The Channel's Search for AI Monetization
How to make money from AI? That's what many panels and conversations at MSP Summit this week have revolved around.
MSP SUMMIT — If there were any doubters in the audience, a leading IT executive from Walmart reassured attendees during a detailed presentation of AI implementation, that “If you wonder whether AI is hype or real, AI is very real.” If anyone was fatigued after a long two days of intense training and presentations, they got a caffeine jolt from Doug Gray of Walmart.
Here at the MSP Summit in Atlanta, several hundred managed service providers and vendors came together in search of answers to the most pressing questions of the day surrounding how to monetize AI. Channel partners who have been around a while have been through all this before. A technology gets hyped, vendors tout their innovations, investors pour money into companies, customers express interest and confusion, and then channel partners must piece together working solutions. Only this time, things are different in the channel because of the channel’s maturity, the reliance customers have on partners and the fact that the channel is better financed than it was five or 10 years ago.
The backdrop of the event was breaking news from OpenAI that the number of active users of ChatGPT had doubled to 200 million since November, along with a bombshell from Intel and AWS that they would collaborate on new AI processors. It set the stage for an exciting few days of questions from partners on how to incorporate AI into their practices so they can generate revenue. We all know the well-worn cliché of the past few months when it comes to AI. There is a lot of talk but little money. After hearing the presentations by leading security companies, MSP 501 organizations and other tech providers, AI is moving the needle on revenue and profitability.
Attendees this week were encouraged to invest their time and energy in building AI skills and adding vendor partners who have AI solutions. Here are some highlights:
Exclusive Canalys research delivered by leading analysts Jay McBain and Robin Ody showed data that quantified the enormous business opportunity around AI that could be in the trillions of dollars. They also showed how the MSP channel is starting to move more upstream into selling services to the enterprise for a variety of reasons, but mostly because providers of managed services are seen as the most knowledgeable business technology leaders in the industry. Arby’s slog may be “we have the meats," but the channel’s slogan should be, “we have the answers.”
Lenovo, which is investing heavily in the MSP channel, held a closed-door session to help educate partners on how to tap into the AI opportunity. Some individuals who attended the event said partners discussed customer confusion around Microsoft Copilot and Open AI’s ChatGPT, and many other basic principles of using AI. MSPs' customers are using generative AI in a variety of ways and in some cases exposing company information or falling out of compliance. Many providers are talking about monetizing AI, but here was Lenovo, traditionally viewed as a hardware provider, taking the lead in training partners.
Some early, guiding voices of how channel partners can advance their AI practices are emerging, and they did so here at the MSP Summit. New Charter Tech’s Chance Weaver, who oversees the company’s Microsoft practice, mapped out how partners should be building AI practices specifically around data governance, compliance and management. Among other strong voices on AI monetization included Ron Lovern of Triton Networks and Len DiCostanzo, CEO of MSP Toolkit. New Charter’s CEO Peter Melby and executive chairman Mitch Morgan helped train partners on how to improve business models to free up more dollars to invest in AI services.
The CEOs of companies that truly focus on the MSP market spent time in the trenches at this event talking to partners about their challenges adopting and leveraging AI. Our CEO keynoters bolted from the stage to work the crowd to ask pertinent questions so, as company leaders, they can start forecasting AI-related sales and invest in channel partner programs to support MSPs.
The CEOs of NinjaOne, Sophos, Blackpoint and Kaseya engaged with partners onsite to understand how they are using AI to improve their business efficiency and explain how they are incorporating AI-based technology. It was refreshing to hear them not position their companies as AI companies vs. what happened during the cloud era, but as companies with a handle on the AI opportunity and how it is improving their software, operations or processes.
Perhaps the most sobering advice was delivered by Paul Epstein, former senior executive with the NFL and NBA, who told the audience given today’s business conditions they need to make decisions faster and presented a road map for how to be more decisive. Anyone sitting in the audience wondering if they should move forward, clearly got motivated to make a decision about their AI strategy, then move forward. Delaying such a decision is likely a formula for disaster.
Channel Futures TV talks with Paul Epstein ahead of his appearance at the MSP Summit.
As one customer said to the partners assembled, his organization deployed multiyear, multimillion-dollar AI projects. “I am living proof that investment is worth it,” he said.
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