AI already handles half of our requests. What do you notice?

You read it everywhere: AI is taking over half of all IT work. But is that actually true?

Dutch trade magazine MSP Business looked into it, in the article If AI does the work, what is the customer still paying for? (in Dutch). The answer is sobering. More than half of all MSPs have automated a quarter of their work at most over the past two years. The author calls cutting the work in half "mostly fiction, for now".

Our numbers look different. AI reads every incoming request first. In January, AI fully handled 20 percent of all requests on its own. In recent weeks, that was half. Our goal is 75 percent.

What do you notice? And what are you actually paying your IT partner for?

You notice it in the waiting time

The gain from AI is not fewer people, but speed. You can see that in the figures the Australian MSP GCIT published after seven months of AI in its service desk. The time until a technician started on a ticket dropped from 49 to 13 minutes. The technicians themselves spent only about 15 percent fewer hours on tickets.

This is how it works with us. You send an email, or you ask Alex in the customer portal. Alex and our other AI agents read along, look up your environment and decide whether they can handle the request themselves or a colleague should pick it up. AI handles a simple question on its own. A difficult one goes straight to the right colleague, together with everything AI has already found out. No explaining from scratch.

Where AI stops

AI does not take over everything, and it does not need to. GCIT took a sample of 240 tickets. One in four needed someone at the device, physical work or another supplier. But half could be solved fully remotely, with nothing more than the customer's permission.

We recognise that. And half of the requests is not yet half of the work: the requests AI leaves behind are the hardest ones. A laptop that no longer starts, an outage at a supplier, a move to the Online Workplace: that is work for people. And that is exactly where we want our people. The more routine AI takes away, the more time our colleagues have for the work that matters. The tricky outage, the project, the advice. And you.

This is what you pay us for

If AI does a growing share of the work, what are you still paying your IT partner for? MSP Business gives the answer itself: a price per workplace was never an hourly rate in disguise. You buy three things with it.

• The technology. Licences, security, backup and monitoring that we buy, set up and maintain for you.
• The promise. That we respond and resolve quickly, whether ten requests come in or a hundred.
• The risk. A ransomware attack, or the IT knowledge that walks out the door with that one colleague: that risk is ours, not yours.

AI changes little about the technology and the risk. It does make the promise stronger: you get help faster. And it helps with security, which is always at the top of our agenda. AI reads security alerts and puts the ones that matter at the top, so our people look at those first.

Faster, and just as personal

AI-first does not mean you talk to fewer people. Human contact remains the foundation. Our colleagues know your environment, often for years. AI takes away the repetitive work, so they have more time for you.

The same magazine named us MSP of the Month in November. Our CTO explained that we are a year ahead with AI. This is what that means in practice.

Curious what this means for you?

Looking for an IT partner that uses AI to help you faster, with people who know you by name? Schedule an introduction and we will show you how it works.