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Pax8 heralds the year of the MIP
The arrival of agentic AI is changing the way the channel operates, and that shift has been identified by the marketplace specialist
Pax8 is closing out the year having widened its MSP base and seen its activity in the UK and EMEA increase significantly in 2025, after increasing its focus on managed intelligence providers (MIPs).
The cloud marketplace specialist started talking about MIPs earlier this year, referring to those managed service players using artificial intelligence (AI) and agents to provide increased insights to customers.
Nick Heddy, president and chief commerce officer at Pax8, said AI had levelled the playing field and enabled MSPs across the board to provide improved levels of service. “We have landed at the agentic inflection point, which we released in June, and it was a bold prediction; talking about it is necessary for a managed service provider, an MSP, to evolve themselves into this new agentic era, into a managed intelligence provider,” he said.
“Anytime you make a bold prediction like that and rename a category, you’re like, ‘Oh, what am I stepping into? I hope this goes well’, but the reaction from MSPs has been so overwhelmingly positive,” said Heddy. “It’s been really outstanding. We’re seeing lots of partners kind of divide into two camps and say [they] like what we’re doing. And then people will leave and start new companies and say, ‘I’m an MIP’. We’re seeing private equity get into it, and you hear probably about MSP roll ups; we’re seeing MIP roll ups that are happening already. It has been an amazing year from that standpoint.”
He said AI was having a significant impact on the channel and its customers, and that momentum around the MIP model would accelerate into next year.
“In SMB, it’s about getting more productivity out of the people,” said Heddy. “It’s about a multiplier effect. They don’t have an abundance of resources. They’re thinking about, ‘how can I compete with those who are bigger than me?’
“ I think that’s where AI and agents can really be that great equaliser, and it’s going to be adopted faster, because it’s easier to manage change for small business,” he said. “It feels like the first time that an enterprise-grade technology can be delivered to SMB [small and medium-sized business], and they can realise those gains and those benefits at a rate faster than an enterprise can. So, for me, it’s an exciting moment for small business.”
Signups and increased revenues
Pax8 provided an update on progress made in 2025, with EMEA its star region, generating more signups and increased revenues with partners.
The firm indicated it had signed significant numbers of partners across EMEA this year and delivered a three-year revenue growth of 239%. It also added more than 20 vendors to its marketplace, and cut the ribbon on offices in Dublin and Zurich as it continued to provide more local support.
“We’re celebrating five years next month in the UK; we had our first acquisition on 1 January 2021,” said Heddy. “We are really hitting our stride in EMEA. The growth there is pretty outstanding.
“We’re serving out globally, 47,000 partners, which is pretty incredible,” he said. “We’re establishing local presence in a lot of new markets across EMEA.”
Looking ahead, Heddy said the impact of agentic AI in the channel and its customers was still at an early stage and that there would be more developments there next year.
“The monetisation of it is in its infancy, and so yes, customers want outcomes, and I don’t think anybody has nailed that perfect rinse-and-repeat model, and I think that’s what’s going to happen in ’26,” he said.
Various approaches were emerging, charging per agent or on an outcome basis, but the channel had experience of those delivering offerings such as Office365 and Azure.
“Until this is completely figured out, the MSP channel needs to do what it always does, which is not the strongest, not the smartest, but those who adapt are the ones who survive,” said Heddy. “And our partners do a great job of leaning in, understanding the technology, consulting small businesses that perhaps don’t have internal IT, and helping them gain the competitive advantage of the great technology that is coming out right now.”
