From AI coworkers and the next wave of recurring revenue to four exclusive Joey Pinz Podcast conversations and leadership lessons from football legend Peter Schmeichel, Pax8 Beyond EMEA 2026 delivered plenty for MSP owners to think about—and even more to act on.
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — October 20, 2026
There are conferences you attend, take a few notes, collect some swag, and return home to business as usual.
And then there are events that make you wonder whether your entire industry is about to change.
Pax8 Beyond EMEA 2026 in Copenhagen felt like the latter.
More than 1,100 MSPs gathered here, with attendees representing 46 countries, to explore what could be the next major transformation in managed services.
The conversations weren’t just about selling more Microsoft licenses, adding another cybersecurity tool, or improving operational efficiency.
They were about something much bigger.
What happens when the businesses we support begin employing AI agents alongside their human employees? Who manages those agents? Who secures them? Who controls their costs? And, perhaps most importantly, who helps those businesses turn AI into measurable results?
Pax8 has a name for the opportunity: Managed Intelligence.
And based on what I heard in Copenhagen, this isn’t a conversation MSP owners should put off until 2027.
I also had the opportunity to record four episodes of the Joey Pinz Podcast with leaders from Kaseya, Pax8, and Proofpoint/Hornetsecurity, bringing additional perspectives into the conversations taking place at Beyond.
And on a personal note, I got to hear one of my longtime heroes, legendary Manchester United and Denmark goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, discuss what it takes to build a championship mindset.
That alone made the trip special.
But the real value of Copenhagen was connecting those leadership lessons with the changes taking place across our industry.
Here are eight things every MSP owner needs to know.
1. Four Conversations From Copenhagen Every MSP Owner Should Have on Their Radar
One of the reasons I value industry events is the opportunity to sit down with people who are helping shape the channel.
At Pax8 Beyond EMEA, I recorded four conversations for the Joey Pinz Podcast, each addressing a different part of the MSP industry’s future.
Episode #973: Hans ten Hove — Kaseya
Why MSPs Must Stop Selling Technology
Hans ten Hove, Vice President of Continental Europe and EMEA at Kaseya, joined me for a discussion framed around one of the most important challenges facing MSP owners.
Are we selling technology, or are we selling business value?
It’s a question that becomes even more important as AI changes what customers expect from their service providers.
Traditional MSP conversations frequently revolve around products, platforms, licenses, and technical capabilities.
But customers ultimately care about their own businesses.
They want greater productivity, reduced risk, predictable costs, and measurable improvements.
The title of this conversation reflects a challenge every MSP owner should consider: Are you leading with your technology stack or with the outcomes your customers want?
Episode #974: Phylip Morgan — Pax8
The MSP Is Dead? Why Managed Intelligence Is the Future
Phylip Morgan, Senior Vice President of Marketplace and Channel Expansion at Pax8, joined me for a conversation directly aligned with one of Beyond’s central themes.
Is the traditional MSP business model reaching another major turning point?
The provocative question isn’t necessarily whether managed services is disappearing.
It’s whether the expectations placed on MSPs are evolving so quickly that the businesses operating under that label will need to transform.
Pax8 is investing heavily in the concept of Managed Intelligence Providers, and this conversation puts that industry shift front and center.
For MSP owners, the question is less about whether to adopt another acronym and more about whether their services, skills, and customer conversations are evolving with the market.
Episode #975: Adrien Gendre — Proofpoint / Hornetsecurity
The AI Security Threat MSPs Are Missing
Adrien Gendre, Chief Product Officer at Proofpoint/Hornetsecurity, joined me for a conversation focused on a critical component of the AI transformation: cybersecurity.
As organizations introduce AI tools and autonomous agents, their security requirements become more complex.
AI workers may need access to email, calendars, business applications, sensitive information, and internal processes.
That creates questions about identity, permissions, governance, data protection, and accountability.
MSPs already play a central role in protecting their customers.
The emerging challenge is determining how those responsibilities expand when software begins performing tasks rather than simply supporting employees.
Episode #976: Lane Brannan — Pax8
The AI Revolution, Pax8’s 8OS & the Discipline of Leadership
Lane Brannan, Executive Vice President and General Manager for the Americas at Pax8, joined me for a conversation centered on AI transformation, 8OS, and leadership.
Those subjects belong together.
Technology may create an opportunity, but leadership determines whether an organization can execute on it.
For MSP owners, that means making decisions about investment, talent, services, customer strategy, and how quickly to introduce change.
The discussion also connects directly with Pax8’s vision for managing AI agents at scale.
The MSP takeaway: Don’t view the conversations happening in Copenhagen as isolated vendor announcements.
The future of the channel involves business value, managed intelligence, cybersecurity, and leadership working together.
