AI-first MSPs will take customers from traditional rivals, channel leaders warn
From managed intelligence to new AI-native market entrants, executives and partners at Pax8 Beyond EMEA share channel evolution predictions with CRN
What will the channel look like in three years?
Pax8’s Beyond EMEA event in Copenhagen focused on the future.
Agentic AI dominated conversations, and the shift for MSPs, or the era of the Managed Intelligence Provider (MIP), is here.
The MIP is an evolved type of IT partner that moves beyond reactive infrastructure support to deploy, integrate and govern agentic AI systems for end-users.
Scott Chasin, CEO of Pax8 discussed this new era, “We think that there is a new industry that's forming, and we call it managed intelligence.
“It represents an opportunity in terms of small businesses becoming agentically wired.
“We believe that the usefulness in the agentic context is an opportunity for service providers to create a business model around managing intelligence inside of a small business, and that's really represented by I would say two real needs that are becoming very apparent.
“One is that supply is going to be highly diverse.
“Then in addition to that, you have management complexity, the need for agents and bots to be governed, to be secure, to be resilient, that's another management opportunity.”
This opportunity and the future of the industry was the dominant conversation at the event. CRN was in attendance at the conference and spoke to partners and Pax8 executives to discuss their predictions for the channel market for the next three years.
While views differed on exactly what the channel will look like in three years, conversations throughout the event centred on three recurring themes; MSPs becoming more strategic AI advisers, growing pressure on partners to develop AI expertise and the prospect of AI-native competitors entering the market.
Scott Chasin, CEO, Pax8
In the years to come, competition will become fierce within the industry, as the race to become knowledgeable and actionable in agentic is on.
“There are about 440 million small businesses on the planet, and there are maybe a qualified 100,000 managed service providers.
“Every business is going to have to compete in the era of agentic AI.
“But there's a structural supply gap, and what that means for a service provider that's thinking about AI is that the demand is coming, and perhaps we're sitting at the edge of maybe the largest era of value creation that we've ever seen, because that demand needs to be answered and fulfilled.
“Managed intelligence is a race, and the race is on.
“Your customers need this [AI], they’re going to be asking for it, and you need to be ready to be able to deliver it.”
Rob Rae, CVP of partner experience, Pax8
The role of the MSP will shift, and will become proactive as more partners mature their AI strategies.
“I think it's the conversation around AI is probably the biggest challenge right now.
“MSPs need to get in front of every single one of their end users to be able to talk about AI, and they're not.
“Mostly because a lot of them are still customer zero themselves, they're still trying to figure it out on their own.
“[In the future] the relationship the MSP has with the organisations that they support is way more comprehensive from a strategic perspective.
“The MSP should be in the strategic conversations, the planning conversations, the direction that the customer needs or wants to head in, the MSP is being proactive in finding opportunities for how this technology can work with these end users, can help them with their businesses, give them something they're not even thinking about.
“I think it's all going to be, and should be, relatively easy to customise based not only on particular verticals, but it could be customised specifically to particular companies and even particular individuals within those companies.”
Kevin O’Loughlin, CEO, Nostra
As consolidation in the industry is rife and rates of AI adoption and knowledge are uneven, an opportunity will present itself for a new crop of AI-native MSPs.
O’Loughlin, CEO of Irish MSP, Nostra, shared his take.
“I think there’s going to be enormous change in MSPs.
“MSPs that don't adopt AI are going to lose their clients to MSPs that do adopt AI.
“I think what's going to happen is you're going to see a transition, and you'll end up with, in my view, a lot of new entrants in the market.
“I think the space now is ripe for new AI-first MSPs to come in, and one of the things that we want to make sure is that we're ready to deal with that.
“When we started, we took customers off the big MSPs 20 years ago when cloud came in and they didn't understand what we were doing and they didn't understand the logic of it.
“I've seen some new MSPs start in the last year and they've gone AI first and you know, and what they've done is really cool.
“I think I think we're going to see a lot more of that.”
Dan Sharp, MD, Advania SMB
While excitement is palpable throughout the industry for the future, there is still an unsureness due to the pace of innovation and how fast technology is moving.
Sharp, MD of Advania SMB, an MSP serving small businesses, shared his opinion.
“I think the difficulty at the moment is you don't know where things are going to be in three years' time.
“I think that that to me is the hardest bit because the pace of change is so fast.
“I go back to Scott's presentation in Berlin [two years ago], coming away, going, ‘That's all complete nonsense. What is he talking about?’
“But it turned out to be real and it happened.
“So in three years' time, I don't know what it's going to look like, and that's part of the exciting thing of our industry, but also a bit of a challenge.”
While opinions differed on how quickly transformation will happen, partners and executives agreed on one point: AI is set to redefine the role of the MSP.
For those able to build expertise in governance, deployment and management of AI agents, the next few years could present one of the largest growth opportunities the channel has seen since the shift to cloud computing.
Further in-depth interviews with leaders at Pax8 Beyond EMEA 2026 are still to come, stay updated by subscribing to CRN UK.