Your MSP's AI offer vs AI staff
A managed service provider looks after your IT: the network, devices, licences and security. Where its AI offer is an assistant such as Microsoft 365 Copilot set up for your staff, each person works faster. Our AI staff each do one defined admin role, and we manage them. Keep your MSP, and add a role if the admin needs one.
Choose your MSP's AI offer when
You want an AI assistant for everyone, in the email and documents they already use, with licences and security handled.
Your IT needs attention first: permissions, file storage and security should be in order before AI is given access.
You want a supplier you already trust to set the rules, train the staff and take the helpdesk call.
Choose AI staff when
The job is one your MSP would not call IT: chasing a client's documents, bringing in timesheets, keeping records up to date.
The work crosses several systems in a day, such as the inbox, the practice system and the accounts.
You want somebody answerable for the work itself: what was done, what was missed and what waits for approval.
Side by side
The same five questions asked of each. What an MSP does is described from the government's research on the sector, and Copilot from Microsoft's own page. Offers differ, so ask yours what it includes.
What it is
IT, with AI added
The government's research describes MSPs as offering core IT services to businesses. Ask what the AI part includes: licences, set-up, training, a policy.
One admin role
An AI worker with a written role in your systems. It is not IT support and replaces none of it.
Who does the work
Mostly your team, faster
With an assistant such as Copilot each person gets answers and drafts sooner. Microsoft's page also lists agents; ask whether your MSP builds them.
The agent
It does the repeatable steps itself, in writing, and passes the judgement calls to a named person in your business.
Who looks after it
Your MSP
The licences, the security settings and the helpdesk, and any agent it has built for you if that is in your agreement.
We do
We manage the role, not your IT, and put it right when one of your systems changes.
What it covers
The whole estate
Every user, device and licence, and the security of all of them. Ask whether the work your staff do in those systems is covered.
One defined role
One piece of admin from start to finish, across the systems it passes through. A new kind of work is a new role.
Getting started
A call to your MSP
They already know your systems, your users and your security, which makes every conversation about AI shorter.
Scoped, then built
The role is agreed with you in writing first, with your MSP in the room if you wish. Building and testing takes weeks.
Weighing up a hire against an Agent Resource?
See what an AI worker costs to build and run for this exact role.
Where your MSP wins
Keep your MSP. It looks after the network, the devices, the backups, the licences and the security of all of it, which an Agent Resource never will. The government's research on the sector describes MSPs as offering core IT services to businesses, with access to their clients' systems, networks, infrastructure and data. A supplier that already holds that trust is the natural one to give your staff an AI assistant, set the rules for using it and answer their questions.
If what you want is every person in the business working a little faster, in the email and documents they already use, that is your MSP's job. If you run an MSP yourself, see AI staff for MSPs and IT support.
Where AI staff win
An assistant helps a person do a task. An Agent Resource, the AI equivalent of a staff member, takes on the task: the new client's documents chased, the timesheets brought in, the records kept up to date, across the systems the work passes through. It is one role, agreed with you in writing.
It is managed as a worker, not as software, and we run it. If your MSP also builds and manages agents, it is a fair choice for this too, and it already knows your systems. More in what access an AI worker needs; our starting price is on the homepage.
Questions owners ask
Our IT supplier says it can do this. Should we use them?
For an AI assistant for your staff, yes: they know your systems and your security. For a piece of admin done from start to finish, ask to see an agent doing it and ask who checks its work each week. Then compare like with like.
Do AI staff replace our MSP?
No. Your MSP looks after the network, the devices, the licences and the security. An Agent Resource does one admin role inside the systems your MSP keeps running. Your MSP is welcome in the conversation when the role's access is agreed.
Should our MSP be involved when an Agent Resource is set up?
Yes, if you would like it to be. Your MSP keeps the systems running and knows who has permission to do what. The access the role needs is agreed at the start, and that conversation is better with your MSP in the room. It gives up none of its work.
Who controls what an AI worker can reach in our systems?
You do, with your MSP if you wish. The role is given the access it needs and no more, agreed with you at the start. Everything it does is logged, and the actions that matter wait for a person of yours to approve them.
An Agent Resource compared with
An AI consultancy
Want advice, a strategy or a build to own? Use a consultancy. Want the work done and managed weekly? An Agent Resource.
An Agent Resource compared with
ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot
ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot are assistants each person runs. An Agent Resource takes one process off a desk and is run for you.
An Agent Resource compared with
Building it in-house
Has someone the skill and the time to own an agent? Build it yourself. If nobody has, an Agent Resource fits.