Portal26’s managed intelligence platform brings together visibility into AI usage, security and governance controls, and tools that help businesses measure the value of their AI investments.
Portal26 is bringing its enterprise AI governance technology to MSPs with a new platform that helps identify how clients are using AI, manage security risks and turn AI adoption into a new source of recurring revenue.
The San Jose, Calif.-based vendor launched its Managed Intelligence Platform alongside Point2 Academy, a partner training program that helps MSPs sell, deploy and support AI management services. Together, the offerings position MSPs as trusted advisers to businesses navigating AI adoption.
“The vast, vast majority of businesses in the world are SMBs, and the AI wave has basically taken off in a way that no enterprise expected, large or small,” Portal26 CEO Arti Raman told CRN in an exclusive interview. “The need is massive, regardless of size. The question of how to bring a technology that is relatively complex, but has seen a really high adoption curve, to SMBs in a safe and secure way, has been coming to us inbound for almost a year.”
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MIP is built around three core capabilities: visibility into AI usage, security and governance controls, and value realization to help businesses measure returns on their AI investments, all within a centralized control plane.
Portal26 initially developed its platform for the enterprise market, but an increased demand from the SMB side shifted the company to rethink its go-to-market strategy, according to Joe Boggio, vice president of strategic alliances at Portal26.
“We started seeing hundreds of inbound opportunities, and it just broke our model. We can’t do a direct-selling model in that nature,” Boggio told CRN. “We had to rethink how we price, how we design our product so that you can have the multitenancy and the different architectural attributes needed for MSPs to do what they do efficiently at scale.”
The Point2 Academy will cover platform deployment, client support, sales positioning and service delivery, giving MSPs a framework for packaging AI governance into their existing offerings.
For Jack Wilson, CEO of Worcester, Mass.-based Cinch IT, Portal26 addresses how businesses are racing to adopt AI while many MSPs remain cautious about fully securing and supporting it.
“I want to build something foundational that will lead us to be a trusted adviser to our customers well into the future,” Wilson told CRN.
He added that he expects AI observability to become a baseline component of managed services. From there, MSPs can use that data to identify risks, establish policies and recommend AI projects that improve productivity.
“We need to be able to build security and ROI simultaneously,” he said. “We get the data, we say, ‘OK, here’s what you’re doing today, here’s what’s possible, and here’s what it would mean for your business. Let’s secure it. Let’s govern it. Let’s create the policies and then let’s put our projects team on succeeding and transforming your organization.’”
Boggio said MIP can surface AI usage patterns within seconds or minutes of deployment, depending on the amount of available data. One capability lets MSPs query their AI usage data using natural language and generate assessments, including reports identifying potential risks and mitigation steps.
He also expects demand to shift toward AI spending. As organizations deploy more tools and AI agents, the vendor is developing capabilities to help customers understand costs, allocate spending across initiatives and evaluate returns. For MSPs, the longer-term goal is to establish a new advisory relationship with clients.
“We are an evidence-based platform that is designed and optimized for MSPs and enterprises that will allow you to very quickly, very gracefully transition how you approach that marketplace,” Boggio said.
