How MSPs can use AI to work smarter without losing sleep over security
If you’re an MSP looking to improve operations without stretching your team thin, artificial intelligence may be your most practical ally. But it’s not all wins and time-saved tickets. AI also comes with risks that could hit your clients and your reputation hard if left unchecked.
Our webinar, CISO Fireside Chat: The Impact of AI on MSPs, doesn’t just spotlight the upside. It digs into the full picture — how AI is changing the MSP landscape, the challenges it’s introducing and what you can do to stay ahead without sacrificing security.
We’ve compiled insights from the session and added real-world takeaways you can start using immediately.
AI is already doing the heavy lifting for MSPs
According to the 2025 MSP Benchmark Survey Report, 30% of MSPs say AI helps eliminate tedious tasks, and 20% say it frees up time for strategic planning and growth.
Think about that. A third of your peers are already shaving hours off manual processes and putting that time back into billable work or high-value client conversations. In fact, one in five is using that extra bandwidth to focus on growing their business.
One of the biggest time drains for MSPs is chasing repetitive endpoint issues. These alerts pile up fast, clutter dashboards and eat into your techs’ days. This is where AI makes a real difference. Instead of letting your team spend hours each week manually troubleshooting these issues, AI-based automation can handle the first response — triaging alerts, running diagnostic check and auto remediating the issues in many cases.
Pro tip: Start small. Pick one repetitive task your team hates (like printers dropping off the network, stuck software updates or failed backups) and pilot an AI workflow to handle it. You don’t need a full-blown overhaul to start seeing wins.
AI helps you think smarter, too
AI isn’t just a time saver; it’s also a strategic advantage. By analyzing tickets, device behavior and endpoint health, AI tools can surface trends and root causes your team might miss.
In a recent webinar, Jay Cuthrell, NexusTek’s chief product officer, highlighted the remarkable performance of their AI-powered triage tool, achieving 95% accuracy compared to human performance while delivering results in 90% less time. For MSPs, where over 60% of executives oversee up to 1,000 endpoints and 32% of technicians juggle more than 750, this speed and precision significantly lightens workloads and accelerates response times.
However, Cuthrell stressed a key point: It’s still a triage tool. It gets you to the root faster, but the final call still needs a human in the loop.
Action step: Use AI-based reporting to review last quarter’s support data. Identify the top three recurring issues, then automate the first steps of troubleshooting.
But AI isn’t risk-free, especially for security
AI is a double-edged sword. It can boost security by monitoring anomalies and catching weird behavior before humans do. But it also creates new vulnerabilities. Attackers can exploit AI systems, mislead algorithms or use your own automation against you.
The survey further found that 16% of MSPs believe AI’s role in security is growing, but 19% still say it increases security risks. That’s down slightly from last year, but it’s a clear sign that MSPs are still wary and rightly so.
Real-world tip: If you’re automating user access or policy changes with AI, double-check that audit logs are enabled and alerts are going to the right people. Don’t let your AI run silently in the background.
Stay in control with the four pillars of AI TRiSM
AI can supercharge operations, but only when it’s reliable and trustworthy. During the webinar, our experts introduced Gartner’s AI TRiSM framework, a practical guide for businesses to harness AI responsibly. They outlined how to implement its four essential pillars in an MSP environment:
- Explainability and model monitoring: Understand how your AI makes decisions and stay alert to any performance drift.
- Model operations: Ensure models are regularly updated, tested and optimized for consistent performance.
- AI application security: Treat AI systems like critical assets — secure them, audit them and control access.
- Model privacy: Manage the data your AI accesses and how it’s used to protect sensitive information.
Action tip: Pick one AI tool you’re using. Can your team explain its behavior? Is it regularly maintained and secure? If not, the TRiSM pillars are a great place to start.
Practical ways to use AI without opening security holes
The experts in the webinar emphasized one point above all: you control the AI, not the other way around. Good AI implementation starts with structure.
Here are four things you can do right now:
- Use AI to triage, not make final calls: Let AI sort tickets, suggest resolutions or flag potential issues. But keep a human in the loop for execution, especially on high-stakes changes.
- Segment your automation: Don’t give your AI tool blanket access across all clients or systems. Treat it like a junior tech. Start with limited privileges and monitor behavior.
- Test before trust: Roll out AI features in a lab or on internal systems before using them with clients. It’s better to catch bugs in-house than in production.
- Train your team: AI won’t replace technicians, but it will reshape their roles. Make sure your staff knows how to use, supervise and secure the AI tools you deploy.
It’s not about choosing efficiency or security
AI can be your most efficient technician and your fastest analyst, but only if you train it, watch it and use it with intention. The CISO Fireside Chat is worth bookmarking. It’s not fearmongering and it’s not hype. It’s a grounded, real-world view of how AI is shaping our industry and what MSPs like you can do to make the most of it without putting your clients at risk.
Watch the full CISO Fireside Chat here
Let AI make your work smarter, not harder or scarier. You’ve got the tools. Now it’s about using them right.
