The Media Line: Israeli Breakthroughs Helping To Power Dell’s AI Revolution: Exclusive

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Exclusive: Israeli Breakthroughs Helping To Power Dell’s AI Revolution 

Dell’s CTO ambassador, Sascha Meier, tells TML: ‘All of our partners are aware of Israeli technology. It’s not a barrier.’  

By Maayan Hoffman/The Media Line 

If the technology works, few stop to ask where it comes from. 

That was the message from Dell Technologies’ Sascha Meier, a veteran of nearly 20 years with the company who now leads presale solutions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and serves as a chief technology officer ambassador. “We don’t get into politics – not in the Middle East, and not anywhere,” Meier, who visited Israel last week for the Dell Technologies Forum (DTF) in Tel Aviv, told The Media Line in an exclusive interview. “Dell plays everywhere and we sell everywhere. All of our partners are aware of Israeli technology. It’s not a barrier.” 

Dell has been operating in Israel since 1993 through its subsidiary, Dell Israel Ltd., which is home to one of the company’s most significant research and development hubs, focusing on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. Since 2011, Dell has also acquired multiple Israeli startups, further cementing its foothold in the country’s tech ecosystem. 

Meier explained that once Dell acquires a company, it becomes part of Dell—in other words, an American company—regardless of its origins. He said he has never seen pushback against these technologies. When Dell collaborates with certain partners to enhance specific outcomes, some companies or countries may hesitate to work with them, particularly in the Middle East. But, he added, “they will never even say it is the official or exact reason.” 

In his role, Meier oversees large-scale AI projects for global organizations, often relying on Israeli technologies he considers among the best in the world. He noted that demand for Israeli innovation sometimes comes directly from customers, and in many projects, Israeli startups have become indispensable. 

This year’s DTF Israel drew more than 1,000 participants, including customers and partners, to Expo Tel Aviv on Sept. 15. Meier headlined the main stage, where he spoke about AI, AI PCs, innovation, and Dell’s collaborations and future direction in these areas. 

He told The Media Line that enterprise companies, including Dell itself, are undergoing a major shift toward adopting AI. 

“We decided not only to innovate on behalf of our customers, but to look at ‘customer zero’—how we are applying AI by ourselves,” he said. 

In practice, that has meant exploring how AI can make day-to-day work more efficient and how to measure the return on investment. Meier said his team realized that around 40% of their workday was consumed by preparing proposals, searching for information, and creating presentations. Multiplied across tens of thousands of employees, the wasted time represented an enormous cost. 

“So we dug more into the details, and we figured out that we are searching for information,” Meier explained. “So we need a rack-based chatbot, which is sales edge chat, and then the second one we are now working on is to automate the creation of emails, presentations and proposals.” 

The results, he said, were measurable. 

“The time people were in front of customers increased from 20 to 27%,” he continued. “It still sounds low, but it’s a big percentage increase, and it is the first time in 40 years of Dell’s sales history that we were able to increase revenue by actually maintaining the cost of sales.” 

In the past, Dell would boost sales by hiring more staff. Thanks to AI optimization, the company has increased revenue while cutting costs by 4%. 

“That shows the potential of AI,” Meier said. 

Meier added that solution architects must understand customer needs and connect the right technologies to achieve results. He emphasized that, unlike traditional data center tasks, with AI workloads, architects must go “the extra mile” to master new ecosystems and adopt internal AI tools. 

“The most important part is that they get on the train and embrace this new way of working,” he warned, noting that those who don’t will fall behind in speed, agility and productivity. 

His department is expanding rapidly and is expected to surpass 450 people soon. Meier, who joined Dell through a university training program and rose through the ranks, said he values teams that strike a balance between experience and fresh perspectives. 

“I think the most successful teams are the diverse teams in terms of age,” he said. 

Meier also pointed to the rapid rise of AI-powered computers, which he said will soon transform the way companies operate. New PCs are being built with special chips called neural processing units, designed to run AI workloads far more efficiently than traditional processors. 

“Even a standard AI PC today can handle more than 10 teraflops of computing power, while Copilot+ PCs must reach over 40 teraflops,” he explained. “And our new desktop solutions, developed with Nvidia, are pushing into the thousands of teraflops—enough to run the largest language models directly from under your desk.” 

For Meier, this shift means that employees will increasingly manage not just tools, but also digital “agents” working alongside them. 

“Today I might use a Dell sales chatbot to pull information,” he said. “In the future, I’ll be able to upload a customer request and have a team of AI agents analyze it, identify needs, check references and even generate a proposal. My role will be to guide and interact with them, almost like managing a digital workforce.” 

Israeli technology is expected to play a central role in this revolution, Meier said. Dell’s PowerFlex software, for example, is built on technology developed by the Israeli company ScaleIO, founded by Boaz Palgi, Erez Webman and others to deliver high-performance, large-scale software-defined storage. ScaleIO was acquired by EMC in 2013; EMC was later acquired by Dell in 2016, and by 2018 the software was rebranded under the Dell name. 

At last week’s DTF, the company unveiled the latest upgrade: PowerFlex Ultra, which Meier described as offering “ultra scalability, performance and efficiency.” 

“We are a committed technology partner here in Israel,” Meier said, noting that Dell also works with the Israeli government and military. 

“When people reach out to us, they are interested in achieving an outcome, and obviously for us, it’s our mission to fulfill that in the best and most effective way,” he added. “This often includes technology with its roots, or even companies, from Israel.” 

Still, Meier cautioned CEOs to carefully choose which AI projects to pursue, ensuring they align with a company’s core priorities and can deliver measurable results. 

“You have to identify the process that will move the needle,” he said. “It’s really about your business strategy—your digital business strategy—where you want to improve, to excel, and then what exact process we will apply AI against because AI is applied against the process. When you just take a license and have a nice way to ask questions, that’s great, but what is the impact for the company?” 

 PHOTO- Sascha Meier, Dell’s CTO ambassador and head of EMEA presales solutions architects (Maayan Hoffman / The Media Line)