MSP Masterclass: Using AI to Transform MSP Operations and Improve Efficiency

Three MSPs with early access to Syncro’s AI capabilities share firsthand experiences applying AI to daily operations. This webinar covers how AI-assisted ticket resolution, smart search, and automatic ticket categorization help MSP technicians work faster, reduce escalations, and turn years of ticket history into a usable knowledge base, all without replacing the human relationships that drive client retention.

Webinar Summary

Key Topics Covered

  • How MSPs are using AI day to day for ticket resolution and troubleshooting
  • Syncro’s AI-suggested troubleshooting steps, including manufacturer-specific driver links
  • Smart search using natural language to find historical tickets without exact keywords
  • Automatic ticket categorization and its potential for workflow automation
  • Why AI benefits junior and newer technicians more than experienced staff
  • The role of AI in reducing documentation friction and improving knowledge transfer
  • How MSPs balance automation with maintaining personalized client relationships
  • Customer attitudes toward AI, from cautious adoption to full blocking
  • Measuring AI effectiveness through ticket quality rather than just volume
  • Advice for MSPs beginning their AI implementation journey

How MSPs Are Using AI Today

All three panelists described AI as an evolution of search, not a replacement for technician expertise. For experienced technicians with 10 to 15 years in the field, AI functions primarily as a validation tool and a way to quickly rough out PowerShell scripts that they then refine and test. The real operational efficiency gains come from newer technicians, specifically those in their first one to five years, who use AI to build confidence and reduce the number of issues they escalate.

ROI Technology adopted AI early, starting with ChatGPT’s Enterprise plan and building a custom GPT with validated steps and data. When Syncro offered early access to its AI features, they joined immediately, wanting to stay in front of customer questions about AI capabilities.

Casey Help Desk described the shift from keyword-based search to conversational AI as a fundamental improvement. Instead of entering keywords into Google and parsing through blog posts, forum threads, and vendor documentation to piece together a solution, technicians can now describe their problem and get contextual suggestions. The result is not just faster answers, but better answers that fit the specific situation.

Cyber Tech Systems, a smaller MSP in rural South Dakota with four full-time employees, uses AI primarily to build automations and make technicians more efficient. Their main challenge is finding talent in a remote area, and AI helps bridge that gap by giving newer hires tools to work through unfamiliar problems without immediate escalation.

Syncro AI Features: Smart Search, Ticket Categorization, and Suggested Steps

Three specific Syncro AI features were discussed in detail.

Smart search uses natural language to find historical tickets. Instead of needing to remember the exact ticket number or the right search keywords, a technician can describe the general problem and smart search surfaces relevant past tickets. This is especially powerful for junior technicians who lack the institutional memory to know what a previous technician worked on six months or a year ago. It effectively turns accumulated ticket data into a searchable knowledge base without anyone having to write formal documentation.

Ticket categorization automatically classifies incoming tickets based on the issue description. The panelists reported that the model was accurate even when customer input was vague or unhelpful. The categorization opens up workflow automation possibilities: automatically routing certain ticket types to specific technicians based on expertise, or automatically suggesting known fixes based on how a ticket is categorized.

AI-suggested troubleshooting steps analyze the ticket and the device data from the RMM to recommend specific actions. One panelist described how the AI identified a printer’s make and model from the RMM data and linked directly to the manufacturer’s driver download page, eliminating the time a junior technician would spend navigating HP, Canon, or Konica Minolta’s websites to find the right driver. This specific example resulted in junior technicians handling printer driver issues that they would previously have been too hesitant to touch.

AI and Junior Technicians: Expanding the Hiring Pool

All three MSPs agreed that the biggest operational efficiency gains from AI come from newer staff. The pattern is consistent: AI gives less experienced technicians the confidence to take action on issues they would otherwise escalate. This reduces the load on senior technicians and, critically for smaller MSPs, expands the pool of people they can realistically hire.

One panelist framed it this way: someone with a great attitude but limited experience can now be a viable hire because AI bridges the knowledge gap during their ramp-up period. In a rural labor market where experienced IT talent is scarce, that is a meaningful business advantage.

The benefit compounds with smart search. New technicians do not need to know the specific question to ask or the right keywords to search. They can describe the general problem, and the system surfaces relevant historical data from tickets worked by more experienced team members. This is especially valuable because not every solution gets formally documented in a knowledge base article. Smart search makes the informal institutional knowledge captured in ticket notes accessible to the entire team.

Balancing Automation with Client Relationships

All three MSPs were deliberate about keeping AI and automation transparent to the customer. None are deploying customer-facing chatbots or inserting AI between the client and the help desk.

ROI Technology assigns dedicated account managers and primary technicians to each client, and conducts at least quarterly reviews focused on the relationship, not just performance metrics. Their philosophy: AI should support the human element, not replace it. Automation should be invisible to the customer.

Cyber Tech Systems takes a similar approach, conducting regular business reviews to align their perception of service quality with what the customer is experiencing. They are automating on the back end, removing human error from processes and improving internal response times, but they are not trying to reduce customer contact. In their rural service area, the handshake relationship is foundational to how they do business.

