“People don’t buy an iPhone because they need the color, though I did buy the Taylor Swift orange before my wife stole it,” jokes ConnectWise Chief Technology and Chief Product Officer David Raissipour. “They buy it because the platform keeps moving forward. You don’t ask when the ‘last iPhone’ will ship. Platforms evolve. Asio will too.”
ConnectWise partners will feel the impact of the Asio platform within weeks, not years.
That’s the message conveyed by Chief Technology and Chief Product Officer David Raissipour to MSPs at the Tampa, Fla.-based vendor’s IT Nation conference in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month. The last 12 months, he said, have been a “transformative year” and partners will now be seeing the effects of that hard work within its flagship Asio platform.
“Data is the oxygen for AI,” he said. “But the only way that data becomes useful is if you build the right platform to support it. Asio isn’t a single product. It’s the infrastructure that powers everything else. When partners ask, ‘When is Asio shipping?’ Well, it already did. It shipped when the first application started using it. But it’s not done because platforms are never done.”
To illustrate his point, he compared Asio to Apple’s iOS.
“People don’t buy an iPhone because they need the color, though I did buy the Taylor Swift orange before my wife stole it,” he joked. “They buy it because the platform keeps moving forward. You don’t ask when the ‘last iPhone’ will ship. Platforms evolve. Asio will too.”
He said ConnectWise could have chosen the easier route but instead chose the harder, necessary, path.
“We could have duct-taped products together and slapped a shiny name on it. But all the agentic AI we’re about to show you? It wouldn’t work without the foundation we built,” he said.
During the conference, the vendor unveiled multiple upgrades to its cybersecurity and data protection capabilities within the Asio platform, positioning MSPs to operate in what the executive called the “age of autonomous service.” The enhancements are designed to help MSPs combat AI-driven threats, simplify fragmented toolsets, and improve business continuity across both modern and legacy environments.
Key updates included an expanded security information and event management (SIEM) ecosystem with new integrations for Microsoft 365, SentinelOne, Cisco Meraki and Umbrella, Duo and Syslog Router; agentic managed detection and response (MDR) with RPA-powered security actions for instant containment of suspicious M365 activity, slated for full release in the first quarter of 2026; unified security and backup dashboards that consolidate visibility across more than 20 security and backup vendors; extended business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) coverage; and expanded Microsoft protection with Entra ID backup now included in ConnectWise cloud backup.
“Everything we show you is real and within 90 days of general availability,” Raissipour said. “No more PowerPoint vaporware. No more surprises. And if something moves, we’ll tell you why.”
He added that PSA modernization remains the most-asked-about topic, and ConnectWise addressed it head on. After moving hundreds of pages and widgets into Asio, the team realized deeper architectural work was needed.
“If we left PSA’s old authorization model the way it was, we could’ve shipped faster, but it wouldn’t work across the platform,” he said. “You deserve better than that.”
Now the company is rebuilding key elements like permissions, custom views, layout controls and unified billing with a more modern, flexible foundation. And a public updates page, with names, dates and owners, will be updated every few weeks. “If we miss something, we’ll explain why. No hiding the ball.”
Its RMM tool, meanwhile, has been “almost entirely rebuilt” over the last year after the ConnectWise team acknowledged it wasn’t where it needed to be in 2023 or early 2024. The new version includes updated agents, patching, monitoring and more than 1,200 out-of-the-box alerts.
Peter Melby , CEO of Denver-based New Charter Technologies, told CRN that it’s “no secret” ConnectWise got stuck with the messaging and expectations around Asio.
“It’s good to hear the team reset the view of how this is valuable for MSPs,” said Melby. “I believe that MSPs need to own their own future. A modern platform that supports multiple futures is necessary. Asio might be late but with strong execution; the timing could be right.”