These four Joey Pinz Podcast episodes provide additional perspectives on those themes.
And for MSP owners who couldn’t make the trip, they’re another way to connect with the conversations happening across the industry.
2. The MSP-to-MIP Transformation Is Happening Faster Than Many Owners Realize
One of the strongest messages from Pax8 CEO Scott Chasin’s keynote was that the managed services industry is approaching a transformation comparable to the original shift from technology reselling to managed services.
Think about what that earlier transition required.
MSPs had to rethink how they charged customers, structured agreements, delivered services, hired employees, and demonstrated value.
Now the industry is facing another potential turning point.
Pax8 believes MSPs have an opportunity to become Managed Intelligence Providers, or MIPs.
Instead of simply managing customer technology environments, these providers would help businesses deploy, manage, secure, and optimize intelligent systems.
That includes AI coworkers and agents performing actual business tasks.
And this isn’t all theoretical.
During the keynote, Dutch MSP Uniprox shared how it returned from Beyond Amsterdam and committed to establishing a dedicated AI business unit.
The company moved existing talent into new responsibilities, began developing AI capabilities, and continued operating its traditional managed services business alongside the new initiative.
That example stood out.
The company didn’t need to abandon its existing business or build an entirely separate brand.
It began transforming from within.
For MSP owners who are still evaluating whether AI deserves dedicated resources, that’s worth considering.
The MSP takeaway: You don’t necessarily need to reinvent your entire company tomorrow.
But somebody on your team should own your managed intelligence strategy today.
Because while some MSPs are still discussing whether AI is an opportunity, others have already started building businesses around it.
3. Pax8’s 8Bot and 8OS Could Give MSPs a New Way to Deliver Managed AI
Two major announcements in Copenhagen deserve the attention of every MSP owner: 8Bot and 8OS.
They’re different products, but they support the same larger strategy.
Making managed intelligence practical and repeatable for the channel.
8Bot is Pax8’s AI coworker, designed to help individual employees with everyday work.
It can connect to approved business tools, assist with tasks such as preparing for meetings, maintain context, and support recurring activities.
Pax8 positioned it as a packaged offering that MSPs can deploy and manage without creating a custom development project for every customer.
That’s significant.
One of the biggest barriers to offering AI services is the time and expertise required to build individualized solutions.
If an MSP can introduce an AI coworker through a repeatable service model, the economics could become more attractive.
8OS addresses the management side.
As customers begin using multiple agents, models, and AI applications, someone needs to maintain visibility and control over that growing environment.
Pax8 described 8OS as an agentic workforce operating system designed to help partners deploy agents, establish policies, manage permissions, track usage, and control costs across customers.
It is also intended to support a diverse collection of AI technologies rather than force every customer onto a single model.
There are still practical questions partners need answered, including pricing, margins, availability, integration depth, data sovereignty, and support responsibilities.
Pax8 discussed early-access capabilities and future regional support during its media briefing, so MSPs should distinguish what is available immediately from what remains on the roadmap.
But the overall direction is important.
AI management is beginning to look less like an experimental consulting project and more like a potential recurring service category.
The MSP takeaway: Start evaluating how AI coworkers and agent management could fit into your existing service portfolio.
The opportunity isn’t necessarily to build every AI capability yourself.
It may be to become the trusted provider who makes those capabilities work safely and reliably for customers.
4. Your Next Recurring Revenue Stream Might Come From Managing AI Workers
For years, MSPs have built recurring revenue around familiar units.
Users. Endpoints. Servers. Applications. Security services. Cloud infrastructure.
Now imagine a customer with 25 employees and, eventually, dozens or even hundreds of AI agents operating across the business.
Those agents might handle scheduling, reporting, customer support, document processing, financial reconciliation, and operational workflows.
Each one creates management requirements.
Who owns it? What information can it access? What decisions can it make? How much does it cost? How is performance monitored? What happens when it fails or produces an incorrect result?
These questions open the door to services that could extend beyond traditional IT management.
Potential offerings include AI governance, agent administration, workflow optimization, security monitoring, cost management, and ongoing business process improvement.
One of the interesting points in Pax8’s media briefing involved the economics of AI itself.
AI costs aren’t always as predictable as a monthly software subscription.
There may be charges based on model usage, compute resources, tool execution, APIs, or other consumption.
That makes financial visibility and cost controls important.
And where businesses need ongoing management, MSPs may find opportunities for recurring revenue.
Of course, opportunity doesn’t automatically equal profit.
MSPs will still need to understand their operating costs, contractual responsibilities, margins, and the actual value customers receive.
The MSP takeaway: Start designing what a managed intelligence service agreement could look like.
Consider what you’ll manage, how you’ll price it, how you’ll measure customer outcomes, and what responsibilities your team will accept.
