Time for a Friday Big idea.
The AI Journal has a piece on how Managed service providers are at a critical juncture as artificial intelligence transitions from a luxury to a necessity. A recent IT Trends Report reveals that 34% of organizations lack policies to manage AI adoption effectively, creating both risks and opportunities for service providers. As clients experiment with AI tools, often without oversight, managed service providers must take proactive steps to establish governance and ensure that AI delivers measurable value. The pressure is mounting on these providers to modernize their services; clients now demand faster resolutions and strategic insights, making AI a foundational element in service delivery. A survey indicated that 60% of IT professionals reported experiencing moderate to high levels of burnout, highlighting the need for automation in repetitive tasks to alleviate workloads. Furthermore, while AI can streamline operations, experts warn against relying on it for complex decision-making, emphasizing the necessity of human oversight to mitigate risks associated with AI technologies.
Why do we care?
MSPs are at a critical juncture with AI. A third of organizations don’t have any policies to manage AI use. Employees are experimenting without oversight, burnout is high, and customers want faster insights, not just faster tickets. That creates both risk and opportunity for providers.
Here’s the bigger picture: I think AI models are about to become the airline business.
Airlines transformed the world, but running one is a terrible business — massive capital costs, razor-thin margins, and total commoditization. Shipping containers did the same. Standardize the box, margins collapse, but global trade explodes.
LLMs are heading down the same road. Models are converging, open source is catching up, and the capital requirements are staggering. It feels like dot-com all over again. When the bubble deflates, many AI companies will discover they’ve built a commodity business with airline economics.
But here’s the good news: just like the internet after the crash, the infrastructure will remain. AI will become boring, cheap, invisible — and massively enabling.
For MSPs, that means three things. First, expect turbulence when valuations crack. Second, stop thinking about selling AI as a product — think of it as capability you embed into every service. And third, move up the value chain now. The help desk is already on borrowed time.
The lesson from airlines? The value isn’t in running the planes — it’s in what flight enables. AI is the same. Use it to deliver outcomes your clients can’t get anywhere else.