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Business of Tech: Daily MSP News & IT Services Analysis

AI liability: Leadership pressure and unclear ROI drive risk for MSPs — Tiffani Bova, Futurum Group

32 min

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This episode outlines a structural shift whereby accountability for AI results is increasingly being transferred from customer leadership to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and IT service providers. This transfer is being accelerated by internal pressure on client organizations to report AI success while reliable performance metrics remain elusive. Evidence from Futurum Group’s “The New AI Workforce” report and actions by vendors such as Dell and Accenture demonstrate how responsibility and reporting for AI are consolidating under technical teams, often with insufficient checks and unclear governance boundaries. Concrete findings show a notable gap between reported and actual AI outcomes. Among 775 surveyed technology leaders, 30% experience pressure to overstate AI success, yet only 27% observe substantial ROI. Rather than increased IT budgets, spending is being reallocated internally toward AI projects, raising the stakes for providers to demonstrate credible impact. Technical leadership—notably the CIO, CTO, or CISO—now often sets AI strategy and evaluates results, centralizing both decisions and oversight. Supportive details include a growing operational reliance on, rather

AI liability: Leadership pressure and unclear ROI drive risk for MSPs — Tiffani Bova, Futurum Group — Business of Tech: Daily MSP News & IT Services Analysis