How MSPs Are Reshaping Staffing With AI and Automation: Insights From Peter Kujawa
The structural shift explored centers on the reconfiguration of labor dynamics within the MSP sector, driven by slowing wage inflation, increased automation, and the early adoption of AI. This mechanism is documented in the Service Leadership Annual IT Solution Provider Compensation Report, which highlights how top-performing MSPs are leveraging automation and AI for productivity improvements rather than aggressive hiring strategies. The report, as referenced by Service Leadership (a ConnectWise company), provides direct benchmarking on compensation and operational models, underscoring a pivot from pure labor-intensive growth to efficiency and automation as profit drivers.
According to the report, wage inflation in the MSP space peaked in 2021–2022, with MSPs facing cost increases as high as 10–14%, but pressures have since gradually eased. Despite this moderation, labor represents 75–80% of cost of goods sold, and wages continue to rise at nearly twice the rate of the consumer price index, the report finds. Best-in-class MSPs have achieved higher margins per employee by both slowing headcount growth and integrating automation and AI, rather than through blanket budget cuts or wage freezes. Notably, these more productive MSPs employ a higher proportion of junior (level 1) technicians, maintain lower average compensation per employee, and tie greater proportions of total pay to performance-based incentives, unlike the bottom quartile.
The episode also references broader MSP market forces including security concerns amplified by AI adoption, persistent vendor support gaps such as those with Microsoft, and instability illustrated by OpenAI’s controversial government contracts and resulting user boycotts. These developments demonstrate how increasing automation and agent-based AI can pose new governance requirements, business continuity risks, and ethical dilemmas. Commentary from the SMB Community Podcast reinforces that industry consolidation, vendor reliability, and the balance between productivity and customer satisfaction will remain ongoing concerns for operators.
For MSPs and IT service leaders, the implication is not a simple outsourcing of operational burden to technology, but an increase in vendor dependency, requirement for ongoing process redesign, and heightened need for accountability in compensation, automation, and security policy. Adopting automation and AI is likely to shift job mixes and compensation frameworks, reducing reliance on senior technical labor but requiring rigorous performance-based structures and clear governance for emerging technologies. The trend also signals a need for careful vendor selection and data management, as operational resiliency becomes increasingly tied to the stability and support capacity of automation and AI infrastructure providers.
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