Casey Help Desk echoed both positions, keeping AI as an internal efficiency tool rather than a customer-facing interaction layer.

Customer Attitudes Toward AI

Customer engagement with AI varied across the panel, but the consistent finding was that AI has not changed support call volumes. No MSP has seen customers using ChatGPT or similar tools as a substitute for calling the help desk.

Some customers are experimenting with AI for non-IT tasks like drafting email templates or writing marketing copy. One panelist has seen marketing firms using AI to rough out copy, and occasional evidence of copy-pasted ChatGPT output appearing in email chains (identifiable by the duplicated salutation).

On the cautious end, ROI Technology has two customers who want AI tools completely blocked on their endpoints, citing concerns about public-facing models being trained on their data. The MSP is preparing for broader customer conversations about AI, particularly as Windows 11 adoption increases and features like Copilot become more visible in the Microsoft ecosystem.

None of the three MSPs are proactively selling AI services to customers, though all are monitoring the space and preparing to answer questions as they arise.

Measuring AI Effectiveness

The panelists offered three distinct perspectives on measuring AI’s impact.

ROI Technology focuses on the quality of technician documentation rather than ticket throughput. The question is not whether more tickets are being solved, but whether the notes are more detailed, the steps better documented, and the resolution data richer. If AI is helping technicians produce higher-quality work, that enriches the data set for future smart search queries and AI suggestions, creating a compounding effect.

Cyber Tech Systems is building internal metrics around service quality and sharing selected metrics with customers during business reviews. They use the data to confirm that their perception of service quality aligns with what the customer is seeing.

Casey Help Desk takes a practical approach: am I actually solving problems and moving from task to task, or am I going down a rabbit hole with the AI tool and still working on the same problem hours later? The answer, by their observation, is that AI is producing real efficiency gains visible in the work being completed.

Advice for MSPs Getting Started with AI

Three pieces of advice emerged from the panel discussion.

First, sanitize every output. AI is a statistical model that predicts the most probable next word or sequence. It is not intelligent in the way the term implies. Outputs should always be reviewed, validated, and refined before being used in a production context, whether that is a customer-facing document, a script running on endpoints, or a troubleshooting procedure.

Second, evaluate the substance, not the buzzword. Every product claims to have AI. What matters is what it actually does. A customer-facing chatbot is fundamentally different from an internal automation engine, and a product using AI to power ticket categorization and smart search is fundamentally different from one that simply wraps a generic LLM in a branded interface. Look at the specific implementation and whether it drives meaningful change for your workflow.

Third, start by improving the quality of the data you already collect. The quality of AI output is directly driven by the quality of the data it has access to. Better ticket notes today produce better smart search results and AI suggestions tomorrow. If your technicians are writing “fixed it” in the resolution field, no AI tool will be able to turn that into useful institutional knowledge. Start documenting more thoroughly now, and you will be positioned to get maximum value from AI features as they mature.

Product Features Covered in This Webinar

  • Splashtop remote access (mentioned in context of daily operations)
  • AI-suggested troubleshooting steps with device-aware recommendations
  • Smart search using natural language across historical ticket data
  • Automatic ticket categorization with workflow automation potential
  • AI-powered ticket resolution assistance for junior technicians
  • Scripting and automation engine for back-end efficiency
  • Customizable dashboards and reporting
  • Integration with third-party documentation platforms

View the Transcript

Michael Siggins: Hello, everybody! This is Michael Siggins from Channel Pro Network. Thanks for being here. Please come on in. Take a seat.

All right. Hello, everybody! And welcome to our webinar today. Today we’re presenting MSP Masterclass: Firsthand Experiences Using AI to Transform Operations. I’m Michael Siggins, founder and publisher of the Channel Pro Network. Thank you very much for everyone being here today. I’ll be your moderator for today’s session.

Before we dive into the core of the webinar, let me just take a minute and set the stage. Operating efficiently is crucial for MSPs to reduce costs, improve client satisfaction, and enhance scalability. Efficient processes allow MSPs to deliver timely and reliable support, differentiate themselves in a competitive market, and maximize profitability.

Today we’re going to explore how AI can make your MSP’s operations more efficient and effective, and fuel your growth while maintaining high service quality and client retention. Joining us are some of the leading voices in the MSP community who’ve had early access to Syncro’s new AI capabilities. You’ll hear their impressions and experiences as they’re applying AI to improve their own operations. Here with me today are Jasper Grewal of ROI Technology, Carl Alcott of Casey Help Desk, and Dan Suzor of Cyber Tech Systems. They’ll join me shortly.

Each of them is going to share their firsthand experiences, insights, and practical tips to help you leverage AI in your own businesses. During the webinar, we’re going to hear how these MSPs are overcoming obstacles such as increasing workloads and endless manual tasks to improve their own operations. You’ll learn how they leverage AI to run more efficient workflows and get valuable tips for effective ticket triaging and resolution.

