AI adoption, they’re relying more heavily on security partners to interpret risk, recommend architecture, and guide modernization.
“Channel partners are trusted advisors helping organizations make sense of a rapidly changing AppSec landscape,” said Jim Torson, Head of Partnerships at StackHawk. His framing reflects a broader industry shift: customers don’t want more tools—they want clarity.
By committing fully to alliances and resellers, StackHawk is signaling that it sees partners not as a secondary route to market, but as the primary interface between modern AppSec technology and enterprise reality.
This approach also aligns with how many security buying decisions are actually made. AppSec tools rarely live in isolation; they’re evaluated alongside cloud security, CI/CD tooling, and developer experience platforms. Partners already embedded in those ecosystems are better positioned to contextualize value than a standalone vendor pitch.
Inside the SHARP Program
The StackHawk Alliances & Resellers Program is built to attract partners who want to move beyond reselling licenses and into advisory and services-led engagements.
Program highlights include guaranteed margins of 30% or more, with transparent pricing designed to reduce friction in deal cycles. StackHawk is also offering non-for-resale licenses, hands-on training, and dedicated services opportunities—critical components for partners expected to guide customers through complex AppSec transformations.
The emphasis on enablement is deliberate. As AppSec becomes more intertwined with developer workflows, partners need more than surface-level product knowledge. They need to understand how tools fit into CI/CD pipelines, how findings translate into developer action, and how to measure success when release cycles are measured in hours, not quarters.
StackHawk says early engagement from security-focused partners has been strong, and customer traction through the channel is already influencing how the program is being shaped.
A Different Take on AppSec Signal vs. Noise
One of the most consistent criticisms of legacy AppSec tooling is alert fatigue. Static analysis tools often overwhelm teams with findings that may never be exploitable. Traditional DAST tools, meanwhile, tend to run late in the development lifecycle—when fixing issues is slow, expensive, and politically fraught.
StackHawk’s platform is designed to invert that model. By running in CI/CD pipelines and focusing on runtime behavior, it aims to deliver fewer findings—but ones that matter.
That distinction resonates with partners who see the same pain repeated across customers. David Nester, Senior Practice Director of Application and Cloud Security at Trace3, described a familiar cycle: shrinking release timelines paired with security teams drowning in low-value alerts.
“When release cycles shrink from months to hours, signal-to-noise ratio becomes everything,” Nester said. His endorsement underscores why StackHawk’s message is landing with the channel: speed without precision isn’t security, and precision without speed isn’t viable in the AI era.
Competitive Context: AppSec in an AI-First World
StackHawk isn’t alone in rethinking AppSec, but its channel-first stance sets it apart from many peers. Large platform vendors often rely on direct sales motions or bundle AppSec into broader developer toolchains. Startups, meanwhile, frequently chase developer adoption bottoms-up, leaving partners as an afterthought.
By contrast, StackHawk is betting that partners are the fastest path to relevance as AI reshapes how software is built. This is especially true for mid-market and enterprise organizations, where security decisions are rarely made by developers alone.
The focus on exploitable vulnerabilities and business logic flaws also positions StackHawk against a crowded field of static and hybrid tools that promise AI-powered insights but still struggle with real-world prioritization.
What This Signals for the Market
StackHawk’s move reflects a broader realization across security: AI is compressing timelines everywhere. Development, testing, deployment—and inevitably, exploitation—are all accelerating.
In that environment, AppSec can’t afford to be reactive or disconnected from how software is actually delivered. Vendors that align tightly with CI/CD pipelines, runtime behavior, and trusted partner ecosystems are better positioned to keep up.
For channel partners, SHARP offers a chance to anchor AI-era AppSec conversations around outcomes rather than alerts. For customers, it suggests a path toward security programs that move at the same speed as their developers—without sacrificing confidence.
Whether StackHawk’s all-in channel bet pays off at scale will depend on execution. But the logic is clear: in an AI-driven development world, AppSec isn’t just a product category anymore—it’s a shared responsibility. StackHawk is betting that partners are where that responsibility is best delivered.
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