Inside Pax8’s AI Agent Store And The Shift To Managed Intelligence

The AI Agent Store marks a major milestone for Pax8 and for MSPs looking to tap into the power of AI in a practical way. It opens the door to new services, new revenue streams and a new way to support customers. In this CRNtv interview, Chance Weaver, vice president of AI adoption for the Americas at Pax8, shares what partners can expect and how this shift positions MSPs for the future.

Sydney: The AI Agent Store created a lot of excitement when it was announced at your Beyond EMEA event. Can you tell us more about what partners can expect from it moving forward?

Chance: We’re excited about getting it out into the market. The idea is the ability to easily search agents that are both from vendors and from other partners. We want to get to the point where everybody can be a buyer or a seller of agents in the marketplace and be able to deploy those into customer environments.

Sydney: As we look at the bigger picture, the Agent Store is just one part of the story. What else makes Pax8 uniquely qualified to guide this shift from being an MSP to becoming a Managed Intelligence Provider?

Chance: I think Pax8 is doing it the right way. I’m from a former MSP. I built an MSP, and I’ve lived the entire MSP journey. I think the fact that Pax8 is bringing people like me into the fold to work with MSPs on that journey to becoming managed intelligence providers speaks a lot to their thought process and how they’re trying to help MSPs.

Sydney: And speaking of that shift, I’d love to get a sense of what you’re seeing on the ground. How are Pax8 partners currently adopting AI, and how are they responding to the move from selling licenses to monetizing AI outcomes?

Chance: It’s really exciting. There are a lot of partners that don’t know where to start. They have no idea. Pax8 is providing a framework to do that with our MIP playbook. But there are partners that are further ahead of the game that are actually selling agents to customers today, and it’s exciting to see how they’re doing that. Some of them are vertically specific agents where they can create it and then deploy it across their customer base. There are different methodologies they’re using to monetize it. One of them is from an outcome perspective. If you’re saving the customer a ton of money by deploying this agent, then you should be getting a piece of that pie a little bit. There’s a whole thought process around how you bundle that into a recurring service.

Sydney: For MSPs who may still feel unsure about diving into AI, what’s the one piece of advice you would give them as they get started?

Chance: I think it’s absolutely critical to start speaking to your customers now. Make sure you become the thought leader in the space and that you understand that you’re available to them to make these decisions as they’re going through AI. The danger is everyone has that feeling like, “Oh, we’re going to miss it. We have to jump on this bandwagon right now.” Well, get in front of it. Make sure that you know what they’re thinking, what processes they’re trying to fix, what solutions they’re trying to bring into the fold so you can make sure that it’s done securely and that you’re involved in the process and in the decision. MSPs need to speak to their customers right away about it.

To learn how Pax8 is helping partners step confidently into this next chapter of AI and intelligence-driven services, visit Pax8.com/en-us/marketplace/.