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AI Adoption Drives Growth in MSP Cybersecurity Market, But Readiness Lags

Managed Services

BusinessHonor - AI Boosts MSP Cybersecurity Growth

Business Honor
01 October, 2025

MSPs face readiness gaps despite booming AI demand for SMB cybersecurity solutions.

The Managed Service Provider (MSP) market is undergoing an innovative change as the demand for AI-based cybersecurity solutions increases significantly, especially for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs). As per OpenText Cybersecurity's third yearly Global Managed Security Survey, 92% of MSPs confirm that AI interest is driving growth right now with 96% anticipating that this rate will prevail during the rest of the year. Even with this optimism, there is still a huge readiness gap, with only approximately half of MSPs confident that they are ready to lead SMBs in deploying AI-powered cybersecurity solutions.

The report highlights a major challenge: while adoption of AI is soaring, the MSPs who need to deliver the solutions struggle to keep up with the rapidly accelerating demand. A sharp contrast to last year's result, where 90% of MSPs reported feeling ready to meet AI-related security requirements, reflects the increasing gap between customer expectations and the MSPs' readiness to provide them. Tool sprawl, personnel shortages, and challenges in standardizing services across heterogeneous customer environments are impeding the rollout of AI-driven security solutions.

As a response, SMBs are moving towards bundled, all-in-one cybersecurity packages instead of isolated, best-of-breed products. The survey indicates that 70% of SMBs want bundled solutions that offer prevention, detection, and response in one package, which is indicative of a strong movement toward simplicity and outcomes compared to cost savings alone. MSPs are evolving with this change by emphasizing platform integration and leveraging AI internally for technical support, customer support, and threat identification. As AI tools become an essential component of their proposition, MSPs are also seeking to standardize service delivery frameworks in order to guarantee quality, efficiency, and scalability.