Before we dive into it, I would like to take a moment to thank the sponsor of today’s webinar, Syncro. Syncro empowers MSPs with tools and automation to run their business efficiently and to provide world-class IT services to their customers. Its all-in-one professional services automation, remote monitoring and management, and remote support software solution helps MSPs streamline operations and achieve business success.

I’m excited to announce that Syncro has made a special promotion of up to six months free for today’s attendees to make switching from your existing provider easier and much more attractive. All right, let’s dive in now and discover how AI can transform your operational efficiency. Pleased to welcome our panelists. Jasper, why don’t you kick us off.

Jasper Grewal: Hey, thanks so much. Good morning, everyone. My name is Jasper, and I’m really happy to be here with you all today. A little bit about my background. I’ve been in IT long enough that if my career was a person, it would be able to vote. It’s about 18 years.

I’m a jack of all trades IT person. My day to day is somewhere kind of between DevOps and leadership. But I’ve done the entire gamut of IT jobs, from desktop support, sysadmin, IT manager, pretty much to writing my own ticket here at ROI Technology.

Speaking of, we’re a cybersecurity-focused MSP about an hour north of Seattle. We primarily serve SMBs kind of in and around Washington State. I’d say we’re pretty much middle of the road in terms of age. We’ve only been around since 2014, but we try to sit out in front in terms of security and innovation. I’m really looking forward to sharing some insights, maybe some war stories with Dan and Carl, or maybe some of you guys in the chat.

Michael Siggins: Thanks for being here, Jasper. Next up is Carl.

Carl Alcott: I’m Carl Alcott. I’ve worked in the industry for about 20 years now, spending most of the time in the K through 12 education sector, mostly in roles like systems and network administration, and just kind of working my way up into IT management and all the glories that that entails.

Casey Help Desk, we’ve operated in the Kansas City metro area for about 20 years, working in about every sector over the years, but primarily specializing with a lot of churches and private schools in the KC metro area. We’re kind of a one-stop shop. So if it touches the network, usually we handle it.

Michael Siggins: All right, Carl, thanks for being here. And Dan Suzor.

Dan Suzor: Hi, Michael. I’m Dan. I’m here from Cyber Tech Systems. We are based out of South Central South Dakota. A little greener in the space compared to Carl and Jasper. We were born in mid-2020, and I’ve been with the company since about a year after that. So about three years now. Various roles in technology but prior to being in the MSP space.

We serve a pretty rural customer base there in South Central. So we’re more location-specific than industry-specific in who we serve. We kind of take a little bit of everything. We have some customers in healthcare and law and agriculture, a little bit of everything. Fun fact, Winter, South Dakota, is about 70 miles from the nearest Walmart, which I think is probably some kind of a record. So that should give you a visual there.

Our primary service is IT managed services. We do also dig into some VoIP installations, door and building access systems, surveillance systems. Anywhere we can serve a need, really, always hoping that stuff can turn into some kind of managed proactive service. So we are four full-time employees plus Cole Nicholas, our owner, who wears all the hats since we’re still small. We do also have right now two summer interns, so they might be signing on with us here at some point.

Michael Siggins: All right, Dan. Gentlemen, that’s great. So now we’re going to jump into the discussion part. And so I’ve got a number of topics that I want to cover, and I’m going to give each of you a chance to weigh in on that. All right, Carl, I want to start off with you. Can you give me a bit of background on how you’re managing your MSP’s operations? What kind of obstacles or challenges do you face on a daily basis?

Carl Alcott: I’d say we just deploy a typical kind of software stack like most MSPs. You have the PSA, RMM, your MDMs, EDR tools, and all of those typical management and security tools that you deploy to assist your customers and just do your tasks from day to day. I’d say some of the challenges that we face from day to day is just kind of keeping up with all the changes in the field, and just kind of as the threat landscape changes, just keeping up with it all.

Michael Siggins: All right, Jasper, do you want to add to that? You have a longer tenure with your business. You’ve probably seen quite a bit in your years.

Jasper Grewal: Yeah, I mean, we’ve seen just like Carl was describing. RMM, PSA, standard tool stack. But we’ve seen pretty much every tool you can imagine come and go. Some of them will evolve and get bought out by other ones. Some of them will mature and become really leaders. We really like Syncro as an RMM/PSA combination. And I think some of the features that you guys are rolling out really help us tackle some of the day-to-day stuff, efficiencies, things that five minutes here and there can really add up over time.

Michael Siggins: And Dan, what about some of your background? What kind of obstacles or challenges are you facing daily?

Dan Suzor: I think our main challenge has been, just again, kind of speaking to the area we’re in, finding good talent. We’re staying busier than ever expected, good problem to have. It’s just, we’re having trouble finding people in the area to come help us. We were able to pull in these interns recently, a couple of college guys, pretty sharp guys. So that’s really helped with our workload. But probably a unique problem for us, being out in the middle of nowhere compared to the big city guys.

Michael Siggins: Yeah, is that difficult finding talent? In this case, these are interns. But you’re hoping to kind of move them up into full-time, potentially?

