Managed service providers (MSPs) are under pressure to both sell artificial intelligence (AI) and adopt it in their own businesses to demonstrate to customers they are happy to drink their own champagne.

Many have used AI to help automate tickets, triage processes and in some areas of marketing, but according to research from Nerdio, the vast majority are yet to see the benefits of investing in the technology.

The automation specialist shared its 2026 State of the MSP business report, with the headline finding that many in the channel have struggled to translate adoption into business results.

The report found that 32% of MSPs have adopted AI tools internally, with a further 46% either in the pilot phase or planning to do so in the next year. But of those that have rolled out AI, only 12% felt confident enough to link that investment to measurable productivity improvements.

Those challenges raised concerns that a divide would emerge between those MSPs that had managed to unlock the value of AI and those that were still not able to point to a positive impact.

“AI didn’t create the divide in the MSP industry,” said Will Ominsky, vice-president and general manager of MSP business at Nerdio. “It’s making the one that was already there easier to see.

“The difference isn’t whether an MSP has access to AI tools,” he said. “It’s whether the business has the operational foundation to put them to work consistently for customers across increasingly complex environments. MSPs that build a more consistent, repeatable way to deliver service will be best positioned to turn AI from an experiment into a measurable business advantage.”

The Nerdio study also painted a picture of it being early days when it comes to MSPs providing AI services to customers, with the low number of 14% currently deriving revenue from the offerings they deliver the market.

Customer demand is rising, and that has added to the pressure many managed service players are facing to get on top of AI, and master the benefits and the risks posed by the technology.

The sense that the MSP market was evolving was one of the themes at the recent Canalys Channel Forum, with AI seen as a major driver of change across the market.

Speaking at the event in Barcelona earlier this month, Robin Ody, research director at Omdia, said the managed services market was starting to move more down the AI road.

“AI services are absolutely changing the game, but we are at the very beginning,” he said, noting that most MSPs were concentrating on internal adoption. “There’s a good reason for that because it’s internal transformation – it’s where you have the most control.”

Ody stressed that MSPs had to embrace AI in their own businesses before they were in a position to support their customers.

“If you do want to offer managed services around AI, you have to do the internal first,” he said. “Some of you are quite a long way down that road. Most of the unrealised money, though, sits in the … services around AI for customers.”

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