Amid conversations, keynotes, and breakout sessions, AI was, unsurprisingly, a dominant theme at this year’s NerdioCon. But even as AI continues to be the buzzy, trendy tech topic, many leaders remain focused on ensuring customers adopt AI solutions efficiently and securely.
Channel Insider spoke with multiple executives to gain insights into AI adoption within the channel market.
Partners see demand and lingering hesitation from customers across industries
By now, most solutions providers are hard-pressed to name at least half of their customers who want, and might have already adopted, AI tooling in their workflows. Similarly, many are finding success with internal operations as well.
“It’s an exciting time to me, because there’s huge opportunity, and also huge risk, but more opportunity for building competitive advantage and lowering costs in our customer base and just generally in the iindustry,” said CTO Will Fulmer of Helient Technologies, LLC.
Fulmer says he and his team have implemented tooling like Copilot across the business to automate repetitive tasks and more efficiently handle the work he refers to as “groundhog’s day,” in which the same simple functions previously needed to be performed by a human and have now been, in some cases, taken over by an AI-enabled process.
Still, though, Fulmer knows there are lingering questions about AI security risks and concerns about what exactly the technology can (and can’t) accomplish. For his law firm clients, any new technology is a slow adoption curve, and AI has been no different.
And, as Pax8’s VP of Channel and Community Engagement Eric Torres says, not all MSPs are quick to jump into new technology, either.
“For the entire MSP community, it can take a little while for the whole community to adopt something new overall,” Torres said. “There’s those that jump into it right away, with anything new, as we saw with cloud and other new technologies. Others, though, they’re a little hesitant, and it takes a nudge to get them comfortable.”
Microsoft continues to push Copilot into market through channel
One of the world’s largest tech giants, Microsoft, is no stranger to watching adoption cycles unfold. With AI, though, the rapid pace of innovation and change has left some partners and customers unsure of where to even begin.
“We’re in the middle of maybe the beginning, or the third inning, of AI, and we have some people who have absolutely embraced it and we have others who still have a lot of trepidation,” Microsoft CVP for Americas Global Partner Solutions Nina Harding told Channel Insider. “There isn’t a person on the globe who isn’t going through a transformation right now as we all try understand this.”
Harding says Microsoft itself is on the AI discovery journey like everyone else, with internal teams deploying Copilot on various use cases. She sees an opportunity not only to sell the technology but influence the results partners and their customers see in tangible outcomes.
“I always tell our partners to play with it and have fun with it, and then go into some trainings around using it,” Harding said. “For our partners, there’s never going to be an opportunity to really land it with customers until they have embraced it themselves.”
“The world of AI right now is a world of possibilities, and that’s exciting, but the reality is you have to turn it into something that has really impact and outcomes for folks.”
Why security and data governance are the unifying themes for all stakeholders
Every MSP owner, leader, and vendor executive we spoke with emphasized the importance of centering security and readiness objectives in every AI roadmap. Rushing to adopt various tools without strict identity and access controls, plus the data governance work in classifying, cleaning, and storing the information fueling AI technologies, has left some customers at risk and many more not realizing the potential value in their investments.
To many of the leaders at NerdioCon, the conversation around data related to AI demand is an opportunity for partners to demonstrate value to clients.
“With the conversation around data, I think we all need to be honest and look around and say we could all do better,” Harding said. “It’s an opportunity for partners to say, hey, if you want to really reap the true benefits, let’s take a look at your data assets.”
“We see a lot of benefit in the Microsoft ecosystem because there is a data governance element that can handle everything,” Fulmer said. “Doing the basic security work to just keep the lights on is hard enough for our clients. We can step up to take those transformation tasks on and enable them to leverage this more.”
Marketplaces and distributors see the AI boom in their partner base, too
Sherweb’s Head of Sales for Microsoft and Security Michael Slater says the distributor has seen partners leverage conversations around AI to grow demand for security offerings within their client bases.
“What this does is it gives MSPs an opportunity to sell security and data protection services,” Slater said. “At the end of the day, I think it’s really the readiness for the AI that is the big opportunity right now. We’ve seen our partners tap into new revenue streams before the customer even has the AI tool itself.”
Pax8 is also betting big on AI both internally and externally, helping partners leverage the technology it believes is the future of the industry.
“Having someone like Scott Chasin as our CEO, who is such a technical mind and really serving as the captain of the ship, it makes it easier for us, because he’s all in on our AI features and what we’re adding. That, then, makes it more exciting for us to bring this all to partners,” Torres said.
NerdioCon also featured new announcements around the company’s MSP solutions. Catch up on the latest version of Nerdio Manager for MSPs.