Dan Suzor: Hopefully, yeah. So Cole, our owner, was joking this week that the only reason people really live in Winter is if they were born there. So we’ve been looking outside of the city as well, trying to incentivize some people to come in and work with us. But we’ve got an awesome team, a small, tight-knit team. So it’s a great company to work for.

Michael Siggins: So, Jasper, what about if you can give us an understanding of some of the AI capabilities you’re using right now, and maybe a little bit about how you even took the plunge into it.

Jasper Grewal: Yeah. So we adopted AI really early, like early days of ChatGPT. And it was not as mature as it is today, to say the least. But we used to say, you don’t need to know everything to work the service desk. You just kind of need to know how things work. And then Googling was a real skill set. But that was the old days.

So the AI features now, for example in Syncro, the new AI features really help some of my techs, especially my less seasoned ones, kind of comprehend what somebody’s asking for right away. Maybe get some suggestions in there and a link to a printer driver. It really helps my team kind of hit the ground running, reduces escalations. Just kind of helps improve everyone’s confidence level.

We’ve always thought the AI should kind of augment and enhance the human element, especially in a service industry like ours where the stakes are tremendously high. And I think we’ve used it to pretty good effect so far, and I think Syncro’s approach is exactly complementary to kind of our philosophy.

Michael Siggins: Dan, how about your embrace of AI? When did you start using it? And how has your use of it evolved?

Dan Suzor: Really just making myself and our other technicians more efficient. I mean, we use it, obviously like everyone here I would imagine, a lot of LLM chatbot, ChatGPT kind of thing too, as glorified search engines and to help us build out our automations. We’re just trying to automate as much as we can behind the scenes so we can focus on the customer, focus on reducing the repeated problems and preventing other issues. So primarily, until these Syncro features, we started to get involved with these Syncro features, it’s been primarily that.

Michael Siggins: And you mentioned the interns. Do you find with them coming on, they’ve already embraced AI, or are you having to train them to use AI in your own business?

Dan Suzor: Yeah, I think they are using it daily now. And I don’t know if they were well aware of it, they were using it. But not really being in the space before, I don’t think they were using it at work. But just kind of over the past couple months figuring out how it can really help them, help them with support and help them build out automations and such with us.

Michael Siggins: Carl, you want to weigh in on how you’re embracing AI and what you’ve been doing and using?

Carl Alcott: Sure. Yeah, I mean, it’s really much the same. It just kind of takes the classic search to a whole new level. Being able to actually have a conversation with it instead of it just being putting some keywords into Google, and then you get some blog post or forum post or some vendor documentation back, and then you’re trying to go through that and see how that actually fits into the context of the problem you’re trying to solve.

It’s rare that you find that answer and it’s just perfect. A lot of time you’re taking pieces from here and there. And being able to just sit there and have that conversation with it and say, yeah, that didn’t work, or just ask it, why should this work this way? It just adds a whole new level to it, and it helps you just get through things so much faster.

Michael Siggins: All right. And Dan, so you’ve all been involved in early access to Syncro’s upcoming AI capabilities. How do you expect them to impact your business? And what are you most excited about from those tools?

Dan Suzor: We’re really excited about all of the features that are coming out. The smart search especially. That’s going to give us, so we use another documentation system, and in the past it’s been kind of tricky to find what it is you want to find in terms of ticket history, existing problems, and if they might be related to whatever incident is coming in at the moment.

So being able to go back and quickly find, especially using natural language, existing related issues or issues for that customer that could somehow help you solve the current issue at hand, that’s going to be big for us.

I think just one of the hard things about the traditional way of searching is you kind of have to remember what the ticket was, or remember some keywords, and get that right recipe for finding the exact ticket. Now, with being able to use natural language and just kind of get close to the general idea of what you’re searching for and have it come up for you, that’s pretty cool about that smart search.

Other than that, the ticket categorization, the Syncro ticket categorization, we’re excited to see how we might get creative using that with some automated workflows in the future. Just potentially automatically assigning certain tickets out to certain technicians based on their expertise, or automatically suggesting fixes based on how the ticket is categorized. That’s going to be big for us.

Michael Siggins: Jasper, what are your thoughts on the upcoming AI from Syncro? How is your team working with it?

Jasper Grewal: Yeah, I mean, it’s exactly like what Dan mentioned. The categorization is pretty spot-on, at least from what we’ve seen so far. It’s early days for us. But the model seems really well trained. Even when the customer sends less than helpful input, it can still kind of figure out the gist of what they’re asking for.

And I think that’s going to be kind of a twofold thing for us. So short term, the model categorizing things will, I think, aid smart search. Long term, the smart search, like Dan said, natural language, being able to say, hey, find me that ticket from so-and-so where I was working on this error message. Especially junior techs that don’t maybe have the same rapport or experience working with some of our customers, being able to find that data six months, eight months, a year down the road and be able to figure out that solution. It’s really replacing Googling and trying to find something similar on Spiceworks with, hey, here’s data from our real-world situations. Let’s use that and make that actionable.

