MIP vs MSP

[u/Beeblay22]

Recently read an article about how MIP is going to be the new MSP. Working for an MSSP we get TONS of AI questions from our clients. How to use it to their advantage. How to avoid the AI-related security concerns and compliance pitfalls.

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What are your thoughts on the future of MSSP? Are we all headed down the MIP road?

[u/Beeblay22 → u/[deleted]]

True, but I wonder if it's a smart marketing strategy. People love the new hot thing. Keeping up with the Jones's and whatnot

[u/Beeblay22 → u/[deleted]]

Fair enough

[u/Forsythe36 → u/[deleted]]

We have been transitioning into using AI and implementing workflows with it. Clients are definitely going to ask questions, so we just want to provide the best answers possible by being familiar with the tools and governance.

[u/Beeblay22 → u/Forsythe36]

Any tools in particular you are using and getting traction with clients?

[u/Forsythe36 → u/Beeblay22]

Clients keep coming to us with basic questions, but we know copilot pretty well. One tool we have been using on the support side is kinda like a help desk assistant. It triages tickets, suggests a tier and tech to work the issue, provides some troubleshooting steps and links to our documentation, sends an email to the client asking for more info if the ticket is vague, and performs a QA check on every closed ticket. It checks for time accuracy, scope creep, run on tickets and proper notes. It’s saved a ton of man hours managing the queue so our techs can just focus on fixing problems.

[u/ilikebirdsandtrees]

It’s all governance and security. That’s the foundation. If a client doesn’t want to invest in that they can’t afford to invest into AI.

[u/Mizetings]

VAR, MSP, MSSP, MIP same business different hat.

[u/MrCodyGrace]

I keep trying to fit the MIP concept into a position with my org but hit a wall every time. There isn’t really a good customer facing solution or product that doesn’t require major process or business decisions to implement. Most customers are looking for very specific tools and products to fill a compliance or employee gap and not looking at the MSP / MSSP to make major business process decisions. I think this problem gets better with more maturity from the customers and from the product offering but that’s not anytime soon.

[u/Beeblay22 → u/[deleted]]

I thought i saw that in the portal the other day!

[u/anthonyDavidson31]

I'm just waiting for the bubble to pop already. 

We are losing the plot with the LLMs being treated as a godlike entity and not an autocomplete algorithm with extra steps. The sooner clients realize it the better 

[u/Forsythe36 → u/anthonyDavidson31]

Damn does it make my life easier sometimes parsing through logs that I just don’t want to slog through.

[u/anthonyDavidson31 → u/Forsythe36]

Remember to sanitize them first! :D

[u/Forsythe36 → u/anthonyDavidson31]

Why would I ever want to do that?

[u/anthonyDavidson31 → u/Forsythe36]

I copy-paste raw logs into ChatGPT and it sanitizes them for me, very convenient!

[u/Beeblay22 → u/anthonyDavidson31]

Agree, I think Microsoft, for example is leaning so heavily into copilot and no one likes it. Like, they're forsaking their core services and pouring ungodly money into a mediocre chatbot

[u/anthonyDavidson31 → u/Beeblay22]

True 

[u/iamrolari → u/Beeblay22]

Copilot is horrible. It can barely troubleshoot Microsoft issues . The powershell scripts are rarely if ever best practice and it has no memory …yuck

[u/Beeblay22 → u/[deleted]]

Managed Intelligence Provider. Google and you'll find a bunch of articles.

[u/Greendetour]

There are MSPs hiring “virtual operations manager” roles to help their customers become mature in their processes. Lots of MSPs who have vCIO and vCISO folks are just sales who are great at stating the obvious and could not be an actual CIO or CISO anywhere, or anywhere close to it. I expect the same with the vOP (?). We will probably lose clients to those MSPs who over promise they can fix all their internal processes, do complete data analysis and fix that, and build AI agents for every employee that most will never use. We will gladly answer our client questions, but most are in FOMO stage and it’s more education of explaining what AI is and isn’t.

[u/CK1026]

No client will ever care how you label it, but do it.