The recurring revenue models of 2027 may extend well beyond what many MSPs are billing for today.
5. Peter Schmeichel’s Championship Mindset Might Have Been One of Copenhagen’s Most Valuable Leadership Lessons
Peter Schmeichel speaking at Pax8 Beyond EMEA 2026 in Copenhagen>
I’m going to make this one personal.
Peter Schmeichel has been one of my heroes for years.
As a legendary goalkeeper for Manchester United and Denmark, he’s someone I have admired for his accomplishments, competitive spirit, and leadership.
So having the opportunity to hear him speak in Copenhagen was a highlight of the event for me.
But what made his keynote particularly relevant wasn’t the trophies.
It was his perspective on what creates winning teams.
Schmeichel discussed his experiences playing under Sir Alex Ferguson and the importance of clear expectations, preparation, trust, and accountability.
One of the most important lessons was how Ferguson developed confidence in his players.
He studied their abilities, understood their personalities, established expectations, and trusted them to execute.
That trust created room for players to make decisions under pressure.
Schmeichel also talked about something every business owner can relate to.
Mistakes.
As a goalkeeper, one mistake can change an entire match.
But his philosophy was that the mistake itself wasn’t the defining moment.
What mattered was the response immediately afterward.
He also emphasized that accountability belonged to the team, not simply the individual who made the visible error.
Think about that in the context of running an MSP.
We’re entering a period where our teams will need to learn new technologies, experiment with new services, and make decisions without having all the answers.
Not every AI project will work.
Not every new service offering will be profitable.
Not every process transformation will go smoothly.
And some decisions will need to be corrected.
Strong leadership won’t eliminate those challenges.
It will determine how teams respond to them.
Schmeichel also described Ferguson as someone willing to take calculated risks because he knew his players and trusted their preparation.
That’s another powerful lesson for MSP owners.
There is a difference between recklessly chasing every new technology and making informed investments in your company’s future.
Winning teams understand the difference.
The MSP takeaway: Technology doesn’t create a championship culture.
Leadership does.
As MSPs move toward managed intelligence, their success will depend not only on the tools they deploy, but also on their ability to develop people, establish expectations, take calculated risks, and recover from setbacks.
For me, hearing that message from Peter Schmeichel made it one of the most memorable moments of Copenhagen.
6. The Managed Intelligence Alliance Could Help Define the Next Generation of MSP Standards
Another important development was the Managed Intelligence Alliance.
Pax8 has supported the formation of this initiative alongside GTIA, with the goal of establishing standards and accreditation for the emerging managed intelligence industry.
The alliance is intended to bring vendors and channel partners together to define responsible practices for delivering managed AI services.
Founding participants announced in Copenhagen included Microsoft, CrowdStrike, NinjaOne, and several established MSP organizations.
Why should an independent MSP owner care?
Because managing autonomous AI systems involves responsibilities that are still being defined.
Customers will need to trust that their providers understand security, governance, accountability, and operational risk.
And eventually, they may begin asking how providers demonstrate those capabilities.
We have already seen similar developments in cybersecurity, where frameworks, standards, and certifications influence customer expectations.
The Managed Intelligence Alliance is an early attempt to bring greater structure to this new service category.
It remains to be seen how broadly its standards will be adopted or which accreditations will emerge.
But MSPs have an opportunity to participate in the discussion while the framework is still being developed.
The MSP takeaway: Don’t wait until managed intelligence standards become a customer requirement before paying attention.
Learn what the alliance is doing, follow its development, and consider how your business can contribute.
The MSPs helping shape the future may have an advantage over those who only react after the rules are established.
7. Before You Sell AI Transformation, Fix These Three Problems Inside Your Own MSP
One of the most practical sessions in Copenhagen came from Pax8 President and Chief Commerce Officer Nick Heddy.
He challenged MSP owners to examine three types of legacy debt.
Culture debt. The outdated habits, assumptions, and attitudes that prevent organizations from changing.
Process debt. Inefficient workflows and manual activities that accumulate because nobody has had time to redesign them.
Technology debt. Tools and systems that have grown more complicated without necessarily delivering more value.
Every established MSP probably recognizes some version of these challenges.
Perhaps your onboarding process requires too many manual steps.
Maybe your billing team spends hours reconciling information between platforms.
Perhaps engineers repeat tasks that could be automated.
Or maybe your team has accumulated so many tools that employees struggle to understand which platform should do what.
The temptation is to throw AI at these problems.
But Heddy’s message was that adding technology before addressing the underlying problems can simply accelerate the chaos.
His recommended sequence was straightforward.
Standardize first. Automate second. Scale third.
That principle applies both to your MSP and to the customers you serve.
Pax8 also emphasized the idea of becoming your own first AI transformation customer while simultaneously developing offerings for clients.
