As the duties and expectations of scholarly publishers keep expanding at an unprecedented rate, emerging technologies present vital opportunities for smaller publishers to do more with less. The challenge for smaller publishers trying to level up in response to industry changes — from new metadata standards to expanding research integrity checks — is finding software and service solutions tailored to publishing programs with limited bandwidth and budgetary resources. How can vendors best support their unique needs? During this panel-style session, smaller publishers and vendors will come together to discuss how each party is thinking about critical publishing issues and how they can most effectively work together, with a focus on: - Peer review and publishing workflow optimization - Metadata management and interoperability - Research integrity in the age of AI