Strategy before AI: our CTO talks to GTIA at MSP Global

AI, AI, AI. Everybody wants to implement it. Hardly anyone knows where to start.

That is how our CTO Mohammad Moghtader opens his interview with GTIA On Location at MSP Global in Barcelona. He gives the answer straight away: it all starts with a strategy. In thirteen minutes he explains how Virtual Computing, an IT partner for small and medium-sized businesses since 2006, became an AI-first MSP. And what that means for you.

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Ourselves first, then the customer

We are a young team that is always looking for the next technology. Whatever is new, we try out. So when AI came along, we jumped on that wagon. At first it was mostly prompting and chatting. The real gains came once AI could automate processes.

We took those gains for ourselves first. We were our own first customer, and that was a deliberate choice:

"First the team has to trust the technology. Because if you don't trust it, how are you going to sell it or implement it for the customers?"

Only once the whole team trusted AI did we start automating processes that involve customers too. Less manual work, and more time for the work that really takes expertise.

Support, never replace

Wasn't the team afraid of losing their jobs? No, because from day one the deal was clear:

"AI is there to support you. It's never there to replace you. And we will stand by that until the end."

According to Mohammad, that is exactly what sets us apart: the personal touch. "I know all my customers by name. I know how many people work there and what they get from us." That makes us different from our "friendemies", as he calls fellow MSPs: not enemies, but friends too. AI takes over the repetitive work, so there is more time left for that personal contact.

Alex surprised us too

The first AI our customers met was Alex. Alex helps our service desk and picks up first-line questions. Resetting a password. A manual for adding your email to your iPhone. Alex writes it and sends it straight away.

To be honest, we thought customers wouldn't be that keen. We were wrong. After two or three weeks, customers were having full conversations with Alex, even when something went wrong. Alex now has several AI colleagues. They all have a name to keep things personal, but we always tell customers openly that it is AI.

You can see it in the numbers. AI triages every incoming request and decides whether a colleague needs to pick it up. AI handles at least half of all first-line questions itself. In January, AI fully resolved 20 percent of all requests; today that is 35 percent. Our goal is 75 percent. You will find Alex in our customer portal.

"What do you actually want AI to do?"

People who see Alex at work often want the same thing. "I love this. Can you build it for us as well?" That is when the conversation changes. AI has become a buzzword: everyone has heard about it on the radio and wants to "do something with AI". That is why Mohammad always starts with the same question:

"What do you want AI to do for you? It starts with a strategy."

Do you want to automate processes so you never have to look back at them? Or do you want to help your people finish their work faster by taking the manual labour out? From that strategy we think along about software and approach, and we build it together with you. We do that across all kinds of sectors, from dental practices to the financial world. For the sole trader just as much as for organisations with 200 to 300 users.

Talking to your own documents

The question we hear most? An AI that works with your own documents. You ask for a summary or ask a question, and you have the answer right away. We now deliver that solution for many customers.

More and more often, the questions get more advanced. Like a digital support worker, just like Alex, that answers emails from the contact form on your website straight away and books appointments by itself. We build these custom AI assistants on Dutch hardware, so your data stays here.

AI on the laptop you already have

His last big AI win? Mohammad had to think about that for a moment, because there are so many. The business is growing fast (this year we are an FD Gazelle for the fifth year in a row), and the technology is growing even faster:

"What was built yesterday might already be a hundred years outdated today."

His personal favourite is a technical one. A student at our company is researching how to run language models on low-end hardware. A large language model now runs on Mohammad's MacBook Pro, and even on an Intel NUC: a mini computer with maybe a tenth of that computing power.

Why does that matter? Right now, big companies have the advantage, because they can afford the expensive Nvidia cards for their AI farms. Small and medium-sized businesses don't have that budget. And if you bought new laptops two years ago, you are not going to replace them again, especially now that AI has pushed hardware prices up. Our own data centre runs on up-to-date hardware, but Mohammad wants AI to be within your reach too:

"I would like to see AI become available on lower-spec hardware, instead of only on the high-end."

AI is never finished

What a lot of people forget: AI is not a one-time project. Two of our engineers work on our AI every week. They spot-check the requests Alex has closed. Was this the solution? Was it the correct solution? Did Alex take the right steps? And they keep an eye on whether the language model is still performing well.

"It's not something you implement once and then think: all right, I'll have a look next year. You have to check it weekly to keep it up to date."

Security comes first

Finally, the talk turned to digital sovereignty: with us, your data stays in the Netherlands. At MSP Global, Mohammad joined a round table with peers from Europe, the United States and Asia. What stood out: in Europe, security comes first. Rightly so, he says. Whether it is existing customers or new customers who come to us specifically for AI, the first question should always be security. That same week, a serious PHP vulnerability had just come out.

"We're so connected to the web, and we have so much important information on the web, that cybersecurity should be the first thing you start with. Not somewhere in between or at the end."

That is why cybersecurity is at the top of our agenda. And AI helps us enormously there too.

Ready to make the jump yourself?

Curious what AI can do for your organisation? Then we start where Mohammad always starts: with your strategy. What is costing you time now, what do you want to automate and what has to stay secure no matter what? Book an introduction and we will think along with you.