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MSPs must get customers ready for AI
There is a real appetite for artificial intelligence, but many businesses don’t know where to start with it, which is where the channel comes in
Managed service providers (MSPs) are increasingly engaging with customers to discuss artificial intelligence (AI), but they still need to guide users through the necessary steps to prepare for and successfully adopt the technology.
AvePoint’s Road to AI readiness: Unlocking the MSP AI opportunity through governance report underlines the need for partners to educate customers around AI, risk and compliance.
The firm worked with Omdia on the report, and is encouraging its channel base to take the snapshot of the market on board and then take steps to ensure they can prepare customers for an AI deployment (see box).
Chris Shaw, channel director, elements, UK & SA region at AvePoint, said customers were keen to adopt AI, but MSPs had to be aware that many users were unclear in their objectives and unsure about demonstrating return on investment.
“We’re still very much at the beginning of everyone’s journey, and I think the POCs [proof of concepts] are still struggling to get through to conclusion,” he said.
“People love the idea of it, and you’re still seeing a lot of end user organisations going, ‘I need an AI strategy’. Then we, as vendors and partners and MSPs and resellers, turn around and go, ‘Okay, great. What are you going to use it for? What do you need it for? What’s your core use case?’ Probably around half the time, they’re not quite sure,” Shaw added.
He said MSPs were already able to lean on a number of proven use cases and had the ability to support those with awareness of governance and risk requirements.
“For me, that’s probably the overriding message,” Shaw added. “That’s what I take out. Where do we start, meaningfully start, not just using it ... how do I make it justifiable, repeatable, scalable, secure?”
In the rush to roll out agents and embrace AI, customers risk generating more problems, increasing the risk surface and sharing sensitive information with the wider world.
“The message from this research is clear: one of the bottlenecks for end customer AI adoption today is the operational burden of data governance and compliance, which has become more complex and essential as AI continues to spread,” said Robin Ody, practice leader, MSP analysis, at Omdia.
“With the global managed security services market projected to reach $106bn this year, MSPs are increasingly involved in breaking these bottlenecks. This report shows there is still a lot of untapped opportunity in this section of the market. MSPs that adopt business solution and vertical-specific approaches to governance and compliance are going to excel at capturing this demand,” he added.
Shaw said it was taking the research out to partners and encouraging them to act on its findings and increase the business they are generating around AI.
“The value of the channel in the community is we’ll take this information and build a sales play, whether that’s us as a vendor or the partners that ... want to deliver outcomes with us,” he said.
Getting customers ready for AI
The AvePoint report offered some steps MSPs could take to get users in a better position around AI readiness:
- Standardisation: Develop repeatable governance frameworks and shared policy baselines to make life easier.
- Multi-tenant visibility: Centralised oversight allows MSPs to keep a close eye on what’s going on and enforce policy.
- Unified data protection controls: There is a real danger that users will leak data via shadow IT, so MSPs need to provide a wide range of coverage to generate a complete picture.
