Managed Intelligence Providers are the next phase in AI evolution: Here's what SMBs need to know

Human Employees Evolve into Supervisors

by · TechRadar

Opinion By Nick Heddy published 29 April 2026

Discover how SMBs are leveraging autonomous agents and strategic partnerships to outpace larger competitors. (Image credit: Getty Images)

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AI transformation is moving at breakneck speed, but not only across larger enterprises with unlimited tech budgets.

Organizations of every size are now layering agentic intelligence on top of their SaaS tools and embracing the emerging agentic economy, where workplace tools and systems can operate autonomously to achieve business outcomes.

This transformation has definitely arrived – 62% of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) recently reported that they’re using AI tools, with another 67% reporting they plan to increase budget for AI over the coming year.

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Nick Heddy

President and Chief Commerce Officer, Pax8.

SMBs of the past bought tools like CRMs, email suites, collaboration tools and accounting platforms to operate effectively – requiring constant human input to juggle these solutions, their outputs, and glean useful insights.

Fortune 500 organizations, conversely, have historically had more manpower and resources to devote to managing and funding these offerings (consequently contributing to their ability to power growth more quickly).

67% of SMBs also believe that AI will be required to help compete with larger enterprises. We’re now crossing into a new inflection point of AI-powered enablement, where the playing field is more even for SMBs to compete and grow – the agentic economy.

In this new landscape, SMBs are shifting from buying tools to buying outcomes. They’re deploying autonomous AI agents that act as a digital workforce, allowing them to achieve enterprise-scale outcomes.

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