Carl Alcott: I’m just excited to see kind of where it goes from here. I can see the potential. And so it’s just going to be really exciting to see how all this unfolds over the next 10, 20 years.

Michael Siggins: Speaking of Carl, speaking of the potential. Can you tell us about, when you look to the future, now that you’ve gotten a good taste or an early taste of the AI and the capabilities, where do you think for your own business this is going to go? How is it going to improve your business and even help your customers?

Carl Alcott: Well, I think it’ll just help us continue to be more efficient, especially as the product continues to mature and just get better. But not only that, as you begin to see integrations between products and things kind of talk to each other. It’ll be neat whenever the AI within Syncro can pull information from our documentation platform and other sources that we kind of feed into it. The more kind of data you can give it, the more helpful it potentially can be.

Michael Siggins: And how about you, Dan? As you look ahead, what trajectory do you think you’ll get on?

Dan Suzor: Just more and more. We’ve been doing a lot of automation. The more it can help us with that, the better. I love to see that we’re not having to go and find other platforms to help us with this. Syncro is bringing this into the platform we already use, and all the advantages that come along with that. We’ll just see what we get out of the box from the Syncro features that are here today and being improved on as we go, and we’ll supplement with whatever we need to solve whatever problems are at hand.

Michael Siggins: All right, Jasper. How has implementing AI resulted in any improvements in your efficiency? What processes have you seen have the most positive impact by embracing the AI?

Jasper Grewal: Yeah. I think for my techs that have been 10, 15 years in the job, AI is really more of a search engine for them. It’s a “let me validate the solution that I’ve come up with. Let me quickly rough out a PowerShell script, and then I can go in and tweak it and make it work correctly.”

I think the biggest operational efficiency gains for us are from folks that have only been here for a year or six months, or for example, Dan’s interns. Giving them the confidence to say, hey, I can take this action because it’s at least somewhat validated. We have security and controls in place to make sure they can’t do anything catastrophic, but being able to say, hey, you can go ahead and install this printer driver. It’s coming from the manufacturer, the Syncro AI has suggested the website, here’s the manufacturer’s website. It knows the printer model.

So I think the biggest efficiency gains for us are really going to be for the one-to-five-year techs and just getting them able to hit the ground running a little bit faster. Maybe somebody has really good attitude but they don’t necessarily have the experience, and you want to take a chance on them. This will enable us to kind of expand the pool we can hire from.

Dan Suzor: Yeah, I agree with all that. It’s so hard to find what you’re looking for on traditional search engines nowadays as well. Having something that can take and put all the information together and respond directly to your question, even if it does lie to us sometimes, or get it a little bit wrong. Like you said, for the newer techs especially, that don’t even necessarily know the question to ask. If it’s a new technology or a new area that they’re getting involved in, trying to figure out this new issue, what are the things that go into how this feature works, or if I want to build out this automation, what kind of technologies go into that? You can spend hours just trying to figure that out with traditional search if you don’t know the questions to ask.

Jasper Grewal: Yeah, it’s like turning our own data into usable information. We struggle with getting our techs to write knowledge base articles for specific client situations. This kind of almost eliminates the need for that, because now someone can just pop in what the problem they’re having is, they don’t need to know the solution. And they can go get the notes from a year ago when someone more experienced worked on that.

Dan Suzor: Yeah, and not everything is going to be something everybody takes the time to go put into documentation, right? So this can make Syncro the first place to look now, because you have easy access to that information from the past that wouldn’t have made it into a knowledge base article or whatever.

Carl Alcott: I definitely again just kind of second what they’re saying. I think this definitely helps with the younger guys. It just helps them find answers faster where traditional search is kind of failing, in part just because you can kind of have that conversation with it. And the tools within Syncro, like smart ticket search, anything that just kind of helps you get to the answer faster.

Michael Siggins: Dan, how do you balance using the hyper-efficient automation with maintaining personalized client relationships? Is there a temptation to let technology do most of it? How do you find that right balance?

Dan Suzor: Yeah, so we’re, again being in a different area, we kind of have that handshake deal kind of feel, kind of town. So our customers have a little bit of different expectation to how we provide service as compared to a big city. We’re not really focused on trying to push chatbots into the customer’s endpoint and get in between opening a ticket and finding their answer.

Obviously, we want to be proactive and ideally they would never have to reach out to us. But when they do, we’re not just trying to push them off to a knowledge base article or something like that. We’re not trying to automate on that front. We’re just trying to make sure that we’re as efficient as possible as technicians on the back end. Preventing, analyzing, we have regular business reviews with each of our customers to see what their perception is of our service. Take some takeaways from that. How can we improve their environment? What kind of issues are they dealing with that they think we can help with? Not just in technology, but as a business.

And just building out those things on the back end, the automations that kind of take human error out of missing things and processes, or not communicating back to a customer timely. Just making sure we do a good job on the back end versus trying to have them not get to us. We want them to feel like we’re there for them when they have issues.

