The Road to AI Readiness: Unlocking the MSP AI Opportunity Through Governance

51% of MSPs say data governance and compliance challenges are the main obstacle to AI adoption — ranking higher than data security, skills, or budget.

Many managed service providers (MSPs) are moving quickly to bring AI services in market — often ahead of the operational readiness required to deliver them consistently. To better understand how this gap is shaping the technology channel, AvePoint commissioned Omdia to survey 333 MSPs across North America, EMEA, and APAC. 

What’s Inside

The findings show why the road to AI readiness runs through governance and compliance.

• Omdia forecasts that the global partner opportunity tied to AI services will reach $276 billion by 2030.
• MSPs want greater platform integration as AI accelerates; 49% want a complete and integrated platform, and 91% wan integrated backup and recovery.  
• While 94% of MSPs indicate commitment to automation around AI data readiness and compliance services, only 43% report having reached high maturity in delivering AI-ready data environments to customers. 

What You’ll Learn

The findings highlight a clear reality: Success in AI services will be determined less by access to technology and more by the ability to govern it at scale.  

• Assess the gap between automation ambition and delivery maturity in your MSP practice.  
• Identify the governance, compliance, and data controls customers expect as AI adoption accelerates.  
• Understand how integrated visibility, enforcement, reporting, and remediation improve operational consistency.  
• Position governance as a recurring service that supports durable revenue and higher-value advisory work.  

Build a More Repeatable, Profitable AI Readiness Practice

Explore Omdia research commissioned by AvePoint to see how leading MSPs standardize governance, automate compliance, and strengthen multitenant visibility to deliver AI-ready services at scale.  

Frequently Asked Questions 

• What is AI readiness for MSPs? 
  AI readiness is the point at which customer data environments are classified, governed, and controlled well enough to support Microsoft 365 Copilot and agentic workflows without unmanaged exposure. For MSPs, it rests on four controls applied across every tenant: data visibility, access governance, policy enforcement, and auditability.
• Why is governance the biggest barrier to customer AI adoption? 
  Governance and compliance rank as the most frequently cited barrier to customer AI adoption, ahead of data and security management, value realization, and technical expertise gaps. Informal AI use is already underway outside governed boundaries, so compliance exposure and audit risk arrive before formal rollouts do.
• How can MSPs scale AI readiness services profitably? 
  Three levers make it scalable: standardized policy baselines, multitenant visibility for drift detection and central enforcement, and automation across reporting, remediation, and documentation. AvePoint Elements delivers these in one platform, cutting tenant-by-tenant effort and building governance into recurring revenue.