AI for MSPs: Skills Obsolescence, Rising Cloud Power Costs, and Vendor Consolidation by @Big Pond Podcasts

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This episode examines why growing concern over AI-driven skills obsolescence is less about workforce displacement and more about authority, accountability, and liability for MSPs. As AI systems increasingly triage tickets, remediate issues, and shape outcomes, MSPs are absorbing responsibility for decisions made by tools they did not design and cannot fully audit. The mismatch between AI-driven operations and pre-AI contracts, SLAs, and pricing models creates a widening risk gap that directly threatens margins and client trust.

The show then turns to AI infrastructure, focusing on Microsoft’s response to rising power and water costs tied to data center expansion. While public commitments emphasize cost control and community investment, the underlying reality for IT service providers is continued volatility. AI workloads remain energy-intensive and politically sensitive, and those costs are likely to be passed downstream. MSPs that price AI-dependent services on today’s assumptions risk margin erosion when infrastructure costs shift faster than contracts can be updated.

Next, the episode explores how workplace AI tools from Anthropic and Slack are moving beyond assistance into shaping finished work. By summarizing conversations, organizing files, and producing artifacts that become the default record, these tools quietly define “what happened.” For MSPs, this pulls them deeper into advisory territory, as AI-generated outputs influence decisions, accountability, and client understanding—often without clear acknowledgment of what context or nuance was lost.

Finally, the episode connects a wave of AI-driven acquisitions to a single strategic thread: vendors racing to own not just insight, but action. As platforms consolidate signals across usage, identity, cost, and observability, the pause between insight and execution disappears. For MSPs, the risk is not being replaced outright, but being sidelined as platforms decide faster than humans can intervene. The path forward is not resisting consolidation, but asserting value where judgment, context, and governance still matter.

Four things to know today

00:00 Report Warns 40 Percent of IT Skills May Become Obsolete as AI Reshapes Work

04:42 Microsoft’s AI Data Center Commitments Highlight the Growing Cost and Governance Risks of AI Infrastructure

07:16 Anthropic and Slack Expand AI From Assistance to Shaping Finished Work

11:00 AI-Driven Acquisitions Show Vendors Consolidating Signals to Move Faster From Insight to Action

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