Michael Siggins: Jasper, I’d love to hear your thoughts on that personal relationship. And I’m going to throw another flavor in there too. Are your customers asking about AI?

Jasper Grewal: So we don’t have anyone asking us about AI specifically. I have seen a few instances where I’ll get connected into someone’s device and they’ve got like Gemini or ChatGPT up on the side. I’ve seen a few marketing firms use it to write copy or at least rough it out.

In terms of what we think of AI, we’ve always said AI should be in support of the human element, not in spite of it. Automation, same thing. We don’t want to automate ourselves out of a job. And we’ve really built our business on the relationships. Not just the performance, the performance is there of course. But we assign a dedicated account manager, dedicated primary technician. And we do at least quarterly reviews with our clients. Not to give them a bunch of reports and things, but just to maintain that relationship. We want them to have that freedom to call us and not be afraid of, am I going to get a call center? Am I going to get something else?

So we want them to know we live and work in the community that they’re living and working in. So just to boil it down, we kind of feel like AI should be in support of the human element, not in spite of it. And same thing with automation. It should be transparent to the customer.

Dan Suzor: Are you guys suggesting and encouraging any of your customers to use AI for certain things? I find we try to just at least make sure they know about it, for coming up with templates for communication, things like that.

Jasper Grewal: We have not. We have two customers that actually want it completely blocked. They don’t want to touch it. They’re very old school. They don’t want their data getting out there, because sometimes the public-facing models get trained on your data. And then you want somebody asking a question and getting a response with something they shouldn’t know yet.

We want to make sure that we’re really well informed about it, because I’m sure this is going to be a conversation that we’re going to start having. Windows 11 is going to be a forced thing in October of next year, and then you’re going to get Copilot and things kind of shoved in front of you all the time. So we want to make sure we’re really at the front of the space in terms of knowledge. And I’m sure it’s coming.

Dan Suzor: No, we do talk about it a bit. Just let them know what the technology is about and how they might use it. Kind of giving them those caveats. Don’t put any information in there that you wouldn’t want out there. Don’t throw your contract in there and ask it to fix it. But for simple things like drafting a template for a not very specific email or something like that, get in there and experiment with it. See if there’s some ways that it can help you guys be more efficient as well, because it can do some things pretty well. Just make sure they know that whatever you put out there to the world and the internet, there’s no way to take it back.

Carl Alcott: It’s much the same. As of yet, we’ve not really had any of our customers asking us about it. It’s mostly just something kind of internal that we’ve been playing with and been able to use to kind of gain our own efficiencies.

Jasper Grewal: I was going to mention something from before that escaped me. I think one of the previous questions was around Syncro-specific AI features and how it’s helpful. One of the things that we’ve actually seen be meaningfully helpful is where the AI will actually suggest rough steps to take to fix a problem.

If you have the printer loaded into the RMM, it knows the make, model, manufacturer, and it can go out and link specifically to where to get the drivers from. Which can be a pain if you don’t know every single printer manufacturer’s steps to get to the right page to get the drivers, because HP wants you to jump through some hoops that are going to be different than Canon or Konica Minolta.

I’ve actually seen junior techs tackle printer drivers and things that normally they would be too afraid to touch.

Michael Siggins: Here’s a question on the impact of AI on process and procedural documentation, especially as it relates to managing docs from multiple clients. Do any of you want to weigh in on that?

Carl Alcott: Well, I can’t say anything about using it to manage docs for clients. But as far as our own internal documentation, it just takes some of the friction out of it. It helps you, if you’ve got a long how-to or something that you’re trying to write, it just helps you get through it faster. Which I guess when you reduce some of the friction, then you can reduce some of the hesitation sometimes for the guys to do it. Because I think that sometimes hesitation, as you’re just going through your day trying to move from problem to problem, and then you’ve got to stop and spend 30 minutes trying to write up some documentation. I think that’s where sometimes the hesitation is. And so I think when you reduce that friction, then you increase the chances that someone’s going to stop and make those notes or write that documentation out.

Dan Suzor: Yeah, similar to previous responses. Again, I’ll type a lot of things into GPT during the day just to get ideas. I’m not going to ask it to write a process and procedure for me. But I will ask it just to see if there’s some things I’m not thinking of that should go into that document. Maybe come up with an outline and then just run with it from there. To this point, I’m still not asking it to write full documents for me.

Jasper Grewal: Are you actually having it output like an attachment, like a docx or a PDF that you then go and revise? Or are you just having it spit out the text and then you’ll tweak it from there?

Dan Suzor: No, very general. I’m just kind of asking for what kind of things need to go into this process and procedure. And then building, we have our own template that we already came up with a long time ago. So we take those ideas and make sure, sometimes it spits out useful things. Sometimes it goes off on a tangent. So we take what’s useful out of it and put it into our docs. For now, anyway, it’s getting better every day, which is both exciting and scary.

Michael Siggins: What advice would you give to other MSPs looking to implement AI? Are there any lessons learned or best practices that you want to share today? Carl, start with you.

