You’ve figured out that your MSP can’t help you with AI and automation. Maybe you asked directly and got a vague response. Maybe you’ve been waiting for them to bring ideas to the table and they never have. Either way, you know something needs to change and you’re trying to figure out what to do next.

When business leaders find themselves in this situation, the instinct is to move quickly toward the most obvious solution — but the most obvious solution isn’t always the best one. That’s exactly why it’s worth slowing down for a moment to consider your options.

Option 1: Stay with Your MSP and Figure It Out Yourself

One path is to stay with your MSP and handle AI and automation internally. If you’ve had a good relationship with your MSP for years, switching providers feels disruptive — and that loyalty isn’t misplaced. A long-standing MSP relationship has value. They know your environment, your team, and how your business operates. That kind of institutional knowledge takes years to build. So for many business leaders, staying put is the default.

The hidden cost shows up when the work of figuring out AI and automation falls to your own team. Someone gets “voluntold” to research tools without a clear framework for evaluating them. Leadership directs efforts toward automation without knowing which processes make the most sense to start with. Different departments start building their own solutions that don’t connect to each other.

Progress might happen, but it’s slow and expensive. And there’s nobody helping you see what’s possible or making sure what you build is secure and built to last.

The relationship with your MSP may be fine. Their capability to guide you on AI and automation is lacking.

Related: What Managed Intelligence Providers Do That MSPs Don’t

Option 2: Hire a Separate AI and Automation Specialist

Another path that seems like an obvious fix is to keep your MSP for IT and bring in a separate company or consultant to handle AI and automation. You get specialists in each area, and on the surface that seems logical.

The problem is that those two areas can’t really be separated. An automation specialist who doesn’t manage your IT environment is building solutions without full knowledge of the infrastructure underneath them. They know automation. They don’t know your security setup, how your systems authenticate, or what happens when your MSP makes infrastructure changes.

When those two worlds collide, accountability gets murky. Who’s responsible when an automation breaks after a security update? Who makes sure your automated workflows handle sensitive data the right way? You end up managing the relationship between two providers instead of focusing on your business.

This split also means two different companies billing you, two different support relationships to manage, and a structural gap between two providers — even when communication is good — where problems can emerge that neither one fully owns.

Related: The Benefits of Having One Provider Handle Both IT and Automation

Option 3: Work with a Managed Intelligence Provider in a Co-Managed Arrangement

A third path eliminates the structural gap that comes with splitting IT and automation between separate providers. You keep your internal IT staff and bring in a Managed Intelligence Provider (MIP) to work alongside them. The MIP provides IT and cybersecurity management and adds the capability your team doesn’t have — AI and automation strategy, design, implementation, and ongoing management.

How responsibilities are divided depends on your situation. The starting point is always a conversation about what your internal team does well, where they’re stretched, and what your business is trying to accomplish — including where AI and automation fit into that picture.

From there, the working model is built around your strengths and where you need support. Some teams want to stay hands-on with day-to-day support while the MIP focuses on cybersecurity, strategy, and automation. Others want to offload more so their internal staff can focus on higher-value work. That balance can shift over time as your needs evolve.

Because the MIP is involved with managing your IT environment, there’s no integration gap. When they build automation for your business, they’re building it on infrastructure they already know and manage.

This works well if you have internal IT staff you want to keep, whether you’re already in some sort of co-managed arrangement or you’re just getting started.

Related: Learn How Co-Managed IT Works

Option 4: Work with a Managed Intelligence Provider for Everything

A fourth path is to move your IT, cybersecurity, and AI and automation strategy to a single Managed Intelligence Provider. This is the right fit if you don’t have internal IT staff, have outgrown what your current MSP can offer, or want one primary partner managing your technology environment and guiding your automation strategy.

When one provider manages your infrastructure and guides your automation strategy, everything works from the same foundation. When you automate a process, it’s built with full understanding of the IT environment it runs on. When infrastructure changes, your automation partner already knows what depends on what. Nothing falls through the gap between two providers because there is no gap.

You also get a partner who’s invested in helping you see what’s possible — not just keeping what you have running.

Related: What is Managed Intelligence?

How to Know Which Option Is Right for You

If you have internal IT staff who are strong at day-to-day management but don’t have automation expertise, Option 3 is worth exploring. You keep the people who know your business and add the capabilities they can’t build on their own.

If you don’t have internal IT staff, or your current MSP relationship has run its course, Option 4 gives you the most coherent path forward.

What most business leaders find, once they’ve mapped out the options, is that staying with the status quo (Option 1) or splitting the work between two providers (Option 2) costs more in time, coordination, and missed opportunity than making a deliberate move to a provider who can do both.

What Working with a Managed Intelligence Provider Looks Like

At XPERTECHS, we operate as a Managed Intelligence Provider. We manage IT and cybersecurity while guiding businesses through AI and automation strategy — identifying the right starting point, designing and implementing solutions, and managing what gets built so it stays secure and effective as your business evolves.

We work with businesses in both co-managed arrangements and as a full IT partner, depending on what each organization needs.

If you’re at the point where you know you need more than your current MSP can offer, we’re happy to walk you through what these options look like for your specific situation.

Watch the series — our free webinar series Automate Your Business Now shows how businesses are implementing AI and automation with the right strategic guidance.

Done with research? Contact XPERTECHS and we’ll help you figure out which path makes sense for your business.