Dive Brief:
- Netrio added AI advisory and consulting to its managed services portfolio with a focus on helping midmarket businesses navigate governance, security and other adoption roadblocks, the MSP said in a Tuesday announcement.
- “AI has enormous potential, but most organizations are still in the early stages of figuring out how to apply it in a meaningful way,” Netrio President and Chief Transformation Officer Gina Murphy said in the release. “Midmarket enterprises need a practical, governed path forward — one that connects strategy to execution and delivers measurable outcomes.”
- The managed service provider appointed Accenture veteran Al Calabrese to head up the new unit as VP of AI and transformational services. Calabrese previously served as an executive at managed cloud service providers Velocity Technology Solutions and Navisite, which was acquired by Accenture in 2024. He remained with Accenture until the move to Netrio.
Dive Insight:
Small and midsized businesses are looking to the channel for guidance as they follow larger enterprises down the path toward AI adoption. The MSP industry is under the gun to provide clients with a roadmap as they grapple with IT talent constraints, data readiness, infrastructure gaps and a host of other AI deployment headaches.
“To us, AI consulting feels like table stakes because if we don’t address it somebody else will,” Netrio CEO Mark Clayman told Channel Dive. “Customers are demanding for MSPs like us to solve their problems, to be smart about it and help them through it and think about it in an intelligent way. We've got to build the skill sets to address that side of the market.”
Opportunities are expanding.
Global spending on AI services is expected to increase 40% year over year, approaching $600 billion in 2026, according to Gartner. SMB investments in infrastructure upgrades will amount to $78 billion that partners can tap into, Circana Executive Director Mike Crosby said during a keynote at last month’s Channel Partners Conference & Expo.
Netrio, which combined with Success Computer Consulting two years ago to bolster its managed security services, had already planted the seeds of an AI practice through early engagement with roughly 50 clients prior to this week’s announcement, Clayman said.
The company also laid groundwork for the advisory internally, embedding AI capabilities into a platform that has improved efficiency by about 50%, Netrio CRO Mike Cromwell told Channel Dive.
Netrio isn’t alone.
AI has spread from IT helpdesk automation to broader strategy and governance consulting in the MSP industry, where firms that don’t invest in the technology risk falling behind. A majority of businesses expect AI to be their top category of managed service spending in the next two years, IDC found in a survey of 1,200 business leaders commissioned by KPMG.
For partners, mobilizing for AI has two facets, Clayman said. The race is on to realize operational efficiencies while also cultivating consulting expertise.
“Some customers have half their employees using AI but no strategy for driving business value out of it,” said Clayman. “Others haven't even started yet. From an MSP standpoint, it’s about how we can use AI to get smarter and more effective and improve the customer experience. There’s pressure on both sides.”
Correction: This story has been changed to reflect that Gina Murphy is president and chief transformation officer at Netrio and that Al Calabrese served executive roles at Velocity Technology Solutions and Navisite, which was acquired by Accenture in 2024.