Carl Alcott: I’d say just sanitize the output. You can’t just, you have to recognize what it is. Like Jasper said earlier, AI, you’ve got to kind of question the term a little bit, the way these large language models work. It’s kind of just statistical guessing, what’s the next logical output. And so you can’t just blanket put something in there and then 100% trust what’s coming out. You just have to always kind of sanitize the output and use it as a tool to help you, not to replace you, basically.

Michael Siggins: Jasper, what’s one of your big takeaways?

Jasper Grewal: Don’t fall for the buzzword. Look at the substance. AI gets implemented in so many different ways. Look at the substance of what it’s actually doing. One product might implement it as a customer-facing chatbot. That’s completely different than another product using it to power automations. Just don’t fall for the buzzword. Actually look at what a company is doing with it, because that’s what’s going to drive meaningful change.

Dan Suzor: That’s important. There’s a lot of people capitalizing on just it being trendy, right.

Carl Alcott: Absolutely. It’s thrown into everything.

Michael Siggins: How do you measure the effectiveness of what you’re doing with AI and automation? And what are the results you’re seeing? Carl, start with you.

Carl Alcott: Well, am I actually solving problems, moving from problem to problem? Or am I just going down a rabbit hole with this tool and spending hours in it, but then I’m still working on the same problem hours later. Am I actually completing tasks and moving from task to task? And I’d say that it is absolutely helping gain efficiencies. You can just see it in the work that’s done.

Michael Siggins: Dan, anything to add to that?

Dan Suzor: Well, we don’t have any specific metrics in terms of what efficiency we’ve gained. But we are building a lot of metrics out this past year just to measure how we’re doing internally, metrics that we, some that we just review internally, some that we share with the customer. And then taking that data back to the customer in those quarterly reviews or monthly reviews, and making sure that what our perception of our quality of service is in alignment with what they’re seeing.

Michael Siggins: Jasper, anything to add?

Jasper Grewal: Yeah, I mean, we check normal ticket metrics. And we’ve seen before and after. But I’m not really looking for more tickets solved out of our team. I’m looking for the quality of the words they’re producing. Is the quality increasing? If I go back and read through their notes, are they more detailed? Do they have better steps? Is it not just, hey, I fixed this thing? Did the AI assist them in enriching the quality of the data? As opposed to just slam it out as fast as you can. We try to keep a balance load. We try not to overwork anyone.

Michael Siggins: If some of our audience today want to get their feet wet with this, how do you recommend prioritizing which operational challenges they should address first to improve efficiencies?

Jasper Grewal: I would say, if you’re using Syncro, start with enriching the data that you already collect. The quality of the data you put in is going to directly drive the quality of the data you get out of it. It’s entirely your data, just being surfaced in different, hopefully more productive ways. So start today. Make your ticket notes better. Document what you’re doing a little bit better. And when this is ready for you, you’ll get better data out of it.

Dan Suzor: Yeah, just figure out what issues you’re trying to solve. Start looking at the data and build on it. If you’re not looking at a metric, if you’re not looking at the data, then it must not be really important to the business. So you’ve got to get the data and figure out how to make it useful.

Carl Alcott: I’d say just ditto. The more you can do within the product and just kind of give it good data, then the more you’re going to get out of it.

Michael Siggins: All right, gentlemen. That looks like we covered everything. As we conclude, I want to express my gratitude for your participation today, not only our esteemed panelists, but everybody in our audience today. I want you to remember, AI is not just a tool, but it’s a strategic imperative for MSPs seeking to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

And what was really great today is that our three contributors today were from different parts of the country, different customer sets and capabilities. And yet each of them can really take advantage of what AI could do for them, and especially with Syncro’s tools.

So we want you now to put your newfound knowledge into action. We hope you learned a lot today, whether you’re just beginning or looking to optimize existing processes. Please take these insights that we’ve covered today, and I hope you can implement them into your own MSP business.

So that’s it. We’re going to wrap up. Carl, Dan, and Jasper, thank you very much for your time, and a big thank you to our audience. Great stuff, great questions and answers. We’ll be following up, so be on the lookout for some emails from the Syncro and Channel Pro team with additional information. We wish all of you a great day and your MSP continued success. Thanks for being here, everybody, and we’ll see you next time.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How does Syncro’s AI help MSP technicians resolve tickets faster?

Syncro’s AI analyzes incoming tickets and suggests troubleshooting steps based on the issue description. In this webinar, one MSP described how the AI identifies specific hardware like printers by make and model from the RMM data, then links directly to the manufacturer’s website for driver downloads. This is particularly valuable for junior technicians who may not know each manufacturer’s specific process for locating drivers. The result is fewer escalations and faster first-touch resolution on issues that would otherwise require a more experienced technician.

What is Syncro’s smart search and how does it help MSPs?

Smart search allows MSP technicians to find historical tickets using natural language rather than requiring exact keywords or ticket numbers. Instead of needing to remember the specific ticket or the right combination of search terms, a technician can describe the general problem they are looking for and smart search surfaces relevant past tickets. This is especially valuable for junior technicians who may not have the institutional knowledge to know what to search for, and it turns years of accumulated ticket data into a searchable knowledge base without anyone having to write formal documentation.

