MSP Evolution Summit: AI is here to stay

Managed service providers (MSPs) that have got to grips with artificial intelligence (AI) and can demonstrate a willingness to let the technology affect their own businesses are best placed to work with customers around the technology, according to a panel debate aired as part of the Informa TechTarget MSP Evolution Summit.

AI has dominated conversations across the channel all year, with an increasing number of partners and customers adopting tools that are designed to increase automation, efficiency and improve productivity.

A couple of those operating in the market were asked about their approach to the market and the need to have an AI story to share with the market.

Chris O’Brien, products and services director at Advania, said that it was difficult to have credibility with customers if you had not embraced AI internally: “Organisations are turning to their MSP to look for guidance and advice, whether that’s at the strategic advisory level, or thinking about where the value is and forming business cases, analysing individual use cases and opportunities for AI. [It could include] asking for guidance on how feasible a certain opportunity would be or what the considerations around data security AI capabilities might be, along with looking for help on the AI transformation journey.

“We’re being asked questions all the time about how we’re using AI internally. I think you don’t have much credibility if you’re giving guidance and ideas, but then you don’t have a story yourself.”

He was keen to stress the need to have a position on AI and to be able to talk to customers about plans to embrace it as a channel partner. “This a journey that every MSP needs to be on – if not, you will be disrupted. If you don’t have a story, if you can’t evidence some of this, or at least have a roadmap for how you’re going to get there and ideas about what you’re going to change, it is a bit difficult to have credibility in the market.”

Stewart Parkin, global CTO at Assured Data Protection, said that understanding AI was useful for filling customers with confidence about the technology: “If you look at the marketplace from a vendor perspective, if you don’t have the word AI in your in your company vision or strapline, you feel like you’ve been left behind.

“The reality is a lot of organisations and end users are looking to MSPs to guide them through that. They say, ‘Okay, we’ve done a proof of concept, but we don’t know how to deliver this securely. We’re nervous about data leakage. We’re nervous about giving sensitive information to the wrong people.’ The next phase of this evolution, people are certainly looking at MSPs to deliver [and help them establish] how to use [AI] in a safe, secure, appropriate manner.

“You can’t sell to our customers on the basis of, ‘We are going to tell you how great AI is and how much you should be doing it, but we’ve got 2,000 people smashing keyboards to back it all up’, that doesn’t quite work,” he added.

Both agreed that AI is an area where the channel had to get involved if they wanted to secure their futures, with O’Brien stating: “It’s going to be a big sorting hat of the more innovative MSPs compared with the ones that are laggards. We see it as a huge positive.

“It gives us new challenges to address new ways of solving problems. That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it? You don’t wake up in the morning thrilled to be doing the same thing for 20 years, so I think this is the most fascinating thing that’s happened in my career that I remember. It’s a big boost and having so much energy around it, and so many people talking either inside your organisation or across the industry, is fantastic,” he added.

Parkin agreed that although there might be a readjustment in some of the hype around AI, the technology is here to stay and the channel needs to embrace it.

“AI is here to stay, just like the cloud is here to stay, just like hyper converged infrastructure is here to stay. All of these things went through [hype cycles] and they popped. Look back to the early 2000s with the dot.com bubble. The internet’s still here. It just doesn’t quite look like it looked in the 2000s. We will go through that evolution, but AI is here to stay.”

To see the recording of the full panel session click here or to enjoy some of the other sessions in the MSP Summit event.