The Dawn of the ‘Managed Intelligence Provider’: Helping Your Clients Manage Transformation in the Digital Workplace

AI is rapidly reshaping how businesses operate—from internal workflows to customer-facing experiences. For small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), this transformation brings both opportunity and uncertainty. They’re looking to their MSPs not just for technical support, but for strategic guidance on how to navigate this shift. That’s where a new model is emerging - one that reframes what it means to deliver value in the age of intelligent automation.

Channel Leader Pax8's Vision for Agentic AI and MSP Transformation

At the recent 2025 Pax8 Beyond conference, CEO Scott Chasin emphasized the rapid evolution of AI, noting that "AI capabilities are doubling every four to six months." He highlighted the transformative potential of AI, stating, "We’re on the cusp of AI reaching human-level intelligence and beyond." This acceleration is not just about technological advancement but also about redefining the role of MSPs in the AI era.

Pax8's research report, The Agentic Inflection Point, introduces the concept of the Managed Intelligence Provider (MIP), positioning MSPs as strategic partners who curate, orchestrate, and govern intelligent agents to drive business outcomes for SMBs. This shift underscores the need for MSPs to evolve from traditional service providers to proactive enablers of AI-driven transformation.

What’s an ‘MIP’ in Practice?

The hypothetical ‘Managed Intelligence Provider’ is about more than just managing tools—it’s about providing visibility, strategy, and structure as AI becomes embedded in daily work. According to Pax8, MIPs will:

• Help clients orchestrate AI solutions across workflows
• Monitor and optimize AI usage and adoption
• Deliver business results, not just uptime or ticket resolution

Their upcoming Managed Intelligence Toolkit will support this shift, offering a framework for managing AI at scale across SMB clients.

How MSPs Can Start the Shift to Intelligence Providers

You don’t need to wait for new tools to start becoming more strategic. Here are four ways to help clients adopt and manage AI—right now.

1. Measure Adoption of GenAI Tools using Work Analytics from Produce8

Whether it’s ChatGPT, Jasper, or other emerging tools, most organizations are experimenting with GenAI. But without visibility, it’s hard to know what’s sticking.

Use analytics tools to track:

• Frequency of use across departments
• Drop-offs or signs of abandonment
• Team-level engagement patterns

A dataset that illuminates the adoption curve of new tech that helps companies support (without stamping out) employee innovation efforts.

This helps shift the conversation from anecdotal to structured and measurable insights.

2. Measure the Impact of Embedded AI on People

Tools like Microsoft Copilot or embedded AI features in apps are harder to track. But their impact shows up in employee work patterns:

• Are focus hours increasing?
• Is the related app’s (i.e. Microsoft Word) usage changing?
• Are employees spending more time in different applications indicating that time has freed up?
• Is the digital workday becoming more efficient?

Pre- and post-rollout comparisons with Digital Work Analytics can reveal whether embedded AI is helping or just adding more tools and inefficiencies in the way work gets completed.

3. Guide AI Policy Creation

Many clients lack AI policies altogether. MSPs can support policy efforts by:

• Identifying which AI tools are in use (even unapproved ones)
• Helping draft clear guidelines for usage and access
• Flagging Shadow AI that could pose a risk

This Writer.com article offers a great starting point.

4. Use Work Analytics to Demonstrate ROI

Tools like Produce8 help MSPs give clients measurable, privacy-respecting insights into digital work patterns:

• Understand usage of collaboration and productivity tools
• Detect inefficiencies like meeting or messaging overload
• Measure whether AI is improving productivity or creating distractions

These insights can kickstart better QBRs, spark license audits, and help teams improve how they work.

Why This Matters

Clients aren’t just asking “What AI tools should we try?” They’re asking:

• Are we wasting money on apps?
• Are we using AI safely?
• Is it helping us get more done?
• What should we stop or start doing?

These are questions the proposed MIP concept could answer with data, structure, and strategy. This isn’t about reinventing your business. It’s about extending your current value into a new era of work.

At Produce8, we are here to help MSPs lead these conversations. For some concrete examples of our tools at work on AI-related use cases, check out our recent partner webinar or reach out for a demo or info on our MSP (or maybe I should say ‘MIP’ :P) partner program.