DXC Technology has added an orchestration framework to its managed services portfolio through which it will manage IT operations tasks assigned to artificial intelligence (AI) agents.

The DXC OASIS orchestration platform enables the managed service provider to align actions, decisions, and outcomes across the enterprise in real time, with every action traced and insight explainable, says Dan Gray, vice president and CTO for global infrastructure services at DXC Technology.

That approach, instead of replacing existing tools, makes it possible for the DXC OASIS platform to integrate with a wide variety of IT tools and agents to provide a single, real-time view of an IT environment to surface patterns, forecast risks, and recommend actions before issues impact the organization, notes Gray.

The goal, however, is not to replace humans but rather to provide a framework through which IT teams and service providers can manage AI agents, he adds.

In general, the relationship between organizations and their IT services providers is about to further evolve in the age of AI. Many MSPs have been trying to restructure contracts based on outcomes such as the amount of uptime that is maintained for a mission-critical application. In theory, that approach better aligns the service provider with the strategic interests of the organization it supports.

However, there are still plenty of organizations that prefer to consume IT services based on the number of users or devices that are supported. Those contracts typically make it simpler for finance teams to better predict costs on a monthly basis. The downside is they don’t provide any incentive for the IT service provider to prioritize specific outcomes at a time when more organizations than ever are dependent on IT to drive revenue.

Regardless of approach, there is little doubt that AI agents will be driving down the cost of delivering many classes of IT services. In some instances, organizations may even decide to replace some of the services they consume with AI agents that can perform those tasks at a lower cost. In other instances, an IT service provider will leverage its own AI agents to continue to provide an IT service at lower cost. One way or another, the cost of providing, for example, Level 1 support services is going to exponentially decrease in the months ahead.

At the same time, MSPs such as DXC Technology plan to provide more value by providing the orchestration platform and services that fill an expertise gap that is rapidly emerging as organizations deploy AI agents to automate workflows. In effect, services are evolving into software platforms that IT service providers are managing on behalf of clients at a time when the management of IT is evolving, says Gray. “AI agents add complexity,” he says.

Each organization will need to determine to what degree to continue to rely on IT services providers, but the one thing that is clear is that as manual processes become more automated the relationship with those providers is about to fundamentally change.