Rather than waiting until your internal operations are perfect, begin learning through practical implementation.
Find one process.
Understand it.
Improve it.
Automate the appropriate elements.
Measure the impact.
Then apply what you’ve learned elsewhere.
The MSP takeaway: Before selling customers an AI transformation strategy, start demonstrating one inside your own business.
The results may improve your operations and provide the credibility needed for more meaningful customer conversations.
Your own experience could become one of your strongest competitive differentiators.
8. The Biggest Advantage in Copenhagen Wasn’t a Product Announcement. It Was Being in the Room.
After the keynotes, the announcements, the interviews, and the conversations, I keep coming back to something simple.
There’s tremendous value in being around other people who are trying to build better businesses.
Pax8 Beyond EMEA has grown substantially since its first European event in Berlin.
Now, with more than 1,100 MSPs gathering in Copenhagen, the community includes business owners and technology leaders at different stages of their journey.
Some are just beginning to explore AI.
Others are building dedicated practices.
Some are experimenting with agents internally.
Others are working to develop services their customers will pay for.
That diversity creates valuable conversations.
And sometimes the most important lesson doesn’t come from the keynote stage.
It comes from talking with another MSP owner who has already encountered the same problem you’re facing.
I saw that value in my podcast conversations, in the broader industry discussions, and in the messages delivered throughout the event.
Copenhagen wasn’t simply about learning what Pax8 plans to build.
It was about understanding how the channel itself might change.
And the companies represented here now have decisions to make.
Will they invest in new skills?
Will they rethink their customer relationships?
Will they develop managed intelligence offerings?
Will they prepare their people for a business model that could look very different in the coming years?
Or will they return home, get buried in their everyday responsibilities, and revisit those questions six months from now?
That’s where the real FOMO comes in.
The danger isn’t necessarily missing a conference.
It’s missing the opportunity to act on what the conference revealed.
The MSP takeaway: Make relationships, education, and industry engagement part of your growth strategy.
The knowledge and partnerships you develop today could help determine how successfully your business navigates the next stage of the managed services industry.
The Bottom Line: Will You Be Ready for 2027?
As Pax8 Beyond EMEA 2026 comes to a close, there is no shortage of announcements to discuss.
8Bot. 8OS. Managed intelligence. AI coworkers. Emerging industry standards. New opportunities for recurring revenue.
Those developments matter.
But what I found most interesting about Copenhagen was the bigger picture.
The technology channel appears to be approaching another transformation.
And, much like the shift from reselling technology to delivering managed services, this one could require MSP owners to rethink how they operate, how they sell, how they hire, and how they demonstrate value.
Not every prediction from the stage will become reality.
Not every AI product will succeed.
And not every MSP needs to transform into exactly the same kind of business.
But the underlying customer need is becoming harder to ignore.
Businesses are experimenting with AI, adopting new tools, and looking for ways to improve productivity.
As those systems become more autonomous, they’ll need governance, security, management, and human accountability.
MSPs have an opportunity to provide those capabilities.
The question is whether they will develop the skills and business models needed to do so.
And that brings me back to Peter Schmeichel.
Championship teams don’t become champions simply because they have talented players.
They succeed because of preparation, trust, leadership, resilience, and a willingness to adapt when circumstances change.
I think there’s a powerful lesson there for every MSP owner.
You can’t control every change coming to our industry. But you can control how you prepare your team to compete.
More than 1,100 MSPs gathered in Copenhagen to explore what comes next.
Many will head home with new ideas, relationships, and ambitions.
Some will turn those ideas into action.
Others will wait.
And by the time 2027 arrives, those decisions may have created meaningful differences between competitors.
For every MSP owner, the question is no longer simply whether AI will influence the managed services industry.
It’s whether your business will be ready to lead as that change unfolds.
Will you be building the next generation of managed services—or trying to catch up with the MSPs who already started?
Listen to the Joey Pinz Podcast: Copenhagen Conversations
Four conversations recorded at Pax8 Beyond EMEA 2026:
Episode #973: Hans ten Hove, Kaseya — Why MSPs Must Stop Selling Technology
Episode #974: Phylip Morgan, Pax8 — The MSP Is Dead? Why Managed Intelligence Is the Future
Episode #975: Adrien Gendre, Proofpoint/Hornetsecurity — The AI Security Threat MSPs Are Missing
Episode #976: Lane Brannan, Pax8 — The AI Revolution, Pax8’s 8OS & the Discipline of Leadership
*Episode listening links to be added upon publication.
MSPI reporting from Copenhagen, Denmark. Based on firsthand event coverage, the Pax8 Beyond EMEA 2026 keynote, executive media briefing, Peter Schmeichel’s championship mindset presentation, and four Joey Pinz Podcast interviews.
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