Every company is carrying hidden inefficiencies, they just need the right set of eyes to help surface them. In today’s business environment powered by emerging technology like agentic AI, organizations need more than a partner that can simply connect them to a recommended product or service. They need partners with deep industry knowledge that can help drive proven outcomes.
Enter the Managed Intelligence Provider (MIP) – different from a traditional MSP because of their ability to establish themselves as trusted strategists and prove their value by linking new AI and agentic offerings to tangible business outcomes for clients. AI adoption is happening fast (increasing from 78% of organizations adopting AI in 2024, to 88% in 2025). While most MSPs are still experimenting with AI, MIPs who lead with a discover-first strategy are seizing the first-mover advantage and claiming their stake in a $450b+ global market.
The good news: opportunity is still on the table. I’ve outlined below key best practices MSPs must focus on to prepare for their new roles as Managed Intelligence Providers – leading their clients in discovering new agentic AI opportunities, that can transform their business operations to align with the demands of the era of digital workforces.
Conduct an AI Readiness Assessment
MIPs must be prepared to advise customers on where AI can deliver the most value, and how to implement it efficiently – but most importantly, securely. This starts with guiding customers in conducting rigorous audits of data security, access and governance policies across the entire IT environment – to ensure that any AI agent or platform will only have access to necessary workplace data. This sets the critical security foundation needed to minimize the chance of data breach, and ensures that agents are always operating within their set guardrails.
Also Read: CIO Influence Interview with Gera Dorfman, Chief Product Officer at Orca
Develop and Hold a Business Vision Workshop & Develop Core Use Cases
MIPs play a central role in shepherding customers’ AI deployments from brainstorming to full-scale execution, as well as mapping out assessment and impact for these technologies. In conjunction with AI readiness and security planning, MIPs should also hold dedicated workshops designed to advise customers on how to: map workflows to identify repetitive or error-prone tasks, surface pain points through interviews with key stakeholders, quantify impact through measurements like cost savings or customer satisfaction, align business opportunities with proven agent capabilities, and show proof-of-value quickly.
This process involves uncovering where AI will bring the most business value. Common examples of opportunities for measurable revenue growth or efficiency gains may include automation for customer lifecycle tracking, regulatory and compliance management, cybersecurity monitoring, and workflow agents. MIPs should guide customers in clearly defining the best use cases for AI across the organization and to what teams it will bring the most ROI, rather than wide-scale deployments on day one. Also providing expert advice for avoiding “analysis paralysis”, MIPs can help generate client confidence quickly by zeroing in on one or two high-confidence, high-return use cases.
Implement Change Management Leadership
AI deployment, on any scale, involves careful change management strategy to ensure that leadership and employees are prepared to use the technology safely and effectively. MIPs can play a key role in helping their clients navigate the gap between urgency and execution in their adoption of AI-powered tools. This entails uncovering how customers’ existing process gaps create opportunities for MIPs to create new revenue streams, providing high-demand benefits like staff training and development and workflow redesign consulting – ensuring maximized ROI from day one.
Align Ongoing Strategy with Continued Benchmarking
Beyond the initial discovery phase of AI planning, automated tools for developing benchmarking reports, competitive intelligence and performance dashboards are critical to help MIPs keep client transformation journeys aligned with evolving market expectations, and ensure that this advisory role can provide them with another layer of long-term, recurring revenue.
AI and agentic AI adoption is rapidly heating up across the enterprise, and consequently redefining how MSPs provide value to customers. The evolution to managed intelligence provider requires a strong foothold on the initial process of helping organizations uncover hidden inefficiencies and discovering where AI can provide real ROI (beyond just vanity deployments and launches). By keeping the above initiatives in mind, MIPs can successfully transform customers’ business operations with security, compliance and cost-efficiency at the forefront.
Catch more CIO Insights: Best Practices for Implementing AI for Cybersecurity
[To share your insights with us, please write to psen@itechseries.com ]
