COMMENTARY: As organizations' workforces increasingly integrate generative AI (GenAI) into their day-to-day experiences, managing its use across both public and private models is becoming increasingly challenging to maintain security, compliance, and operational integrity. Security teams that have taken action to define an acceptable use policy and then block and limit access have just further accelerated the use of Shadow AI (knowledge workers will always find a way). That is why offering effective GenAI governance is an entirely new relevance and revenue opportunity, especially for managed services providers (MSPs) and managed security service providers (MSSPs).
Discovering and Governing GenAI Use
MSPs in this space are all being asked if they can help ensure that GenAI systems are used responsibly and safely across diverse environments. To do that, some key aspects of governance need to be addressed. First and foremost, organizations need the ability to discover what GenAI services are being used, identify intents and topics (use cases), and take the appropriate actions to derisk things like data leakage, compliance violations, and inappropriate or risky content that the user or the model could generate.
Aligning GenAI Policies to Business Value and Risk
Another key aspect of GenAI governance is the ability to develop policies that consider risk but that also considers the user experience and value. By mapping group-level policies that are aligned with business value and risk, organizations can ensure that the use of GenAI is aligned with their strategic objectives and provides tangible value within the established security framework. For example, redirecting from a high-risk public GPT that is unmoderated and trains using your user data to a trusted enterprise GPT.
Managing GenAI's Impact on Enterprise Data
What about our data? Most organizations are trying to figure out how to let GenAI interact with enterprise data sources like file stores, enterprise data warehouses (EDWs), customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in ways that do not create additional risks for data leakage, compliance violations, etc. Private GenAI models are arguably more secure as they are deployed within the organization's environment, but assigning data governance is an entirely new challenge. Most organizations want to align user groups to specific data sets that are relevant to them.
The MSP Advantage in GenAI Governance
These and other considerations are exactly why GenAI presents a massive revenue opportunity for MSPs and MSSPs. To unlock this new opportunity, MSPs should consider augmenting their existing capabilities with robust solutions that can integrate quickly and seamlessly with existing security and network tools, such as secure access service edge (SASE), zero-trust, mobile device management (MDM), cloud access security Brokers (CASBs). This type of integration will enable them to immediately provide value to their customers as well as the ability to create additional sticky services like ongoing GenAI risk assessments and analytics, use case policy management, private model management, data source integration, and other differentiated services that all have a security wrapper.
The MSP's Role in Shaping GenAI Adoption
Looking toward the future, MSPs and MSSPs have the potential to significantly influence the definitions for GenAI adoption best practices, policy creation, and overall security frameworks across all of the industries and customers that they work with. They can change the organizational sentiment on GenAI from "fear of the unknown" to "responsible empowerment." That will directly impact their customer's productivity gains and business-critical initiatives by driving workforce adoption of GenAI in safe and meaningful ways. That will translate to new revenue gains and relevance for MSPs and MSSPs.
Driving Innovation and Competitive Advantage
Moreover, MSPs and MSSPs that establish themselves as leaders in GenAI governance can gain a significant competitive advantage in the market. By offering differentiated, value-added services that address this emerging challenge, they can position themselves as indispensable partners and thought leaders to their clients. This will translate to significant new revenue gains and relevance as they become trusted advisors and providers of comprehensive GenAI governance solutions. This new market opportunity will also drive significant value for the overall partner ecosystem as more and more GenAI services become available and more organizations deploy private models that will drive professional and managed services, software subscriptions, and consumptive revenue on leading cloud platforms.
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