MSPs Have Numerous Gateways Into AI Services With Clients: Expert

Whether it’s Microsoft Teams, data governance assessments or AI advisory boards, MSPs have a number of different ways to naturally get involved with helping clients to adopt AI, says ABM Technology Group’s Abby Hanson.

A migration to Microsoft Teams, for instance, can also serve as a gateway for a customer into AI given the array of AI-powered features now in the collaboration app, said Hanson (pictured), vice president of Microsoft Modern Work and AI at Fargo, N.D.-based solution provider ABM Technology Group.

“When you deploy Microsoft Teams and they’re starting to see the AI within there, everybody’s going to want it,” she said during a session Sunday at XChange August 2025, an event hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company being held this week in Denver. “It’s a great conversation starter.”

At the same time, it’s important for MSPs to recognize—and emphasize with customers—that there’s a series of steps that organizations should take before they’re ready for a wider deployment of AI, Hanson said.

The best strategy is to first start with establishing the necessary foundational intelligence through consulting work, such as through assessing whether the AI technology under consideration is aligned with current challenges and opportunities, she said.

Next in the preparatory work is to establish security intelligence through assessments, she said. That’s followed by establishing data intelligence through performing a comprehensive review of data sources, management, classification and control, according to Hanson.

“Once you complete this, then you're ready for AI,” she said.

Hanson’s insight is extremely valuable for the many MSPs that are looking to engage with AI but not always sure where to start, according to Tiphanie Wood, alliances and vendor manager at Houston-based MRE Consulting.

“For the MSP, she takes the fear out of AI,” Wood said. “All I could think of was, I can’t wait to bring back the pictures to my team to strategize and see how we can incorporate this information.”

The approach that Hanson shared around building foundational layers of intelligence before widely deploying AI is a wise strategy, according to Wood.

“This helps give some structure to those [layers] for your team and also your clients,” she said.

During the XChange session Sunday, Hanson said that the foundational work can lead to opportunities such as serving on AI advisory boards at client organizations.

“The top five opportunities I am working on right now I got because I went to the door and I asked them, ‘Do you have an AI advisory board internally to drive AI adoption?’” she said.

And once an MSP serves on an AI advisory board for a period to time and becomes the “knowledge base” for the client on AI, that will inevitably lead to more opportunities, Hanson said.

“They’re going to hire you to do the implementation, the services, the assessments, because they trust you,” she said.