IT STRATEGY
If you use a Managed Service Provider, you should be asking them some uncomfortable questions about AI. Most of them are hoping you won’t.
The MSP model was built on a simple value proposition: you don’t want to employ the IT expertise in-house, so you pay us a monthly retainer and we manage it for you. For a long time, that was a straightforward arrangement that worked well for both sides.
AI is disrupting that model in ways that haven’t fully played out yet, but are becoming impossible to ignore.
What AI Is Doing to MSP Labour Costs
A significant proportion of what MSPs bill for is repetitive, structured work: monitoring alerts, responding to tickets, applying patches, running backups, resetting passwords. AI tools — from autonomous SOC platforms to AI-assisted help desks — are dramatically reducing the human time required to do these things.
That’s good for MSP margins. The question is whether any of that efficiency gain flows back to clients, or whether it simply increases profitability while the headline price stays the same.
“Ask your MSP directly: which parts of my contract are now being handled by AI tools, and how is that reflected in my pricing?”
The Questions Worth Asking
Which parts of my service are now being handled by AI or automation, and which are still human? How are AI tools being governed and audited within my managed environment? What happens when an AI tool makes an error — who is accountable? Has my pricing been reviewed in the context of the efficiency gains AI has delivered?
A good MSP will welcome these questions. They signal a sophisticated client and an opportunity for an honest conversation. An MSP that gets defensive probably has something to be defensive about.
Tags: Artificial Intelligence • Opinion • Technology & Society • 192.168.1.22/