Empowering SMBs: The Critical Role of MSPs in Enterprise-Grade Security and AI

COMMENTARY: As one of the largest global vendors, Microsoft has historically adopted an enterprise-first approach to marketing, positioning, and productization. Despite this, Microsoft is not, and should not be considered, an enterprise-only organization. In fact, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have consistently used, and benefitted from, Microsoft products. Following the COVID pandemic in 2020, many businesses were forced to pivot to remote operations, leading to a significant increase in Microsoft 365 adoption among SMBs. With the demand for collaboration tools and Cloud accessibility, Microsoft 365 became essential, transforming daily operations and paving the way for a more flexible workforce.

Now, just six years later, Microsoft is finally recognizing the untapped SMB market opportunity. In September 2025, Microsoft launched its #IntuneForMSPs initiative, designed to help Managed Service Providers (MSPs) manage Microsoft 365 tenants at scale. Despite the slightly unclear name, this initiative is about far more than just Intune, highlighting just how essential MSPs are in helping Microsoft to penetrate the SMB market.

The role of MSPs in unlocking Microsoft 365 for SMBs

MSPs act as a natural gateway between SMBs and Microsoft. SMBs rely on their MSPs to manage their tech, trusting that alongside their own extensive expertise, MSPs can help even the least tech savvy unlock the enterprise-grade productivity and security benefits of Microsoft 365.

Until recently, MSPs spent significant time and manual effort configuring and managing multiple Microsoft 365 tenants. By launching #IntuneForMSPs, Microsoft has officially acknowledged the multi-tenant gap in their product suite and endorsed two independent software vendors specializing in multi-tenant management to help MSPs overcome this challenge.

How is demand for AI affecting the market?

Now, the market is evolving again. According to Pax8, 75% of SMBs are already experimenting with AI. MSPs must respond to this demand or risk being left behind. As the demand for AI increases, the need to be able to manage Microsoft 365 security at scale is more important than ever.

Shadow AI, or the unauthorized use of AI at work, introduces a significant threat to SMBs. As trigger-happy employees find productivity benefits from inputting data into

OpenAI sources, they also risk exposing sensitive data, opening organizations up to potentially catastrophic data breaches.

Given the isolated instance of AI per business, Microsoft Copilot is the strongest AI tool a security-focused MSP can endorse. But even Copilot comes with risks and therefore must be delivered on top of a secure Microsoft 365 tenant with properly orchestrated and governed data.

Copilot draws upon internal Microsoft 365 data to inform its answers, which means that data access controls and permissions need to be properly configured and enforced to prevent sensitive data being unwittingly shared with unauthorized users. Beyond this, if the overall tenant security is not robust, this sensitive data could be maliciously exploited in the eventuality of a breach.

The steps to rolling out Copilot securely shouldn’t be anything new for MSPs. Configuring and enforcing policies through tools like Intune, Defender, Entra, and Purview are all part of an MSP’s day-to-day responsibilities to keep customers secure, and now it also sets them up to securely and effectively deliver AI.

How can MSPs productize AI?

The days of traditional IT support are fading fast. SMBs want AI, and Microsoft is making moves to facilitate this. Copilot Chat, a chatbot version of Copilot without access to internal organizational data, creates an accessible entry point for SMBs for free. Additionally, in December 2025, Microsoft launched Microsoft 365 Copilot Business which allows businesses with fewer than 300 users to access the capabilities of Copilot at a lower price point. Copilot Business is bundled into existing Microsoft 365 Business plans to simplify purchasing, and promotions are running until the end of March to make it even more affordable for SMBs looking to integrate AI into their operations.

It's time for MSPs to find their place in the AI landscape and start facilitating the secure and effective rollout of Copilot services. A notable 96% of MSPs believe that AI interest will drive business growth this year, but there is still a significant amount of uncertainty in the market about how to productize and monetize AI services.

It’s important to remember that the SMB market is still immature in its understanding and adoption of AI. More than anything, they need support, guidance, and enablement as they take their first explorative steps. As an MSP, your initial AI services should centre around enabling AI readiness for customers. This means analyzing customers’ Microsoft 365 usage, centralizing and organizing their data landscape, securing their Microsoft 365 tenant, and strengthening their data governance. With these foundations laid, you can then start to bring in more advisory services and begin to build out personalized roadmaps for Copilot rollout.

Multi-tenant management is key for the AI era

The AI era doesn’t mean a complete overhaul for MSPs. MSPs are still trying to unlock the full potential of Microsoft 365 for their SMB customers – but this now includes the facilitation of AI too. As Copilot becomes a priority, Microsoft 365 security must remain at the heart of everything and, as a result, the ability to easily manage multiple Microsoft 365 tenants has never been more important.

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