How does Syncro’s AI ticket categorization work?

Syncro’s AI automatically categorizes incoming tickets based on the issue description, even when the customer’s initial input is vague or incomplete. MSPs in this webinar reported that the categorization model was accurate even with less-than-helpful customer descriptions. The categorization data can then be used to build automated workflows, such as automatically assigning certain ticket types to specific technicians based on their expertise areas, or automatically suggesting fixes based on how a ticket is categorized.

Does Syncro’s AI replace the need for MSP technicians?

No. Every MSP in this webinar emphasized that AI should augment and enhance the human element, not replace it. They treat AI outputs as a starting point, not an ending point. None of the panelists copy AI outputs directly into tickets without review and sanitization. The primary benefit is reducing time spent on research and troubleshooting steps, which allows technicians to handle more tickets at higher quality rather than eliminating the need for human judgment and client relationships.

How can smaller MSPs with limited staff benefit from Syncro’s AI features?

Small MSPs see some of the largest gains from AI. In this webinar, a four-person MSP in rural South Dakota described how AI helps bridge the gap when you cannot find experienced talent locally. AI-assisted ticket resolution gives newer technicians the confidence to handle issues they might otherwise escalate, effectively expanding the pool of people an MSP can hire from. Smart search also reduces the need for formal documentation, since past ticket data becomes searchable and usable without someone having written a dedicated knowledge base article for every scenario.

Do MSP customers use AI tools like ChatGPT instead of calling their MSP for support?

All three MSPs reported that customer call volumes have remained steady. None have seen customers using AI tools like ChatGPT as a substitute for calling the help desk. While some customers are experimenting with AI for tasks like drafting emails or marketing copy, it has not changed support demand. Two of the three MSPs mentioned that some customers are cautious about AI, with one reporting two clients who want AI tools completely blocked due to concerns about data being used to train public models.

What advice do experienced MSPs give for implementing AI in operations?

The panelists offered three key pieces of advice. First, always sanitize AI output before using it. AI is a statistical model, not truly intelligent, and outputs should be treated as starting points that need human review. Second, do not fall for the buzzword. Evaluate what a product is actually doing with AI rather than simply whether it claims to have AI. Different implementations (customer-facing chatbots versus internal automation) produce very different results. Third, start by enriching the quality of the data you already collect. Better ticket notes and documentation today will produce better AI-powered search results and suggestions tomorrow.

How do MSPs measure whether AI is actually improving their operations?

Measurement approaches varied across the panel. One MSP focuses not on ticket volume but on the quality of technician notes, checking whether AI assistance is producing more detailed, better-documented resolutions rather than just faster closes. Another MSP is building internal metrics around service quality and sharing results with customers during quarterly business reviews. All panelists agreed that measuring AI effectiveness starts with having good baseline data, which means investing in consistent time entry and ticket documentation before expecting meaningful insights from AI-powered tools.

Webinar Hosts

Michael Siggins Founder and Publisher, Channel Pro Network

Michael Siggins is the founder and publisher of the Channel Pro Network, a media company serving the MSP and IT channel community. In this webinar, Michael moderated the panel discussion, guided questions from the audience, and provided context on AI adoption trends across the MSP industry.

Jasper Grewal
IT Operations Lead, ROI Technology

Jasper Grewal leads operations at ROI Technology, a cybersecurity-focused MSP based about an hour north of Seattle, Washington, primarily serving SMBs in and around Washington State. With approximately 18 years in IT spanning desktop support, systems administration, IT management, and DevOps, Jasper brings deep operational experience to his team. In this webinar, Jasper shared how Syncro’s AI features help junior technicians resolve issues independently, how AI-suggested troubleshooting steps (including direct links to manufacturer driver downloads) reduce escalations, and why he treats AI as a complement to the human element rather than a replacement.

Carl Alcott
IT Operations, Casey Help Desk

Carl Alcott works at Casey Help Desk, an MSP that has operated in the Kansas City metro area for approximately 20 years, specializing in churches and private schools as well as serving clients across multiple sectors. With 20 years in the industry, mostly in the K-12 education sector in roles including systems and network administration, Carl brings deep expertise in education IT environments. In this webinar, Carl described how AI improves on traditional search by enabling conversational troubleshooting, and how reducing the friction of documentation creation encourages technicians to write better internal knowledge base articles.

Dan Suzor Technician and Operations, Cyber Tech Systems

Dan Suzor works at Cyber Tech Systems, a managed services provider based in South Central South Dakota, founded in mid-2020. With four full-time employees serving a primarily rural customer base across healthcare, law, agriculture, and other industries, the company takes a location-specific rather than industry-specific approach to its service area. In this webinar, Dan shared how Syncro’s smart search and ticket categorization features will help his small team find historical ticket data faster using natural language, and how AI helps newer technicians get up to speed without requiring extensive prior experience.